Since the formation of the Republic in 1923, Friday sermons (hutbe) have been an important platform that allows the state to engage and communicate with the Turkish people. Sermon topics vary from religious and ethical issues to matters concerning family, women, health, education, business and the environment. Even if politics, in the name of secularism, has been banned from mosques and sermons, questions of how to be a good citizen and honour the Turkish nation have been of utmost importance. With an all-pervading sermon theme of social, national and political unity, Elisabeth OEzdalga explores how long-standing religious rituals are utilised and mobilised in the formation of modern political loyalties and national identities.
Rezensionen / Stimmen
Through a meticulous examination of the Friday sermons, Elisabeth OEzdalga analyses the public role of religion in Turkey - from containment by the secular state to instrumentalisation by the Islamist government. This is a most valuable contribution to our understanding of state-religion configurations in modern Turkey. * Dr. Sami Zubaida, Emeritus Professor of Politics and Sociology at Birkbeck, University of London * As this study shows, the paradox of Turkey is that it is on the one hand, the most secular state in the Islamic world, and on the other, the country in which Islam is most heavily controlled by the state. The Friday sermon, whose text is determined centrally by the Presidency of Religious Affairs in Ankara, is a key instrument for this control. In her innovative and timely study, OEzdalga shows that it is not so much the rather bland and repetitive contents of the Friday sermon that makes it influential, but the rather the fact of its performance. Attended by over half of the male population, the Friday prayer and sermon form a communal act that plays a key role in installing in the audience?"oneness and togetherness" that is the foundation stone of Turkish republican nationalism. Combining humanities and social science research, OEzdalga makes a convincing case that this symbiosis between secular nation state and religious establishment worked relatively well for over eighty years. She also notes, however, that since 2011 the Islamist regime of the Justice and Development Party has instrumentalised the Presidency of Religious Affairs to extend its authoritarian control over many aspects of social life. * Erik-Jan Zurcher, Emeritus Professor of Turkish Studies, Leiden University * Elisabeth ?zdalga here offers us a rich and original review of the DIB; rather than presenting itself as the last word on the subject, it positively invites further development. -- Fabio Salomoni, Koc University * European Journal of Turkish Studies * Pulpit, Mosque and Nation provides welcome, timely insight into the relationship between this politics of the state and the Friday sermon-unquestionably, its lessons extend far beyond Turkish mosques. -- Jeremy F. Walton, University of Rijeka * Journal of Contemporary Religion *
Sprache
Verlagsort
Zielgruppe
Für höhere Schule und Studium
Produkt-Hinweis
Broschur/Paperback
Klebebindung
Illustrationen
Maße
Höhe: 234 mm
Breite: 156 mm
Dicke: 16 mm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-1-4744-8821-1 (9781474488211)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Klassifikation
Elisabeth OEzdalga is a retired senior researcher, and before that director, of the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul. She was professor of sociology at the Middle East University in Ankara 1994-2009 and visiting chair of the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University in Ankara 2011-13. She is the editor of several anthologies, among others Late Ottoman Society (RoutledgeCurzon, 2005), Novel and Nation in the Muslim World (with Daniella Kuzmanovic) (Palgrave 2015), Muslim Preaching in the Middle East and Beyond (with Simon Stjernholm) (Edinburgh University Press, 2020), and author of 'Islamism and Nationalism as Sister Ideologies: Reflections on the Politicization of Islam in a Longue Duree Perspective,' Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 45, No. 3, pp. 407-23, May 2009.
Autor*in
Retired Professor and Senior ResearcherThe Swedish Research Institute
Introduction: Pulpit under Red Banner
The Hutbe in Historical Perspective
Early Authorized Hutbe Collections: A Homiletic Tradition under Secular State Control
The Significance of Ritual: Liturgical Turkification Contested
Preaching Brotherhood to an Unruly Nation
Diyanet in Search of Autonomy
Writing and Listening: Voices from Inside
Pulpit Under Islamist Banner
Conclusions: The Secular Order Unhinged?
Appendix I: Excerpts in original Turkish from Ahmet Hamdi Akseki's 1927/28 hutbe collection
Appendix II: Hutbe topics in Turkish and English from Ahmet Hamdi Akseki's 1936/37 hutbe collection
Appendix III: Turkish originals of hutbes selected from Diyanet Gazetesi 1971-79
Appendix IV: Economic indicators and Diyanet statistics in tables.
Bibliography
