ABSTRACT
Since the establishment of the Republic in 1923, the role of religion in Turkish society and politics has been one of the most contested and conflictual issues. The roots of this conflict go back to mid-nineteenth-century Ottoman reforms that targeted the old institutions of the empire and refashioned some of them on the Western model. This reform effort led to bitter controversy between the “Islamists” who saw Ottoman secularization as the reason for the empire’s decline and the “Westerners” for whom change toward Western modernity was the only solution. This debate ended with the establishment of the Republic, which signaled a victory for the Westerners. However, the tension between religion and secularism continued to dominate Turkey’s politics. The reforms of the early Republican years targeted Ottoman/Islamic culture and institutions. For the Islamist circles, this meant a defeat of their way of life. For the Republican cadres, religion and its societal actors came to be synonymous with “counterrevolution.” Thus, two opposing groups and two opposing worldviews would henceforth confront each other.
