| Summary/Abstract |
This article discusses the paradoxical relationship of Kemalist state power and traditional Muslim theologians at the beginning of the Turkish Republic. By analyzing the history of a now-commonly accepted argument for change with the Shari‘a, this article proposes that the anxious relationship between state Kemalism and Muslim modernist theologians helped to lay the foundations of mainstream Muslim praxis in modern Turkey. I argue that the supposed conflict between “religious” and “secular(ist)” ideas in Turkey may be better described as a debate over the definition of secularity itself. A concept of the secular is implied in both Kemalist political secularism and Islamic modernism, and these two interact in ways that contribute to each other’s formation. This article will also bring contemporary theorizing on the nature of the “secular” to bear on this question in order to open up new possibilities for the study of Islam in contemporary Turkey.
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