Abstract
This article responds to Acharya’s call to integrate deep area studies knowledge and methods into a global IR by presenting the findings of an empirical enquiry into the concept of civilization in Turkish Islamist thought. It delves into primary and secondary sources, in English and Turkish and in particular into the works of a number of emblematic Islamist thinkers in Republican (post-1923) Turkey, to show that their approach to ‘Islamic civilization’ is defined through nineteenth century, modern concepts, shared with so-called Western thinkers and contexts. The conclusions of the study constitute the basis for a critique of the culturalist perspective in IR which treats cultural and civilizational differences as foundational or even immutable. The article posits, instead, that a truly global IR can only be developed if it is underpinned by the concepts of global modernity and global history (as proposed by Buzan and Lawson, among other IR theorists and historians), across an imagined ‘East’ and ‘West’.
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Notes
Many constructivist works deal with culture while avoiding the pitfalls of culturalism. One example is Bettiza’s work, where he argues that, whilst cultural entities are ‘imagined communities’, they turn into ‘social facts’, powerful carriers of meaning and knowledge (Bettiza 2015).
A number of other postcolonial theorists also argue against culturalist positions. One example is Bhambra’s work which highlights the connections between European and other civilizations at the origins of modernity and puts forward a case for ‘connected histories’ (Bhambra 2007). Another is Chakrabarty who calls for an ‘integrated human history’ (Chakrabarty 2007: 42–46).
For a critique of these ideas on Ottoman Orientalism, see Palabıyık (2010).
For a discussion of the international political context in which the Ottomans started using the word ‘civilization’ in its universalist sense and an analysis of how the word ‘medeniyet’ travelled across settings, time and texts, see Wigen (2015b). He is focusing on the civilizing of emotions.
Most closely associated with the idea of an Islamic civilization was a group of intellectuals of the 1860 s and 1870 s, later labelled ‘Young Ottomans’; they are credited with inventing pan-Islamism, partly for the purpose of strengthening the empire (Mardin 1962: 59–60).
Aydin notes that the abstraction called the Muslim world cuts Muslim societies off from their real history (Aydin 2017).
Note that, in the period after independence, the ‘East’ was also identified with anti-imperialism against the ‘West’ (Berkes 1998: 437–439). This is just one of many definitions of ‘the East’ which have varied across geographical and historical contexts.
The idea of a civilizational rivalry between ‘East’ and ‘West’, which became prevalent by the 1920 s, defined the last phase of the intellectual trajectory of the Young Turks (who, loosely defined, dominate the Republic until 1950: Zürcher 1993). With the arrival of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and his circle, who led the war of independence (1919–23) and the newly established Republic, the ‘Westernizer’ branch of the Young Turks (garbcılar) became dominant. They saw European civilization as indivisible and wanted Turkey to adopt it wholesale. There was no attempt, as there had been by a thinker such as Ziya Gökalp, to differentiate between Turkish culture and European civilization because the Kemalists aimed to transform both ‘high’ Islamic civilization and ‘low’ popular culture. (Zürcher 2010: 148–149). For Mustafa Kemal, secular reforms aimed to raise Turkey ‘to the level of “contemporary civilisation”’ (Davison 1998: 147). He saw European civilization as the only civilization and, in his view, any nation was capable of ‘modern civilization’ as long as they were given the educational and material needs to achieve it (Mango 2008: 163, 170). A fervent Turkish nationalism was the order of the day in the first formative years and decades after 1923 but it was seen as bringing Turkey in line with modernity and incorporating Turkey into Western ‘civilization’ while, at the same time, asserting the country’s independent identity.
Vömel (2019) highlights the ways in which Turkish Islamist thought developed also in conversation with global Islamist thought.
The effects of this shift must not be exaggerated: between the 1940 s and the 1980 s, Turkish politics was dominated by the conflict between right and left, with issues of civilizational/cultural belonging and the role of religion occupying a less central role even though they remained an element in political party ideology (Toprak 1981: 124). This also partly applies to the period henceforth, up to the contemporary moment: it would be a mistake to see Turkish public life as exclusively dominated by questions of belonging and identity as opposed to material considerations. The two sets of issues, at the very least, are always interlinked.
Bediuzzaman Said Nursi (1876–1960), the founder of the Nurcu-Nakşibendi order which constituted the most important Islamic revivalist movement in the mid-twentieth century at the popular level, had started in the 1920 s to reject political engagement, relying on religious mobilization with a view that politics should be influenced indirectly. The Nakşibendi movement itself took a more directly political approach. One of its major leaders, Mehmet Zahid Kotku (1897–1980), transformed the Nakşibendi tradition along the lines of the political code of the Republic which meant a convergence of Islamism and nationalism.
He was also embraced by the Nakşibendis (Mardin 2005: 155)—see note 12, above.
According to Kısakürek, only when Turkey returned to its former glory would the light shine upon the Muslim world once again. Büyük Doğu would be a land cleansed of Jews and Dönme (crypto-Jews who had converted publicly to Islam) (Guida 2012: 119).
The idea of Islamic civilization was also of considerable significance in this body of thought. In 1970, influential business, university and politics individuals founded the Aydınlar Ocağı (‘Hearths of the Enlightened’) to ‘break the monopoly of left-wing intellectuals on the social, political and cultural debate’. The chief ideologue of this trend, İbrahim Kafesoğlu, proposed the ‘Turkish-Islamic synthesis’ asserting that ‘Islam held a special attraction for the Turks because of a number of (supposedly) striking similarities between their pre-Islamic culture and Islamic civilization’ and deemed that Turkish culture was built on a Turkish and an Islamic element (Zürcher 1993: 302–303).
The idea of ‘Islamic civilization’ was also significant in the thought of Necmettin Erbakan (1926–2011), the chief ideologue of the Milli Görüş (National Outlook) movement, which dominated Turkish Islamist politics from the 1970 s onwards. Milli Görüş brought together aspects of Islam, Ottoman and Turkish norms and sought a cultural revival based on these norms (Erbakan 1975). Erbakan propagated the idea of Adil Düzen (Just Order) which he described as the pinnacle of civilization, combining the truth of Islam with Western technical achievements (Erbakan 1993: 9–11). For Erbakan, Turkey was ‘the cultural centre of Islamic civilization in Europe’, also because of its association with the Balkans (Yavuz 2003: 236).
One position that the Motherland Party adopted from Milli Görüş pertained to the relationship between Turkey and Western civilization. It was that the strength of the West lay in its industry, not its civilization, that technology can be separated from Western civilization and that development required faith, not the transformation of culture (Toprak 1993: 241–242).
Bulaç is a prolific writer but none of his monographs is focused on civilization as such. For Bulaç religions enable people to live together and make them medeni, civilized: Çınar and Kadıoğlu (1999: 64–67). However, he criticized the notion of ‘civilization’ (in its universal sense) for originating in the West and being alien to an Islamic outlook: Meeker (1991: 200). In a published interview which highlighted the symbolic power of words, Bulaç distinguished between ‘medeniyet’ and ‘uygarlık’, arguing that the former belongs to the West and the latter to Islam: On5yirmi5 (2010).
This view is shared by Gencer (2014). Özel’s ideas on the subject are developed primarily in his work Üç Mesele (2013).
Davutoğlu was also the main architect of the AKP foreign policy, foreign policy advisor to the AKP government, foreign minister and prime minister until his departure in 2016.
Tellingly, when commenting on Western civilization and culture in its present form, Davutoğlu highlighted alcoholism and prostitution as its most prominent characteristics (Özkan 2015).
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The research for this article was partly funded by British Academy Grant MD150005.
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Dalacoura, K. Global IR, global modernity and civilization in Turkish Islamist thought: a critique of culturalism in international relations. Int Polit 58, 131–147 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-020-00242-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41311-020-00242-8