dorroll, rethinking tradition and modernity in contemporary turkish islamic thought

The Turkish Understanding ofReligion: Rethinking Traditionand Modernity in ContemporaryTurkish Islamic ThoughtPhilip Dorroll*

Approaches to the study of Islam in modern Turkey often discuss reli-gious movements in Turkey with reference to a dichotomy between thesecular and the religious and consequently focus on conservativeIslamic streams of thought that view these two concepts as inherently inconflict. This means that modernist and reformist strains of Islamicthought in Turkey have been neglected in the scholarly literature, despitetheir immense importance to the history of Islam in the Turkish Republic.This article discusses the history and context of one important contempo-rary strain of Islamic modernism in Turkey, what is here termed theAnkara Paradigm. Using the theoretical insights of Talal Asad andSaba Mahmood, I argue that Islamic modernism in Turkey is best under-stood as a theological complex that utilizes traditional texts to authorizecertain configurations of the boundaries between the religious and thesecular that enable modern religious reform.

IN THE MODERN DISCUSSION of religion, an analytic that holdsin tension two supposedly dichotomous notions, the religious and thesecular, has been all-pervasive. As is well known, this dichotomy has

*Philip Dorroll, Wofford College, 429 N. Church Street, Spartanburg, SC 29303, USA. E-mail:[email protected]. I would like to thank Vincent Cornell for his guidance and comments onearlier drafts of this article.

Journal of the American Academy of Religion, pp. 137doi:10.1093/jaarel/lfu061 The Author 2014. Published by Oxford University Press, on behalf of the American Academy ofReligion. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: [email protected]

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been called into question by scholars who point to the mutual interde-pendence of these notions and their necessary intertwining, especially inthe practice of what is conventionally deemed the secular or the religious(Asad 2003; Mahmood 2009). As Saba Mahmood points out, the reli-gious and the secular are not so much immutable essences or opposedideologies as they are concepts that gain a particular salience with theemergence of the modern state and attendant politicsconcepts that are,furthermore, interdependent and necessarily linked in their mutual trans-formation and historical emergence (2009: 836). Asad and Mahmoodswork implies that the secular and the religious are not mutually imperme-able domains that continually vie for dominance in the public sphere;instead, they give meaning to each other. Negotiating their boundaries,and thus their mutual definition, is a major task of religious thought inthe contemporary world.

There is a temporal component to this ideological or political dichot-omy between the religious and the secular: the traditional and themodern. As with the secular and the religious, these notions are oftenassumed to be immutably opposed, but I would suggest that they in factdepend on each other, both historically and discursively. As Mahmoodexplains,

Tradition . . . is not a set of symbols and idioms that justify present prac-tices, neither is it an unchanging set of cultural prescriptions that standin contrast to what is changing, contemporary, or modern. Nor is it ahistorically fixed social structure. Rather, the past is the very groundthrough which the subjectivity and self-understanding of a traditions ad-herents are constituted. (2005: 115; emphasis mine)

In other words, as a continuous hermeneutic engagement with previ-ous discourses, religious tradition is the necessary ground of the reli-gious believers construction of her own sense of agency or participationin a particular religious community. Tradition is not simply the staticother of modernity. Nor does it have to be identified with conservatism:if tradition is the medium through which a participant interacts with herfaith tradition, as Mahmood suggests, it may be interpreted in any num-ber of different ways and utilized for any number of different projects.For instance, certain uses of tradition may authorize socially conservativepatriarchal gender roles, while others may undermine these.

The study of Islamic thought in Turkey has focused intensely on ques-tions of secularity and religiosity, but it has largely done so by examiningreactionary religious thinkers who argue that the religious and the secularare entirely incompatible (Meeker 1994; Karasipahi 2009). Other scholars

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have focused on conservative Islamic social movements such as theFethullah Glen movement or the ideological bases of the current rulingright-wing Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalknma Partisi)(Yavuz 2003, 2009; Turner and Horkuc 2009; Ebaugh 2010). Additionally,a number of important anthropological and ethnographic studies have ana-lyzed conservative Sufi circles that see themselves as opposed in some wayto the prevailing secular order in Turkey (White 2002; Raudvere 2003;Silverstein 2010). In other words, in the study of Islamic thought in theTurkish Republic, there has been a prevailing focus on conservative groupsor thinkers who see tradition as a means to negotiate the boundariesbetween the secular and the religious in the public sphere in favor of thelatter. These conservative religious groups utilize Islamic discursive tradi-tions to undermine the authority of secular social institutions in Turkeyand bolster the authority of the patriarchal family.

However, the complex relationship between the secular and the reli-gious suggests that there are other possible configurations of the boundariesbetween the secular and the religious and other possible uses of tradition innegotiating these boundaries. This article focuses on the roots and the con-temporary elaboration of liberal, or, as it is more frequently termed, mod-ernist and reformist (yeniliki)1 Islamic thought in the Republic of Turkey.I first discuss the development of what is here termed the AnkaraParadigm, a constellation of ideas that links Islamic modernism and re-formism with a notion of Turkish Islam. This intellectual paradigm hasbeen a key element in Islamic thought in Turkey since the founding of theTurkish Republic in 1923. This stream of thought, which was elaboratedfirst in the 1940s and 1950s and grew out of the early years of the AnkaraUniversity Faculty of Divinity, builds on sociological understandings ofreligion and a generalized humanist approach to the concept of religion(din) in order to outline a vision of Islamic reformism uniquely suitedto the social context of the Turkish Republic. In doing so, the thinkerswho helped create and maintain this paradigm located its bases in a rein-terpretation of medieval Sunn Islamic religious texts, particularly those

1It must be noted that the term used here, yeniliki, has the sense of the English terms reformistor modernist, i.e., someone who supports progressive or what might be called liberal changes inreligious practice that are in harmony with modern social structures and ideologies. The termreform actually exists as a cognate in Turkish, but is not as commonly used by Turkish Muslimmodernists. Thus, throughout this article, the terms modernist and reformist will be used asEnglish translations of Turkish terms such as yeniliki or similar terms that express a modernistreligious ideology without the use of the cognate term reform in Turkish. For the suggestion to usethe term yeniliki, I am indebted to a very productive and enlightening conversation with Prof. Dr.Snmez Kutlu of the Ankara University Faculty of Divinity, whose works are also discussed later inthis article.

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of the Hanaf school of law and dogmatics, thought to be located in a spe-cifically Turkish tradition of religious thought.

This article then provides a detailed analysis of some contemporary ex-amples of this paradigm, focusing in greatest detail on the systematic Islamicmodernist thought of Hanifi zcan, currently a professor at the Dokuz EyllUniversity Faculty of Divinity in Izmir. Though the Ankara Paradigm hasdeeply influenced the mainstream of academic Turkish Islamic thought, ithas also in recent years received pointed challenges from scholars fromother universities who argue against its alleged lack of historicity. These chal-lenges will be discussed as well in order to explore the theoretical tensionsinherent in contemporary Turkish Islamic modernism.

Through an analysis of Islamic modernism in contemporary Turkey,this article argues that reformist or modernist Islamic thought does notcreate something arbitrary with respect to traditional discursive frame-works, opposed to the authenticity of (conservative) tradition. Rather, itredraws the boundaries between certain key concepts in pre-existing dis-cursive frameworks, in this case between the religious and the secular.Modernist Islamic thought does this by utilizing traditional texts (textsin the medieval Sunn canon that have been invested with particular au-thority) in specific ways that open up interpretive possibilities withinthese texts in order to authorize certain configurations of the boundariesbetween the religious and the secular. Furthermore, in the Turkish case,this is actually enabled by a concept of Turkish nationalism which autho-rized new readings and revealed new possibilities in these traditionaltexts. As Talal Asad writes, The nation-state requires clearly demarcatedspaces that it can classify and regulate; these include the secular and thereligious (2003: 201). I suggest that the history of reformist and modernistIslamic thought in Turkey is the history of how the boundaries betweenthese two concepts can be drawn such that this practice overturns sociallyconservative readings of Islam in favor of a notion of Islamic thought thatauthorizes continual critique and reform. The analysis of reformistIslamic thought in Turkey shows that the bases of modernist Islam arenot dissimilar from its conservative counterpart, and that it involves asimilar process of negotiation between the secular and the religious medi-ated through understandings of tradition. The analysis of the history ofmodernist Islam in Turkey thus demonstrates that the debate betweenmodernist and conservative Islamic thinkers in the modern era is not aquestion of whether or not to follow authentic Islamic tradition. It isinstead a debate over what actually constitutes Islamic tradition, witheach ideological side defining tradition through specific configurationsof the boundary between the religious and the secular.




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ROOTS OF MODERNIST ISLAMIC THEOLOGY IN THETURKISH REPUBLIC: THE RISE OF THE ANKARA

PARADIGM

Modernist Islamic theology2 in Republican Turkey has its roots in thewritings of pious reformist Muslim intellectuals associated with thePresidency of Religious Affairs (Diyanet leri Bakanl, commonly re-ferred to as simply the Diyanet) and the establishment of the first Turkishdivinity faculty (ilahiyat fakltelesi) at Ankara University (194050s).star B. Gzaydn perceptively summarizes the role of the Diyanet inTurkish society in this way: The PRA is a laic administrative unit in theRepublic of Turkey established in 1924 to execute services regardingIslamic faith and practices, to enlighten society about religion, and tocarry out the management of places of worship (2008: 216). Both theDiyanet and the Ankara faculty were founded with the intent of promot-ing a reformist vision of Islam and promoting the scholarly study ofIslamic disciplines along West European academic lines. The intellectualsassociated with these institutions were controversial for their alleged col-lusion with the Kemalist regime, but their modernist religious philoso-phies became part of the academic mainstream due to their involvementwith the most socially influential state-sanctioned Islamic religious insti-tutions in Republican Turkey, the Diyanet and the divinity faculties. AmitBein, for instance, has discussed in detail the role these reformists playedin the justification of Kemalist policies (2011: 109111). While the associ-ations of these figures with Kemalism have been discussed by Bein andothers,3 the present analysis focuses on how these thinkers constructed amodel of modernist Islamic thought that outlasted the early Kemalist

2The term theology is used here to denote systematic speculation about the nature of religion,God, and the relationship these have with human life. Though the term is often controversial whenapplied to non-Christian sources, it is used here because it is very often used by Turkish scholars totranslate the term ilahiyatliterally, divinity, the term used in Turkish academia to denote thestudy of Islamic religious disciplines and the prescriptive, constructive projects within these disciplinethat seek to outline a systematic Islamic system of thought on a given religious issue. This term inTurkish is also very often used with a suffix to denote one who practices or studies ilahiyat,ilahiyat, i.e., a religious intellectual who constructs or studies systems of Islamic thought. Whilekeeping in mind the very legitimate concerns with using the term theology outside of a Christiancontext, the term theologian seems to be the best single English term to translate ilahiyat. Inaddition, theology seems to be the best single English term to denote systematic intellectual projectsthat reflect on the relationship between human beings and a monotheistic God. It is in this sense thatthe term theology is occasionally used in this article, i.e., when referring to systematic intelletualprojects to talk about God and human beings in an Islamic context.

3See especially the works of smail Kara, in which he critiques extensively the utilization ofreligious motifs by Kemalist nationalists to implement aggressively secularist policies (Kara 2003,2008).




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period in Turkey and remained extremely influential in mainstreamTurkish Islamic thought until the present day. The association of Islamicmodernism in the Turkish Republic with Kemalism remains an impor-tant issue, however. For this reason, the present analysis will conclude witha consideration of the criticisms leveled against this modernist stream ofthought by contemporary Turkish Muslim academics who attempt to dis-credit these modernist intellectuals by pointing to the association of theirthought with the political agenda of Kemalism and West European ideolo-gies of modernization. These dissenting voices will provide a way to reflecton the politicization of these modernist theological currents through theirhistorical association with Kemalism.

In particular, the leadership of the Ankara Faculty of Divinity in theinstitutionalization and perpetuation of this modernist Islamic paradigmin Turkey has been decisive. From the early 1950s on, building on the leg-acies of these modernist thinkers, this faculty established what I call theAnkara Paradigm. This constellation of reformist and sometimes na-tionalist ideologies developed into a formidable intellectual paradigm thatexercised wide influence in Turkish society due to its acceptance by theDiyanet and other divinity faculties throughout Turkey.

The first divinity faculty in Turkey was founded in 1924 at theDarlfnun (a late Ottoman institution of higher education founded inimitation of the West European university) in Istanbul after the secularrepublic abolished the medrese system entirely and consolidated all edu-cational institutions under the control of the national Ministry ofEducation (Kota 1990: 6; Pacaci and Aktay 2006: 124). This faculty wasintended to foster the study of Islamic disciplines within the frameworkof the social sciences, but was closed in 1933 due to lack of students. In1949, however, the longest continually operating institution of Islamichigher education in Republican Turkey was founded: the AnkaraUniversity Faculty of Divinity. The university ordered that the faculty beopened to foster the scientific study of religion, and also to provide therequired conditions for raising men of religion effective in their profes-sion and comprehensive in their thinking; furthermore, the faculty wasto be opened in accordance with its Western counterpart (Pacaci andAktay 2006: 130). Annemarie Schimmel, the great German scholar ofIslam and Sufism who taught at the faculty from 1954 to 1959, describedthe goal of the faculty as a combination of Western scientific methodsand [Muslim] personal piety (1969: 80). It was to serve as the flagship in-stitution for an enlightened and reformist understanding of Islam in theRepublic of Turkey (Kota 1990: 8).

Since the 1980s, divinity faculties in Turkey in general have seen a me-teoric rise in influence and numbers (despite periods of political turmoil,




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especially the military ultimatum of 1997). At the end of the 1980s, onlynine faculties existed; by 2011, there were a total of thirty-six, thirteen ofwhich had been opened during the previous two years (Pacaci and Aktay2006: 134; Suluolu 2011: 1). In May 2013, a spokesman from theDiyanet declared that there are eighty-six divinity faculties which havebeen officially opened in Turkey; of these, forty-six are currently receivingstudents, while the remainder are being prepared to receive students forenrollment (ilahiyat fakltesi 2013). Divinity faculties in Turkey in2011 had approximately six thousand five hundred students, a veritableexplosion of numbers considering that the number of total enrollment inthe 20067 academic year was only approximately five hundred students(Suluolu 2011: 1). Particularly due to their close connection with the na-tional Presidency of Religious Affairs, these faculties are poised to have asignificant influence over the practice and understanding of Islam inTurkey. The Ministry of Education and the Presidency of ReligiousAffairs are in fact the two major sources of employment for graduates ofthese faculties, which means that the intellectual program of these facul-ties directly influences Turkish religious and educational institutions atnearly all levels (Pacaci and Aktay 2006: 136). While a comprehensivestudy of this system is needed, one goal of this article is to provide a startby examining one strain of thought that has been particularly influentialamong these faculties since the first was founded in Ankara in 1949.

The divinity faculty at Ankara University has maintained a major po-sition of influence in the Turkish Islamic academic and religious estab-lishment. Graduates of the Ankara faculty accounted for six of the ninedeans of all of the existing divinity faculties in Turkey in 1993 (Pacaci andAktay 2006: 134). The Ankara faculty has also had significant influencein Turkish society through its connections with the Presidency ofReligious Affairs, the government ministry that oversees the practice andteaching of Sunn Islam in Turkey. This ministry is headed by a singlepresident of religious affairs. Of the fourteen presidents that have servedin this capacity since the Ankara faculty was founded, eight (includingthe last four consecutive presidents since 1987) have a significant aca-demic connection to the faculty. Four have taught there, five eitherstudied or received a degree there, one received his doctorate under anadvisor who graduated from the faculty, and one even served as dean ofthe faculty from 1994 to 2002. The extent of the influence of the Ankarafaculty on the presidents of the Diyanet throughout its history is un-matched by any other single institution of higher education in Turkey; noother institution can boast of having played so formative a role in the aca-demic credentials of the presidents of the Diyanet. This is not surprising:




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the two institutions share a very similar goal, to spread a modernized andacademic form of Islam among the Turkish populace.

The Ankara University Faculty of Divinity became the institutionalhome for a cohesive Islamic theological vision in Turkey that I havetermed the Ankara Paradigm. This paradigm took as its starting pointcertain key features of reformist Islamic thought in the late OttomanEmpire and the early Turkish Republic that then became mainstreamthroughout Turkish Islamic academia through the dominance of theAnkara University Faculty of Divinity. These three key features, discussedhere in turn, are: a broad notion of religious humanism, a commitmentto religious reform, and the elaboration of a specifically Turkish Islamicheritage. According to the logic of this paradigm, the acceptance of areligious humanism that focuses on the humanly constructed and situat-ed components of religion necessitates openness to continual religiousreform. Furthermore, these thinkers argue, this approach to religion is atthe core of the history of the Turkish understanding of Islam. Yusuf ZiyaYrkan (18871954), a key founding member of the Ankara faculty,4 wasparticularly important in elaborating this paradigm.

The basis of this paradigm is a willingness to consider religions im-pact on individual lives and its situatedness in a social context. A deepinterest in sociological approaches to religion inspired by readings ofmile Durkheim, i.e., approaches to the study of Islamic history that ana-lyzed Islamic thought and practices as products of specific times andplaces, formed the methodological bedrock of the Ankara UniversityDivinity Faculty program. This remains a key component of divinityfaculty approaches to the study of Islam. In his 1952 article on AbuHanfas dogmatics, Yrkan argues that each school of Islamic thoughthas roots in different societies and cultures: they are all rooted in specificpsychological conditions and a specific socio-cultural context (1952b:3). These conditions and contexts are products of society as a whole, aseach society possesses unique characteristics that it imprints on itsmembers: Every society and every milieu carries a separate spirit. Everymilieu has a disposition specific to itself (Yrkan 1952b: 13). Specific

4On Yrkans life and works, see Arkan (2011) and lken (1954). Yrkan was a professor at theDarlfnun and the Ankara faculties of divinity. Througout his academic career, he focused onIslamic intellectual history and the history of Islamic sects and doctrines. He also authored the firstarticle of the first issue of the Ankara facultys academic journal, in which he wrote some of the mostinfluential works in modern Turkish on the history of Islamic doctrines. His work, more than anyothers, helped produce the synthesis between conceptions of Turkish national culture and Islamicreformism that laid the groundwork for the Ankara Paradigm and the academic study of Islamicintellectual history in the Turkish Republic.




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societies, then, produce differing understanding of religious based onthe shared experiences of their members.

Yrkan argued that an understanding of sociological principles istherefore necessary to an understanding of any religious group (Arkan2011: 94). This approach is derived from Durkheims understandingof the social as a totality that forms the matrix for the formation of theindividuals characteristics and life experiences (Durkheim 2008 [1912]:11, 17). Yrkan himself attributed his methodology to Durkheim:Particularly when analyzing religious sects, we will take up and followas a rule the methodology of Durkheim, which has provided a new devel-opment for knowledge through the principles that he followed in thestudy of social events (Arkan 2011: 94). Yrkans understanding ofDurkheims sociology comes mediated through the highly influentialworks of Ziya Gkalp, whose understanding of the totality of Turkish na-tional culture was based on the totalizing notion of society found inDurkheim (Gkalp 1968 [1923]: 15).

This conception of society also included a focus on the inviolability ofthe human individual. Though religion is a divine institution, one of itsprincipal aims is to bind people together into a functioning social unitthat promotes individual welfare (Akseki 1948: 6; Yrkan 1993 [1957]:19). At the same time, the rights of the individual must remain para-mount, and these are rightly protected by religion (Yrkan 1993 [1957]:19). Ahmet Hamdi Akseki5 (18871951), president of the Diyanet from1947 to 1951, emphasized that human beings possess natural rightsthat are the basis of human equality. He wrote in 1948 that the Qurnviewed the human being as a human being, and it declared that everyonepossesses the same natural rights on the basis of their being human(Akseki 1948: 7). Mehmet erafettin Yaltkaya6 (18791947), presidentof the Diyanet from 1942 to 1947, also focused on the capacity of theQuranic revelation to foster respect for human beings as such. He notedthat the revelation to the ancient Arabs transformed their previously ig-norant, brutal, and elementary society into a model of humanity byconvincing them to abandon inhumane practices such as female infanti-cide (Yaltkaya 1944: 64). Yaltkaya also argued that the Qurn played akey role in human progress throughout history: [the Qurn] brought

5Akseki was especially notable for his moderate reformism and his sometimes tense relationshipwith Kemalist directives (Bein 2011: 114116). The most extensive treatment of his thought in thesecondary literature is found in Turkish in Arslan and Erdoan (2005).

6On Yaltkayas work in general, see Bein (2011: 110111). His work was particularly important forits elaboration of a reformed Islamic theological system based on the sociological principles outlinedby Ziya Gkalp (zervarl 2007b).




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into being civilizations across the world and elevated humanity both ma-terially and spiritually (1944: 64).

In the Ankara Paradigm, the establishment of a concept of naturalhuman rights, combined with the recognition of the need to adjust reli-gious structures in order to accommodate those rights when surroundingsocial structures change, is the basis for the argument for religious re-formism. Rather than being seen as an impediment to social changes thatexpand the scope of a secular notion of human rights, religion herebecomes the legitimizing force for this expansion. In the AnkaraParadigm, the delineation of a concept of natural human rights involves aredrawing of the boundaries between the religious and the secular by de-lineating a justification for the ways in which religion might accommo-date itself to social progress in the secular world. Just as the world thatGod has created is continually subject to progress (terakki) and evolution(tekaml), so the religion of Islam does not content itself with stagnationor stasis, but continually fosters human progress and innovation (Akseki1948: 6). This can also mean continuous reform within Islam itself, par-ticularly within the Shara (eriat). Continuous social changes requirecontinuous reform and renewal in religious laws: [Islam], so long as itsfundamental principles remain, calls us to reform (teceddd) even in reli-gious laws (eri hkmler), and encourages the acceptance of suchreform (Akseki 1948: 7). Before becoming the president of religiousaffairs, Akseki also made the same argument, that religious rulings couldbe changed in accordance with changing social needs, in religious lecturesdelivered in the early 1920s (Karaman 2005: 40).

Yrkan in particular supported continual reform in the Shara,arguing that the principle of ijtihd (individual religious reasoning result-ing in a change in practice) in Islamic jurisprudence allowed for new reli-gious rulings that accorded with the spirit of Islam, the exigencies ofthe age, and the needs of the people (Yrkan 1993 [1957]: 59). Hetermed the aspect of religion that is subject to continual reformationdiyanet, or religious piety and practice, the expression of ones personalrelationship with God (Yrkan 1945: 194196). Yrkan reasoned thatwhen the original reason for a religious law is no longer valid, the reli-gious law is itself nullified. For instance, gender segregation used to bestipulated in Islamic societies because of a fear of impropriety, but ifmodern society and rules of behavior have removed the likelihood of im-propriety, then gender segregation is no longer applicable (Yrkan 1993[1957]: 59). For Yrkan, continual renewal and reform in religious prac-tice is in fact the necessary condition for the survival of religion inhistory, for if religion is to be able to fulfill its stated goal of fosteringhuman advancement and happiness in this life and the next, then it must




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be allowed to continually reform its dictates to enable this goal to be real-ized in changing social circumstances. As he put it, in order for religionto continue to exist indefinitely, it must not be forgotten that such ijtihdis an absolute religious duty ( farz) (Yrkan 1993 [1957]: 59).

The process of religious reform is seen in this line of thought asinformed by, and analogous to, the progress of human knowledge.According to Yrkan, both the acquisition of knowledge throughscience (ilim) and the practice of religion have the same goal: the preser-vation of human life and happiness (saadet); they are like the body andsoul of the human being (Yrkan 1944: 129). Their shared advancementis the condition of the continual advancement of humanity. Similarly,Yrkan and other modernist Turkish Muslim theologians of this periodnever tired of emphasizing the harmony between reason and religion, asthey did not view Islam in any way hostile to the free use of reason in thepursuit of a better life for human beings and the refinement of theirknowledge of the one God (Yrkan 1993 [1957]: 3638). Yaltkaya wrotethat though the ultimate source of religion was divine revelation, not asingle rule (hkm) of Islam contradicts reason (1944: 56). He empha-sized that the Qurn itself encourages the progress of science and humanknowledge: This book, which attached great importance to science andcontemplation, was a torch spreading light to all of humanity (Yaltkaya1944: 64). Yrkan also saw the Qurns insistence on individual reflec-tion as an endorsement of continual progress in science and the accumu-lation of human knowledge (1993 [1957]: 36).

The third major component of the Ankara Paradigm is a notion ofTurkish national culture. This argument draws on Ziya Gkalps discus-sion of culture as the basis of national unity. Gkalp made this argumentagainst claims that ethnicity or race was the key element in Turkish na-tional identity (1968 [1923]: 13). National culture was for Gkalp thetotal social context in which the individual is nurtured and shaped.Building on Gkalp and other late Ottoman theories of Turkish culturalparticularity, the exponents of the Ankara Paradigm developed a notionof a specifically Turkish Islamic heritage, a heritage that was in importantways unique from other nations interpretation of Islam.7 Yrkan in

7It is important to note here that this Turkish modernist delineation of a specifically TurkishIslamic heritage is to be distinguished from the politically conservative ideology of Turkish IslamicSynthesis (Trk-slam Sentezi) that was promoted after the 1980 military coup. Though both sharethe notion of a Turkish Islamic heritage, the latter conservative version of this theory eschewedreligious reform and has been strongly associated with strains of right-wing, socially conservativeTurkish nationalism since the 1980s (Gven et al. 1991: 47). On the conservative ideology ofTurkish Islamic synthesis and its relationship with broader arguments within Turkish nationalism fora notion of Turkish Islam, see Gven et al. (1991) and Cetinsaya (1999).




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particular took initial steps in the direction of elaborating the notion of auniquely Turkish tradition of Islamic thought based on the Hanaf legaland theological tradition (Arkan 2011: 96). According to Yrkan, theCentral Asian Mturd school of Hanaf dogmatics represented theofficial school of Islamic belief for the Turks throughout their history(2006 [1932]: 109). Yrkans understanding of Hanafisms eponymousfounder, Ab Hanfa, was also important in that it depicted him primari-ly as theological thinker whose most important contribution to Islamichistory was his dogmatic and philosophical reflections, not his legacy inIslamic law (1952b: 78).

Yrkans understanding of Ab Hanfa in particular would play akey role in later Turkish intellectuals understanding of this extremely im-portant figure in Islamic history. Yrkan emphasized that Ab Hanfawas in fact the father of all Sunn dogmatics, and that he was the firstthinker in Islamic history who based his ideas on the assumption ofharmony between reason and revelation (Yrkan 1952c: 79). In addi-tion, Yrkan saw Ab Hanfa as notable for his sensitivity to culturaldiversity and the needs of the people in the socio-cultural situation inwhich he found himself:

Because he understood the reality of the historical epoch [of Islamichistory in which he lived] which saw the fusion of nations (milletler) andthe beginning of Turkish and Persian influence greater than that of theArab population and culture, he understood the spirit of [various]peoples and their lifestyles; and whether in religious law or religiousthought he thoroughly investigated the rulings of sacred texts and recon-ciled the needs of the community with this spirit. (Yrkan 1952c: 79)

Yrkans emphasis on Ab Hanfas ability to understand the specificrelevance of Islamic tradition for the needs of specific cultural situationswould be an important element in the elaboration of the notion of aTurkish Islam that is both tolerant of diversity and able to adapt itselfto different social situations. Yrkan, it should be noted however, alsosaw himself as elaborating a pan-Sunn vision of Islam that was not re-stricted to simply the Turkish context. He emphasized that in the finalanalysis, the basis of the unity and universality of the Islamic religion isthe Qurn (Yrkan 1952a, 1993 [1957]: 42; Arkan 2011: 98). While hedid take important steps toward defining the content of a specificallyTurkish tradition of Islam, he did not base his vision of reform onTurkish nationalism alone.




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Yrkan was not the first, however, to argue for Ab Hanfas uniquerelevance to the Turkish situation. In an extremely striking presentationmade to the Second Turkish History Congress in 1937, the reformistthinker smail Hakk zmirli8 (18691946) put forth arguments intendedto show that Ab Hanfa was himself Turkish (in the same presentation,zmirli even suggested that this may have been true of the ProphetMuhammad) (zmirli 1943: 1021). zmirli also contributed importantcharacterizations to the picture of Ab Hanfa that would emerge as nor-mative in the Ankara Paradigm. According to zmirli, Ab Hanfas legalmethodology, which was highly rational and based on individual experi-ence, is uniquely suited to the Turkish way of thinking and was notablefor the ways in which it took into account the needs of the people wholived in his society (zmirli 1943: 10211022). In zmirlis estimation,Ab Hanfas intellectual flexibility demonstrated that he valuedfreedom, reason, and the needs of the age, all values that zmirliclaimed were embodied in the reform programs of the Turkish Republic(zmirli 1943: 10251026).

The Ankara Paradigm may be understood as a sacralization of one par-ticular mode of the shifting of boundaries between the worldly and religious,i.e., the mode of secularizing reform undertaken during the first few decadesof the Turkish Republic. The Ankara Paradigm should not be understood assimply a religious justification for Kemalist secularism, however. Instead, itdoes not see the religious and the secular as antagonistic, but mutually in-formative. It makes reconsideration of their relationship a religious duty. Inthis paradigm, religion actually demands the renegotiation of its own powerby acknowledging that certain realms of human interaction at times must beremoved from the domain of religious law and released into the changingspace of the secular, making them therefore liable to reform such that theyconform to the need to protect individual human rights.

This is the meaning of modernist religious reform: that certain areasof human life that were once considered to be properly controlled by theauthority of the religious (such as certain forms of penal law, family orga-nization, and the concept of state sovereignty and legitimation) be trans-ferred to the space of the secular, i.e., the space of human life subject tochange and modification. As Asad and Mahmood point out, in themodern world, the religious and the secular as concepts can only be

8For English treatments of zmirlis life and works, see zervarl (1999, 2007a). For a thoroughdiscussion of his thought in Turkish, see Balolu and eker (1996). zmirli is best known for hisattempt to reconstruct Islamic dogmatics by an engagement with West European philosophy, in aneffort to refound Islamic theology on bases that could best defend against the threat of philosophicalmaterialism and incorporate the advances of modern knowledge into Islamic thought.




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clearly defined in relation to each other. In this sense, then, it may be saidthat secular reform actually takes its meaning by standing opposite anotion of absolute religious truth in which it does not interfere. At thesame time, secular reform becomes the process through which religionexpresses its continual quest for human equality and justice. In theAnkara Paradigm, religious modernism and reformism are not seen asinauthentic from a religious point of view, but instead represent onetype of negotiation of the boundary between the religious and the secular.

CONTEMPORARY ITERATIONS OF THE ANKARAPARADIGM I: RELIGIOUS HUMANISM

The work of Hanifi zcan, who received his PhD from the AnkaraUniversity Faculty of Divinity and is currently a professor at the DokuzEyll University Faculty of Divinity in zmir, is an excellent example ofcontemporary systematic theological projects based on the AnkaraParadigm. A close consideration of his work, while also mentioning otherlike-minded Turkish Muslim thinkers throughout this analysis, providesa clearer picture of the systematic theology of the Ankara Paradigm as itis being developed today, and thus of the contemporary forms of mod-ernist Islamic thought in Turkey in general.

Contemporary modernist Turkish Muslim thinkers such as zcanhave provided considerable theological depth to the general theoreticalframework of the Ankara Paradigm (first elaborated in the 1940s and1950s) by elaborating a systematic Islamic modernist theology of reformbased on some of the most authoritative works of medieval Sunn reli-gious thought. Like their predecessors within the Ankara Paradigm, theyargue a theory of religious modernism based on the canonical texts ofSunn Islam. As mentioned above, Turkish Muslim intellectuals active inthe early Turkish Republic suggested a link between a national Turkishtradition of religious thought and the Hanaf school of Sunn Islamic lawand dogmatics. zcan and others have developed this into a kind ofneo-Hanaf theological schema that makes the case for religious reformbased on a careful reading of the theological legacy of the Hanaf school.

zcans theory of religion begins with humanist dimensions similarto those outlined by earlier generations of modernist Muslim thinkers inTurkey. zcan argues that due to the individual-centered conditions ofmodernity, the principle that religion exists for the person, not theperson for the religion (din insan iin vardr; insan din iin deil) mustbe adopted (2007: 134). He therefore begins his theological project from afundamentally humanist orientation, an orientation that starts with theeffect of religion on the needs and situation of humans as individuals. As




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zcan points out, individual human beings (and this seems particularlytrue in modernity) confront religion as an institution, a pre-existentreality that they must interact with. It is therefore necessary to allow for arational and realistic sense of flexibility in religious interpretation inorder to allow religion to transmit its lessons of eternal truth to individualhuman beings and their highly particularized circumstances. After all,while religions essence is not humanly, its structure in the world is(zcan 2007: 136).

zcan argues that it is therefore necessary to recognize the function-al element of religion, the human component of its structure, in order toproperly understand how to communicate its divine and eternal elementsto people living in diverse times and places, because this structure is liableto change throughout history (2007: 137). In other words, zcan assertsthat the historically contingent elements of religion that are products ofhuman activity must always be distinguished from the elements of reli-gion that are eternal and non-negotiable, or religion will not be able to ac-tually communicate these eternal truths to real people living in the realworld. This eternal content is the reality of the Oneness of God, the ulti-mate principle of monotheism (tawhd in Arabic, tevhid in Turkish)(zcan 1999: 33, 77).

zcan emphasizes that religion is a blessing for individual humanbeings and a required component of a stable society. Religion is a blendof the human and the divine, the social and the individual (zcan 2007:136). It must be interpreted in a way that respects the needs of both theindividual and the larger community in which she lives (zcan 2007:138). Philosophically, then, zcan makes a strong case for the need forcontinual reform and change in religion: Todays true will be tomorrowsfalse. Every generation is held accountable for the period during which itlives (2007: 139). Again, this is based on the recognition of the rightsand needs of the individual human being: The constant changing of apersons stance vis--vis religion is one of religions unchanging charac-teristics, and this is an historical fact (zcan 2007: 139).

The humanistic religious philosophy described above as one of thethree bases of the Ankara Paradigm clearly plays a role in zcans ownsystem. True to this theological method, zcan combines a considerationof the variations in social context and the definition of religion from theperspective of its impact on individual human beings in order to producea modernist religious philosophy that argues for the need for continualreligious reformation and flexibility. zzet Sargn, another follower of thisparadigm and current professor in the divinity faculty of KahramanmaraSt mam University in Kahramanmara, sums up this aspect of thecontemporary formulation of the Ankara Paradigm thus:




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Whatever its source or nature, all religions are oriented toward thehuman being, connected to and dependent on the human being, andexist for the human being. Every religion achieves value, meaning,and existence in the human world. For this reason, religion is both asociological and historical phenomenon. This implies perception andchange. . . . Every religion in every time period and in every society iscontinually recreated. (2005: 421)

zcans broadly humanist conception of religion is correlated with his ar-gument for the importance of human knowledge. Following the researchof Franz Rosenthal, zcan argues that Islamic civilization has beendefined by its focus on this concept (1993: 23). The term ilm (know-ledge) was the ordering principle in medieval Arabic-Islamic intellectualdiscourse for diverse systems of thought, and could be used by Sufisto refer to mystical insight, by theologians and philosophers to refer tovarying notions of philosophical epistemology, or by textual scholarsto refer to hermeneutics and Islamic legal practices (Rosenthal 2007).Following Rosenthal, zcan points out that for medieval Muslim schol-ars, defining knowledge meant defining Islam itself (1993: 23).

zcan argues then that a consideration of Islamic epistemology trans-lates into an exploration of the nature of Islamic itself. zcan points outthat Islamic religious thought in general (which he here denotes by themedieval Arabic term for the intellectual roots of Islamic belief and prac-tice, usl) is fundamentally a rational intellectual exercise, and is properlythe subject of the disciplines of theology and religious philosophy (1993:23). This move establishes that the basis of Islam is theological and philo-sophical, and that religious practices derive from these fundamental intel-lectual roots. zcan further argues that Islam is fundamentally a rationalreligion, despite the natural limits to the use of human reason (1993: 65).

The epistemology outlined by the medieval Hanaf systematic theolo-gian Mturd (d. 944)9 exemplifies for zcan the emphasis placed onreason and knowledge in Islam. zcan places Mturds epistemologysomewhere between rationalism and empiricism (1993: 138). zcancomes to this conclusion based on the fact that Mturd identifiesthree different sources of human knowledge, which suggests a hybridepistemology: direct sensual perception (al-iyn), reported information(al-akhbr), and reasoned reflection (al-nazar) (Mturd 2007: 69).

9For an excellent summary and analysis of Mturd doctrine and theological method, and howthese relate to other Sunn schools of dogmatic theology, see Yaman (2010). Mturd doctrine isgenerally distinguished by its systematization of certain theological principles suggested by AbHanfa, such as the interiority of religious belief and the defense of human reason and free will.




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Mturd therefore accepts both empirical and rational sources of knowl-edge, and also acknowledges the necessity of reliable reported information(such as historical information) that supplements areas of knowledge nec-essarily sealed off to human reason and physical senses. zcan calls thistype of epistemology a form of realism, and identifies it as characteristic ofTurkish religious thought in general (2003: 289).

zcan also highlights Mturds opposition to the theory that knowl-edge can be received merely by reception from an authoritative source,which in Islamic discourse is termed imitation (taqld in Arabic, taklitin Turkish). Mturd opposes the notion that any argument from author-ity alone can constitute real knowledge because it has no basis in experi-enced or rational evidence (dall) and is therefore ultimately unverifiable(1993: 167). And for Mturd, religious knowledge must be based on ra-tional proof and demonstration (burhn), or it would be impossible todistinguish truth from falsehood (2007: 66). zcan here offers what heviews as an interesting contrast between Christian notions of faith andIslamic notions of faith. zcan quotes Tertullians famous declaration ofbelief in that which is logically incomprehensible (the Resurrection ofChrist) and Martin Bubers statement in Eclipse of God that belief in Goddoes not require knowledge of God, as contrasted with Islamic notions ofbelief (mn), which in medieval Arabic-Islamic discourse must be basedon rational proofs (1993: 181). Whether zcan fairly characterizesBubers or Tertullians position may be another point to consider.However, what is crucial for this analysis is the contrast he draws betweenthe notion that faith indicates assent to something irrational preciselybecause it is so, and therefore must be simply believed; and the notionthat belief in anything in the first place must be based on rational evi-dence. zcan (and much of the medieval Islamic theological tradition)sees the latter position as quintessentially Islamic. zcan makes the inter-esting assertion that Islamic belief is actually best characterized by thestatement of W. K. Clifford that it is wrong always, everywhere, and foranyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence (1993: 181).

zcan goes on to assert that knowledge (bilgi) is a principal basis ofIslamic ethics: In fact, knowledges priority over action, and the humanbeings need to act according to knowledge, can generally be seen as animportant principle of Islamic ethics (1993: 207). zcan does not,however, see reason as the isolated source of the religion of Islam.Instead, it has an intimate and important relationship with divine revela-tion. zcan does argue that a persons moral sense and the ability to ra-tionally distinguish good from evil precedes revelation. According to theQurn, God created human beings with a discerning reason that is ableto discern the truth in things on its own, to a certain extent: In this sense




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it can be said that a human beings moral sense does not begin with reve-lation; however, revelation intensifies this sense that is actually foundfrom the beginning in the human being (1993: 211). zcan closes hisanalysis of Mturds epistemology by stating that its primary goal is toestablish a religious and moral system that is based on knowledge. This isbecause, according to [Mturd], sound religion is religion that is basedon knowledge and evidence (1993: 213). zcans broader point (andone that is outlined in more detail in his later works, as we shall see) isthat the Hanaf tradition of Islamic religious thought is most notable forits respect for individual human reason and the human search for knowl-edge, and that this orientation characterizes Islam in general. This pointis shared by a number of contemporary representatives of the AnkaraParadigm, who see in Hanafism both the humanist core of Islamic teach-ing and a spirit of religious interpretation found deep within Turkishculture itself (can 2004: 59; Sargn 2005: 423; Kutlu 2011: 9597).

CONTEMPORARY ITERATIONS OF THE ANKARAPARADIGM II: AB HANFA AND RELIGIOUS REFORMISM

The historical relationship between Turkic-language-speaking peoplesand the Hanaf theological tradition is the basis for zcans and othersclaim that modern Turkish Islamic thought must root itself in this muchmore ancient tradition and is worth examining in some here. The relation-ship between Turkish intellectual history and Hanafism is a complex issue.Institutionally, the Hanaf school of Sunn religious law and the Mturdline of Hanaf dogmatics has long been connected with the particularIslamic intellectual schools and circles patronized by Turkic rulers whowere loyal to the Central Asian-Samarqand tradition of Hanafism.Hanafism became the Sunn norm for Central Asia early in its history, andits unquestioned dominance in that area since at least the tenth centurymust have had the effect of strengthening at least some Turkish Muslimsallegiance to Hanaf/Mturd thought there. This was due largely to thefact that Ab Hanfa, the eponym of the Hanifi school, was involved ineighth-century movements that advocated for the equal status of non-Arabconvents to Islam in the Arab empire; this group included many Turkicpeoples, especially in Central Asia, which then became the heartland ofHanaf Islamic orthodoxy (Madelung 1982: 36). Even though the Mturdline of Hanaf thought was almost entirely unknown to the Islamic west inareas such as Baghdad and Iraq,10 it was by the middle of the eleventhcentury widespread in Hanaf communities in the far Islamic east. Theeleventh-century Mturd theologian Ab Shukr al-Slim, for instance,mentions that the true doctrine of Sunnism (i.e., Mturdism) was held by




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the jurists of Khurasan, Central Asia, Ghazna, and the regions of theTurks (diyr al-Turk) (Madelung 1971: 117). The spread of the SeljuqTurks westward brought knowledge of the Mturd school to the centrallands of the Islamic world (Madelung 1971: 124). Despite the inter-Sunnirivalries of the period, Central Asian Hanafism was often favored by Turkicstates,11 which were therefore sympathetic to the Mturd theologicaltradition which grew up in Samarqand. Many Turkish rulers continuedto prefer Central Asian scholarly lineages, and maintained this preferenceas they spread their version of Central Asian Hanafism into Anatolia inthe last few centuries before the rise of the Ottoman Empire (Madelung1971: 167).

As is well known, the Hanaf legal school became the official schoolof Shara law in the Ottoman Empire. On the issue of Sunn dogmatics,the Ottomans adopted a policy of reconciliation between the two majorSunn schools of dogmatic theology, Asharism (favored by the Mlik,Shfi, and Hanbal legal schools) and Mturdism (favored by theCentral Asian Hanaf legal tradition) (Madelung 1971: 109). As PhilippBruckmayr points out, the two schools both had representatives inOttoman intellectual circles; Ottoman scholars varied widely on theirdegree of allegiance to one school or another (Bruckmayr 2009: 6970). Itwas the theoretical framework of Turkish nationalism that suggested thatthe Turkish nation naturally possessed its own lineage of religiousthought, and that this lineage would therefore be present in the historicalhomelands of Turkic peoples, i.e., Central Asia. Ziya Gkalp, perhaps themost influential theorist of Turkish nationalism and discussed above withrespect to his interest in Durkheim, declared that our [i.e., the Turks] re-ligious catechism teaches us that our school of theology is that of al-Mturd and our school of jurisprudence that of Ab Hanfa (1968[1923]: 126). Thus, Hanafism became the symbol of Turkish Islamicthought after the establishment of the Turkish Republic.

The Ankara Paradigm and its contemporary adherents emphasizeAb Hanfas reputation for intellectual creativity, broad-mindedness,and respect for individual reasoning in interpreting Islamic law andsacred texts. Ab Hanfa was most famous in his day for giving leeway toindividual reasoning (ray) in making judgments for Islamic religious

10The important fourteenth-century Hanaf scholar Ibn Ab al-Waf al-Qurash famouslylamented this fact in his oft-cited biographical history of the Hanaf school (198082: 1:6).

11There were of course exceptions to this association between Turkic peoples and the Hanafschool. Baki Tezcan, for instance, questions the natural historical relationship between Hanafismand Turkic states by discussing the case of the Mamluk Empire, which he argues favored the Shfischool over other Sunn legal schools (2011).




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practice. Ab Hanfa was a member of a group of legal thinkers who pro-moted this method, known as the partisans of individual reasoning(ashb al-ray). As Wael Hallaq succinctly explains, this term meantduring the time of Ab Hanfa either free human reasoning based onpractical considerations and bound by no authoritative text or free rea-soning based on such a text and motivated by practical consideration(1997: 19). This principle was codified in legal devices such as istihsn, orjuristic preference, when a jurist chooses among different possible legalrulings for a single case. In the Hanaf interpretation of istihsn, thischoice is made in order to adopt a ruling that ensures equality and indi-vidual justice when adopting a strict interpretation of the law mightinstead violate these broader principles (Kamali 2004: 562563).According to al-Sarakhs, an eleventh-century Hanaf juridical authorityresponsible for transmitting much of the surviving textual evidence forAb Hanfa and his disciples legal opinions, istihsn is based on thatwhich is most suitable for people by abandoning hardship for ease,which is the basic principle of religion (1989: 10:145).

While Ab Hanfas actual views on these legal devices are difficult todiscern on their own since most of his views have been transmitted to usby his disciples and commentators, certain legal judgments he made havebeen widely preserved as a testament to his general sense of flexibility andtendency to privilege the spirit of the law at the expense of the letter if sit-uations so demanded. Turkish modernist theologians expand on the the-oretical implications of these legal decisions to make a broader case forIslamic reform. They point out that a number of Ab Hanfas legal pre-cepts and decisions imply a distinction between the spirit and the applica-tion of religious law, meaning that the practical application of the law canbe adjusted to better reflect its spirit.

Some of the most famous examples that reflect this principle are AbHanfas legal opinions on the permissibility of the use of non-Arabic lan-guages in a ritual setting. While, again, the exact nature of his rulingshave been subject to controversy, early collections of his legal opinions doindicate his openness to using non-Arabic languages in prayer, Qurnrecitation, and the adhn (call to prayer). Ab Hanfa is famous for de-claring that believers may recite the Qurn in Persian, whether or notthey are able to do so in Arabic (Sarakhs 1989: 1: 37, 234; Tibawi 1962: 7;Wilson 2009: 420421). This view was eventually abandoned by his disci-ples, however. Ab Hanfa also declared that it was permissible to sayAllahu Akbar (takbr) in Persian, and that it was permissible to pro-nounce the call to prayer in Persian. He explained that both of these deci-sions are based on the fact that the meaning of these words is what ismost important; if one understands the meaning of the takbr or the call




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to prayer in Persian, then their purpose has been fulfilled (Sarakhs 1989:1: 3637). As A. L. Tibawi points out, these rulings imply that AbHanfa drew a distinction between the meaning of the text of the Qurn(and other sacred textual formulations) and their outward expression(1962: 8). This ruling seems very much in harmony with the generalpicture of Ab Hanfa as an Islamic thinker who took seriously thedemands of local context when deciding how best to make manifest theabiding truths of Islam in shifting social circumstances.

This particular ruling by Ab Hanfa is important because it illus-trates the intellectual method for which he is famous and therefore hasbeen used by a number of exponents of the Ankara Paradigm as anexample of Shara flexibility, and ultimately, reform. zcan points toAb Hanfas famous declarations on the permissibility of prayer in anon-Arabic language as evidence for the Hanaf traditions ability toadapt the interpretation of Islam to local needs and thereby help preserveTurkic cultural distinctiveness in the face of Arab cultural hegemony(2003: 287). According to zcan, Ab Hanfas religious thought ingeneral was born of a culturally pluralistic environment, and in light ofthese conditions, Ab Hanfa worked to outline an understanding ofIslam that recognized the dignity and particularity of non-Arab culturesin the Islamic world:

Because nations who were new Muslims were also of different cultures,their needs also differed, and the application of revelation could notalways resolve these needs. In addition, Iraq, which was Ab Hanfascultural environment, since time immemorial had seen the developmentof knowledge and philosophy; it existed as a cultural center for variousreligious affiliations. He applied analogy (kiyas) and independent rea-soning (ictihad) as the sole method in reconciling ancient cultures with anew religion. (2003: 286)

According to zcan, the Hanaf tradition of thought, which is based onAb Hanfas insights, argues that religion does not possess an unchang-ing structure with respect to its functional dimension. This means thatthe reinterpretations of religions social dimension, and the developmentof a new understanding of religion according to the social and individualneeds of the age, are always possible (2007: 138). The recognition of afunctional (ilevsel) element in religion is a crucial aspect of zcanstheory of religion, as it denotes the dimension of religion that is subject tocontinual reformation. This is, according to zcan, the implication ofAb Hanfas distinction between meaning and its expression, betweenthe spirit and the letter of the law. In addition, it is the function of human




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reason (akl) to determine the boundary between the essence of religioustruth and the container which carries it, which is thus liable to reform inorder to better express its contents (zcan 2003: 286). This distinctionbetween the essence of religious truth and the changeable elements thatencase it is analogous to a distinction between the religious and thesecular, i.e., a distinction between that which refers to the divine andeternal and that which refers to the social and contingent (and is thusliable to continuous change). zcan and the Ankara Paradigm morebroadly are doing the kinds of processes of negotiation of the boundariesbetween the religious and the secular that Asad and Mahmood suggestare central to the definition of either.

A number of other Turkish modernist theologians that follow theAnkara Paradigm make a similar argument about Ab Hanfa and his in-terpretation of Islam. Much earlier, zmirli cited Ab Hanfas rulings onprayer in a foreign language as proof of his respect for local conditionsand individual needs (1943: 1025). As discussed above, Yrkan also de-scribed Ab Hanfa in similar terms. zmirli also argued that AbHanfas allowing the translation of the Qurn indicated that he was thefirst Muslim thinker to identify the Qurn with its meaning, not with thelanguage in which it is expressed (1943: 1024). Snmez Kutlu, currently aprofessor at the Ankara University Faculty of Divinity where he also re-ceived his doctorate, has recently argued that, when compared with otherIslamic traditions of thought, Hanafism possesses a particularly stronghumanist component in that it ascribes greater importance to thehuman being and human values (Kutlu 2011: 91). According to Kutlu,Ab Hanfas respect for the use of individual reason played a major rolein the schools assistance in the spread of Islam among various non-Arabpeoples (2011: 9697). Ali Bardakolu, a former president of religiousaffairs whose doctoral advisor was a doctoral graduate of the Ankarafaculty, describes Ab Hanfa in very similar terms. He feels that AbHanfas approach to Islam (which is notable for its respect for localcustom, its orientation toward the public and individual good, its respectfor freedom and humanity, and its general sense of rationalism) is verywell suited to helping modern Muslim thinkers find answers to pressingcontemporary problems (Bardakolu 2010: 100). Sargn argues that theHanaf tradition, as exemplified in its use of istihsn, views religiousissues pragmatically and humanely (Sargn 2005: 427). Like many othersquoted above, he also emphasizes that the Hanaf school, more thanother Islamic schools of thought, takes into account cultural specificityand the needs of local peoples, and in doing so takes a more pragmatic( pragmatik) and practical ( pratik) approach to its interpretation ofIslam (Sargn 2005: 425).




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Having identified a distinction in Ab Hanfas thought between thespirit of the law and its application, zcan finds further theoretical elabo-ration of this principle in certain theological treatises attributed to AbHanfa.12 Ab Hanfa is reputed to have argued in the text Kitb al-limwa al-Mutaallim that while the religion that the Prophets brought was allone, the religious laws that they brought were many [and] varied (AbHanfa 2001: 14). To support this view, Ab Hanfa reportedly cites selec-tions from the Qurn such as, To each among you have we prescribed alaw [shira, having the same root as the term Shara] and an open way. IfAllah had so willed, He would have made you a single people (fromSrat al-Mida, 48) and no change (let there be) in the work (wrought)by Allah: that is the standard Religion [dn]: but most among mankindunderstand not (from Srat al-Rm, 30).13 zcan analyzes the notion oferiat (Shara) and Din (religion), concluding that the latter term signi-fies what is eternally true in Islam (the notion of tawhd) and that theformer is the complex of Islamic belief and practice, the totality of theway of Islam that is designed to lead the human being in apprehendingand following the implications of the truth of din. True and abiding reli-gion (din) is composed of truths that are universally accessible to reason,namely the doctrine of the existence of the One True God; this truthcannot be subject to historical change or abrogation due to social circum-stances, which it completely transcends (zcan 1999: 47). This is theeternal essence of Islam.

zcan goes on to argue that Islam does, however, possess within itselfa theoretical framework to distinguish between the elements that refer tothe eternal truth of tawhd and those that refer to social conditions thatno longer hold. This theoretical framework is provided by the HanafDn-Shara distinction discussed above. Incorporating the AnkaraParadigms sociological and humanistic elements into an interpretationof this ancient Hanaf terminological distinction, zcan argues that thereason that Sharas are different across time is that they change accordingto social and cultural conditions (zcan 1999: 24; see also Kutlu 2003: 21,2009, 2011: 93; Sargn 2005: 427). Therefore, according to this argument,the Shara actually possesses both eternal and contingent components;the latter are precisely the dimension of religion mentioned above that arenecessarily subject to reinterpretation. Thus, though the Shara brought

12Joseph Schacht (1964) demonstrated that the Kitb al-lim wa al-Mutaallim attributed to AbHanfa was probably written by Hanaf scholars a generation after his death. It was, however, taken asan authentic work of Ab Hanfa by later Hanafs and does seem to reflect a systematizeddevelopment of Ab Hanfas own doctrines.

13All quotes from the Qurn are from Yusuf Ali (2005).




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by Muhammad cannot be nullified or abrogated, it does possesses histori-cal accretions that are not reflective of its divine essence (zcan 1999:68). The humanly (beeri) level of the Shara is the product of historicalaccumulative processes that may or may not have relevance to the needsof human beings today, as these processes were originally developed todeliver the message of tawhd to people living in times very different fromour own (zcan 1999: 33, 71). As zcan puts it, The Sharas humanlyaspect, meaning the understanding, interpretation, etc. . . . of revelation,is suitable to be dependent on change according to the needs of everyperiod and every age. What is important is that Shara continually bemaintained in a state befitting its basic goal, which is to be a road thatbrings one to tawhid (1999: 72; emphasis in the original). This is in factSharas only goal according to zcan (1999: 72). This means that con-crete change can and must occur within the traditional complex ofShara (1999: 92).

Thus, the Islamic Shara has within itself a mechanism for distin-guishing the divine and humanly elements that exist in its current form.Once this determination has been made, humanly elements that nolonger apply in the Shara can be abolished. zcan points to instances ofa religious ruling that was produced by virtue of its connection to a par-ticular time and particular situation; once that situation and time change,its time has expired, and a new one is brought in its place . . . [therefore]just as abrogation (nesh) can occur among Sharas, it can also occurwithin the same Shara (1999: 66). Kutlu makes a similar argument, ex-plaining that this is the reasoning behind the abolition of certain Sharaprovisions that do not exist in modern Islamic practice, such as the medi-eval stipulation that the hand of the thief be amputated (2009: 8).

It is important to note here that Kutlu also cites certain key passagesin Mturds Quranic hermeneutics that bolster the wider Hanaf distinc-tion between the spirit of the law and its application (and the essence ofreligion and its expression) that has been at issue here. In particular,Kutlu points to Mturds citation of a famous report where the CaliphUmar departed from Prophetic practice and instituted a new ruling onthe grounds that the relevant social conditions had changed.14 Mturdexplains that this precedent establishes the permissibility of abrogating[a ruling] through independent reasoning [ijtihd] due to the disappear-ance of the reason on the basis of which [the ruling] originally existed

14According to the report, the Prophet used to give tribute payments to certain Arab tribes toreconcile them to Islam, but Umar reasoned that he no longer needed to do so because Islam hadover time become strong among them and therefore the original conditions that inspired theProphets policy no longer existed (Shafiq 1984: 29).




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(Mturd 2006: 6: 392; Kutlu 2009: 24). Kutlus and zcans argumentssuggest that this reasoning could easily be extended to apply to a numberof other religious rulings that no longer exist in Turkish or modernIslamic practice. Thus, the abolition of Shara criminal punishments byTurkish nationalists in the 1920s can be seen according to the AnkaraParadigm as not an infringement on Sunn Islam, but in fact a logicalexpression of it.

zcan emphasizes that it is the task of Muslim scholars of each gener-ation to apply their own reason and their knowledge of Islamic principlesto distinguish between the elements within Islamic practice that must bepreserved and those that must be discarded. The Shara in zcans con-ception is thus a structure that requires constant human maintenanceand intervention in order for it to be able to actualize its intendedpurpose, the manifestation of the principle of divine oneness in humanrelations: It is the duty of the scholars of every historical period toprovide answers to the needs of the time and to implement this change(zcan 1999: 32). Each generation must rely on itself for this duty, andcannot be content with the interpretations of scholars who lived in othertimes and places: Consequently, no historical period possesses the rightto establish rules that cannot be exceeded by those that come after it(zcan 1999: 32).

THE TURKISH UNDERSTANDING OF RELIGION(AND ITS CRITICS)

The realist and pragmatic recognition that religion is a fundamentallyhuman endeavor, and as such possesses elements that are liable to con-tinuous modification, is the essence of what zcan calls The TurkishUnderstanding of Religion (Trk Din Anlay). He and other contem-porary proponents of the Ankara Paradigm develop the argument thatthe Turkish nation possesses an Islamic heritage unique to itself thatis well suited to modernization. zcan and many others identify thisfeature of Turkish Islam as its deep roots in Hanafism, which, as wehave discussed in detail above, is identified by these theologians with ahumanist, realistic, and even reformist vision of Sunn Islam.

Based on his study of these Hanaf historical influences, zcan arguesthat the Turkish understanding of religion is properly characterizedas realist and individual-centered [ fert-merkezli] (2003: 289; 291).According to zcan, With respect to religious issues, Mturd [and theHanaf tradition which he systematized] did not behave like an ideologuebeholden to an imaginary ideal that is unrelated to reality (2003: 289).Instead, in zcans view, the Hanaf school continually looked for ways to




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best actualize the essence of Islamic principles by adapting its means ofdelivery to actual social needs. This orientation, according to zcan andothers, has remained a key feature of Turkish Islamic religious thinkingever since. Sargn, for instance, argues that among the key features ofTurkish Islam (Trk Mslmanl)15 are the centrality of the humanbeing and a notion of functional reasoning that allows it to respondwith reforms when social changes demand it (Sargn 2005: 428429).Kutlu makes a similar argument when he refers to Hanafism as a legalschool as the practical dimension of Turkish religiosity and to the theo-logical dimensions of Hanafism as outlined by Mturd as the belief di-mension of the Turkish conception of Islam (Kutlu 2011).

To sum up, the Ankara Paradigms essential argument, especially as ithas been elaborated by contemporary Turkish Islamic modernists, maybe phrased in this way: religion exists to bring fulfillment to humanbeings. It therefore must be understood with respect to its impact onhuman individuals and the societies in which they live. Ab Hanfa andthe Islamic intellectual tradition that he founded understood this betterthan any other Islamic thought tradition. The Turkish nation has histori-cally formed its understanding of Islam based on this school. Thus, theTurkish understanding of Islam is both the most accurate understandingof religion in general and Islam in particular. Turkish Islamic modernismand reformism therefore reflects the essence of true Islam.

The significance of this argument for the practice of Islam in Turkeyis summarized in zcans striking quote: Todays true will be tomor-rows false. Every generation is held accountable for the period duringwhich it lives (2007: 139). As is well known, Shara law was abolished inTurkey in the 1920s and replaced by a secular civil code. Therefore, whenzcan and other modernist intellectuals discuss Islamic reform, theyclearly do not intend the reformation of an existing system of Islamic law,nor the reinstatement of religious law in the Turkish penal code. Their ar-gument for reform in Shara is designed to demonstrate that Islam as areligion is subject to continual reinterpretation, such as the reinterpreta-tion that abolished Shara punishments in the Turkish Republic. Theirargument is meant to maintain religious interpretation as a right of theindividual believer, who in their view has the God-given duty to continu-ally reform and rethink the practice of his or her faith based on existingcircumstances. Their argument is directed against a traditionalist ap-proach to religion practiced by conservative Turkish Muslims (such as

15Literally, the Turkish practice of Islam or the Turkish way of being a Muslim. Turkishdistinguishes between Islam itself (slam) and the act of practicing it or living it out in the world bybeing a Muslim (Mslmanlk).




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conservative Sufi groups or political Islamists) that takes interpretive au-thority away from the individual believer and turns it over to charismaticor authoritarian leaders (Yrkan 1993 [1957]: 59, 216; zcan 2007: 134;Kutlu 2009: 8).

The current iterations of the Ankara Paradigm can therefore be seenas adopting a defensive posture against the influence of conservativeIslamic social movements in Turkey, whose influence has grown signifi-cantly in the past two decades. Contemporary Turkish Islamic modern-ists argue that an individualized approach to religious interpretation, onethat allows the individual believer to interpret Islam for herself based onher own situation, is truly reflective of the Turkish Islamic heritage, andtherefore is the most authentically Turkish approach to Islam. The cor-ollary of this argument is the contention that religious conservatism, ofthe kind seen in some conservative Islamic social movements in Turkeyand in Turkish political Islamism, is actually foreign to the true spirit ofTurkish Islam and therefore has no place in Turkish society. The contem-porary exponents of the Ankara Paradigm propose that religious conser-vatism is not only un-Islamic, but it is also un-Turkish. In otherwords, the theoretical move of defining Islamic modernism as part ofTurkish national culture constitutes an argument for the strengthening ofmodernist Islam in Turkish society. It is an argument for the religious le-gitimacy of secular law and secular reform. This is an important interven-tion in Turkish cultural debate today, when the role of Islam in publicand private life is hotly debated in all sectors of Turkish society. Whatthese thinkers propose is that Muslims in Turkey must remain free to in-terpret Islam for themselves on an individual level. In their view, the in-terpretation of Islam must remain the right of the individual believer, notthe ideological agenda of political Islamism or conservative social politics.

The Ankara Paradigm is certainly not without its critics, however.These critics charge that this theological paradigm suffers from a strongnationalistic bias that impedes legitimate scholarship on the actual histor-ical relationship between Islam and the Turkic peoples that adopted it.Their critiques are worth mentioning here in brief because they exposesome of the interesting ideological tensions in Turkish modernist Islamicthought in general and in the Ankara Paradigm in particular. HayrettinKaraman, one of the most prominent Muslim intellectuals in Turkey anda former founding member of the Islamic law section of the MarmaraUniversity Faculty of Divinity, is notable for his critique of certain strainsof Islamic reformism, doctrinaire secularism, and efforts to combine thetwo in particular. Karaman argues, for instance, that the ideology of reli-gious reform is tied to an Enlightenment-modernist political ideologythat seeks to remove religion from the social sphere. He sees Islamic




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modernist currents of thought as inspired by West European modes ofideological hegemonies, particularly the aggressive form of secularreform enacted by the early Kemalist regime. In his view, reformed ormodernized religion is simply the term used by (Kemalist) secularistelites to refer to religious practices that have been brought to heel or sub-sumed under the control of secularist efforts to remove religion fromsocial policy (Karaman 2005 [1997a]: 79).16 Furthermore, in his view, na-tional identity should not be subordinated to, or equated with, religiousidentity. Muslims are Muslims first and citizens or ethnic groups second;in his view, nationalism ceases to be legitimate the minute it divides theunity of the worldwide Islamic community, the umma (Karaman 2005[1997a]: 77). This is precisely what the ideology of Turkish Islamamounts to, in his view (Karaman 2005 [1997b]). For Karaman, then, thetheoretical bases of the Ankara Paradigm have more to do with WestEuropean and Kemalist hegemonic ideologies than they do with SunnIslam.

Another professor from (and doctoral graduate of) the faculty ofdivinity at Marmara University, Fatih M. eker, argues that the entirenotion of Turkish Islam is the product of a desire to draft Islamicsources of legitimacy into the Kemalist modernization project (2010: 48).In his view, this reformist ideology does not in fact have deep historicalroots as its adherents claim, but is instead essentially a product of theTurkish Republican nationalist period of political reformism (eker 2010:77). Like Karaman, eker sees the ideological bases of the AnkaraParadigm as not authentically Islamic, but instead elements of a politicalideology derived from Kemalist and West European models of secularisthegemony. Sleyman Uluda, one of the most prominent scholars ofSufism in Turkey and currently a professor at the divinity faculty atUluda University in Bursa, mounted an extremely pointed critique ofzzet Sargns work in his response to the latters presentation at a schol-arly symposium devoted to Ab Hanfa in Bursa in 2005. Uluda attacksthe heavily idealized and mythologized version of Ab Hanfa pre-sented by Sargn and others (2005: 431432). Uluda points out that eachgeneration interprets Ab Hanfa for its own purposes, and that this isnot necessarily harmful, so long as it is kept in mind that Ab Hanfa

16It should be noted, however, that Karaman has been vocally supportive of reform in Islamic lawthrough a new process of ijtihd; he is at the same time vocally critical of the aggressive secularizationpolicies of the Turkish state, and is often associated with conservative Islamic support for patriarchalfamily roles. For a comprehensive characterization in English of the thought of this importantintellectual voice in twentieth-century Turkey, see entrk (2009).




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cannot be simply reduced to our ideological utilizations of him (2005:432).

On the issue of Turkish Islam, Uluda is even more severe, pointingout that no one who claims to know what this is ever actually defines theword Turk. Furthermore, in his view, this ideology overlooks the factthat there exist numerous Turkish communities in Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan,and elsewhere that are Shi (Uluda 2005: 433). He implies that thenotion of Turkish Islam overlooks the actual social complexity of therelationship of Turkic peoples with Islam throughout history and is inthe end more ideological than academic (Uluda 2005: 433). Uluda, likeKaraman, instead emphasizes that Islam must be thought of as a singleunified tradition across time and place, whatever local color or style itmay acquire (Uluda 2005: 434). It should be pointed out, however, thatif the followers of the Ankara Paradigm utilize an essentialized concept ofTurkish national culture, the critics of this paradigm seem to respondwith an essentialized notion of unitary Islam.

As a final note to the controversy, it is worthwhile to point out that anumber of other Turkish academics have been making an attempt toelaborate modernist Islamic intellectual projects on the basis of Hanafthought without referencing a concept of Turkish nationhood. These pro-jects represent another possible direction in the theological uses of AbHanfa in Turkey. These projects focus on the potential universalism inAb Hanfas approach to religion (Yeilyurt 2004). Mehmet Zeki can, aprofessor in the Atatrk University Faculty of Divinity in Erzurum,argues that Ab Hanfas realistic application of religious law and his will-ingness to form individual opinions when necessary suggests a usefulframework for Sunn thought in general that could protect against sectari-anism and narrow-mindedness (can 2004). The wide-ranging work ofRecep entrk is also important in this respect. entrk, a facultymember and current director of the Alliance of Civilizations Institute atFatih Sultan Mehmet Vakf University in Istanbul, has argued that a uni-versal conception of human rights equivalent to the Western secularnotion of universal human rights can be elaborated on the bases ofHanaf legal thought (entrk 2005, 2006).

BY WAYOF CONCLUSION: ISLAMIC MODERNISM AS ANEGOTIATION OF CONCEPTUAL BOUNDARIES

Asad and Mahmoods theoretical insights into the contested nature ofthe notions of the secular and the religious are important to this analysisof modernist Islamic thought in the Republic of Turkey because theyoffer a new way of analyzing modernist Islamic thought in general. Asad




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and Mahmoods key point, that modern notions of the secular and the re-ligious are historically produced and politically contested, suggests thatmodern religious thinkers should not be classified with respect to whichside of the supposed religious/secular divide they stand on, but insteadunderstood with respect to how they manipulate these categories anddraw the boundary between them. If the definitions of, and the boundar-ies between, the secular and the religious are constantly being negotiatedby individuals and institutions, then an understanding of this processsuggests a very fruitful way to approach contemporary religious thoughtin the modern Muslim world. Religious conservatives are not, then, thosethinkers that remain faithful to a tradition while religious modernistsare those willing to depart from it. Instead, each engages in their ownboundary-drawing between the religious and the secular by using the dis-courses of traditional texts to authorize the boundaries that they devise.

The use of medieval traditional texts throughout the twentiethcentury by modernist Turkish Islamic thinkers demonstrates this point.Their work is best understood from this perspective, instead of being seenas somewhat cynical attempts to manipulate Sunn tradition to fitKemalist secularism. Applying the theoretical insights offered by Asadand Mahmood reveals the linkages between the modern and the tradi-tional in their work, as they attempt to demarcate a secular sphere thatadmits of change with time and a properly religious one that does not.The Ankara Paradigm effectively draws the boundary between the reli-gious and the secular as the boundary between the unchangeable and thechangeable, between the eternally valid and the historically contingent.It then argues that the latter, the changeable, can even be found withinreligion itself, thus rendering some aspects of religion subject to reform,i.e., those that relate to the secular sphere of social relationships and stateadministration.

While most Turkish Islamic modernist thinkers do not elaborate anIslamic theoretical justifications for Kemalist laicism (laiklik) specifically,Yusuf Ziya Yrkan and others did elaborate a defense of the notion ofthe secular in general, arguing that there is a natural division between thereligious (dini) and the worldly (dnyevi) and that state and public ad-ministration should fall under the latter (1993 [1957]: 154156). Thisnotion of the secular is certainly a key assumption of the works of thesethinkers. What their theoretical (or even theological) move amounts to isnot a total rejection of religious authority in favor of the secular state or atotal subsuming of religious autho

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