Claiming the Neo-Ottoman mosque: Islamism, gender, architecture

Abstract

This chapter focuses on the gender politics of mosque architecture within the current context of Turkey in which the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) has encouraged the neo-Ottoman idiom. This particular idiom produced distinct ideological meanings within different political contexts. Currently, it serves the absorption of nationalism and the remoulding of the nation-state by the AKP’s Islamism and the making of the Islamic nation—millet. The AKP has also been promoting the mosque as a social space. A significant aspect of this process has been the gradual increase in women’s involvement as users and designers of space, demanding to have a say in the spatial organization of women’s sections in the mosques. The overlap between women’s demands and the governments agenda to endorse mosques also played role in the promotion of neo-Ottoman mosque architecture. The chapter discusses the instrumentalisation of gender politics to legitimise the government’s approach to mosque architecture. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.