ABSTRACT
The importance of experience in Turkey has become even more significant with the decisive victory of the Islamic-leaning Adalet ve Kalknma Partisi (AKP) Justice and Development Party in the 2002 and 2007 general elections. In Turkey, Islam sits at the background of the secular regime established by Mustafa Kemal in 1923. The level of formal politics in Turkey has shown deep divisions between Islamic and secular groups. Ashgar Khan is a Pakistani veteran aviation historian; he speaks even more confidently about the division of religious and political affairs in Islam. He asserts that, in an Islamic setting, the state cannot even be termed Islamic, precisely because the Qur'an contains no reference to an Islamic state with a particular kind of structure or ideology. The Qur'an, Turkish Islamic scholars argue, does not make explicit reference to any kind of governing structure or style, yet it asserts certain norms to reflect the will of people in political and administrative affairs.
