ABSTRACT
General Gursel and his associates in both the Revolutionary Government and the subsequent coalition Government have laid considerable stress on their determination to deal with the reform of worship while leaving the fundamentals of religion untouched. The religion proclaimed by Muhammad is to be purged of later accretions—according to the reformers. Closely connected with the religious reforms are the plans to improve the educational system. The main aim has always been to eliminate illiteracy: even now almost two-thirds of the Turkish population can neither read nor write. The country people are to be given not only schools but also medical care; but so far this has not gone well. Gursel himself, speaking to doctors, said that 40,000 communities with eighteen million inhabitants had no medical care at all.
