Browsing by Author "Duran, Burhanettin"
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item Open Access Kenan Evren's and Turgut Özal's conceptualizations of secularism : a comparative perspective(Bilkent University, 1994) Duran, BurhanettinPresent study aims to analyze in a comparaiive perspective. Kenan Evren's and Turgut Özal's conceptualizations of secularism. beaı-ing in mind the nature of secularism and the role of religion in the Turkish polity have changed significantly in the 1 980s and the early 1990s. For Evren, secularism is not only a guarantee of the religious freedam and conscience but also it protects Turkish national unity. But Özal puts an emphasis on the freedam side of secularism and on the protection of the rights of pious Muslims. As a paraBel development to the saftening of the Kemalist secularism in the !980s, Isiarn seems to have a function of civil religion for both Evren and Özal but with the difference that while the former emphasizes the moral side of Islam, the latter considers Islam as a ci\ril societal mntter and tries to harmanize religious values with democratic political Yalues. The study is also intended to show the influence of Ziya Gökalp's system of thought to both Evren's and Özal's conceptualization of secularism.Item Open Access Transformation of Islamist political thought in Turkey from the empire to the early republic (1980-1960) : Necip Fazıl Kısakürek's political ideas(Bilkent University, 2001) Duran, BurhanettinThis thesis aims at situating the transformation of Turkish Islamist thought from the Ottoman empire to the early Republic as a case study within the contemporary analyses of Islamism. Islamist thought in Turkey contains new elements, but it also has deep roots in the tradition of Islamic political thought. As such by devotion to the traditional renewal (tajdid), it reflects a continuing dimension of Islamic political theory. It is also important to understand the specific intellectual settings within which Turkish Islamism has evolved. Islamist depictions of state and democracy whether in the Empire through Islamist identification of shura with constitutional regime or in the Republican period through Necip Fazıl Kısakürek’s totalitarian Başyücelik State, seem to be influenced by the political ideologies of their times such as liberal constitutionalism (in the Empire), and totalitarian aspects of communism, fascism, and Kemalism (in the Republic). Hence, Islamists of the second constitutional period perceived Islam a “soft ideology” whereas Islam became a kind of “hard ideology” in Kısakürek’s formulation, determining every aspect of political, societal and individual life. These analyses are also related to another argument that the tradition of Islamic political thought is open to different Islamist readings, both as authoritarian/totalitarian formulations and as democratic openings. This study also argues that Islamist intellectuals have a tendency of mixing modern notions such as progress and ideology with traditional material/grammar to face the challenge of western modernity. In order to reach an Islamic modernity, the concept of Islamic civilization constitutes a platform for the transformation and interaction of the elements of continuity (traditional grammar) and change (progress and ideology). This dissertation also suggests that Islamists are basically keen to see democracy as the limitation of an arbitrary/despotic rule and as the establishment of the rule of law, implying a rather Schumpeterian conceptualization of democracy: a type of government and procedure in electing those who rule people. The question of whether Islam is compatible with democratic values should be reworded in the way that whether Islamist interpretations/reconstructions of Islamic tradition were/are compatible with democratic values or not. This thesis also tries to give an insight about the Islamist stance towards Kemalist ideology and the impact of Kemalism on Islamism.