ABSTRACT
Ibn Khaldun saw history as a cyclical process in which hardy pastoral-ists and nomads invaded and occupied decadent sedentary cultures. The Ottomans under Beyazid I controlled most of what is now the Turkish republic, minus Constantinople, plus parts of the Balkans. The Ottoman Sultanate would endure until 1923-24 and remained a formidable military power to the very end before the rebirth of the Turkish heartland as a nation-state under Mustafa Kemal. Mustafa Kemal's concept of Turkish nationalism was incorporated into the Constitution in 1937 and consisted of the six principles of republicanism, nationalism, populism, statism, secularism, and revolution. Democracy has encountered great difficulty adjusting to the social and political environment of Turkey. For women Turkish nationalism and the introduction of the Civil Code, has meant an end to legal inequality, civil marriages by consent, equal rights to divorce, the right to legal guardianship, equal inheritance, and equal remuneration for equal work.
