Search

Begin New Search Topic Islam Political Geography Turkey

61. Turkey And The Middle East: Ambitions And Constraints

Publication Date:
04-2010
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
International Crisis Group
Abstract:
Turkey is launching initiative after ambitious initiative aimed at stabilising the Middle East. Building on the successes of its normalisation with Syria and Iraq, it is facilitating efforts to reduce conflicts, expanding visafree travel, ramping up trade, integrating infrastructure, forging strategic relationships and engaging in multilateral regional platforms. For some, this new activism is evidence that Turkey is turning from its traditional allies in Europe and the United States. In fact, its increased role in the Middle East is a complement to and even dependent on its ties to the West.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Islam, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, Turkey, Middle East, and Arabia

62. Force of Islam: Muslim Temporal Spacing in the German Diaspora

Author:
ilman Lanz
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
This text discusses the case of Talip, son of Turkish immigrants to Germany and a recent convert to Islam. Specifically, the text addresses Talip's reasons for a (re)conversion and the details of his embrace of Islam as the religion of his ancestors. The argument is made that processes of conversion cannot be captured through the conceptualization of different stages or phases except in retrospect. In showing this impossibility, the text further argues that every conversion needs to attach itself or revolve around a specific event that is taken as cathartic for making the move towards the new faith. Attempts that delineate commonalities in processes of conversion and that then speak of phases or stages are able to illuminate the social dimension of this phenomenon. The focus on events, proposed here, is able to much better highlight the idiosyncratic, contingent and personal dimensions of the same phenomenon.
Topic:
Islam
Political Geography:
Turkey and Germany

63. Identity and Integration among Turkish Sunni Muslims in Britain

Author:
Sevgi Çilingir
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
This article attempts to analyze various aspects of ethnic and religious identity configurations among the Turkish Sunni Muslims in Britain and to explore how such social processes influence their socio-political integration. It tries to situate the Turkish community in the context of British Muslim identity politics. Findings in this article are based on in-depth interviews on perceptions and attitudes the Turkish Sunni Muslims have and their implications in the planning of collective activities, especially in the field of education. This study reveals that although the current level of integration among the Turkish Sunni Muslims in Britain is less than expected, neither living in a non-Muslim country nor claiming to have a British identity are perceived as incompatible with Turkish and Islamic values. This paper concludes that educating Turkish youths in ethnic and religious values is a priority, as it is seen as a means to protect against assimilation, while allowing for successful integration.
Topic:
Education, Islam, and Politics
Political Geography:
Britain and Turkey

64. Role of Turkish Islamic Organizations in Belgium: The Strategies of Diyanet and Milli Görüş

Author:
Zeynep Yanaşmayan
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
Immigration of Turkish guestworkers to Western European countries in the 1960s and 1970s laid the ground for the emergence of various transnational religious organizations. This paper examines transnational organizations of Turkish origin that gained major support and membership in their host societies. Drawing upon a case study on Turks in Belgium, it shows that in the last four decades these organisations went through various transformations depending on the dynamics in their respective immigrant communities, host societies and countries of origin. This essay captures the role and selfadaptation process of Turkish Islamic organisations vis-à-vis the changing environment both in their host countries and countries of origin. It focuses on two Turkish transnational organisations in Belgium: The Islamic Federation of Belgium (IFB) and the Turkish Islamic Foundation of Belgium (TIFB). This essay concludes that political structure in the countries of origin constantly induces transnational organizations to further adopt and position themselves according to changing circumstances.
Topic:
Environment and Islam
Political Geography:
Turkey, Belgium, and Western Europe

65. What is Driving the European Debate about Turkey?

Author:
Elizabeth Shakman Hurd
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
This article explores the cultural politics of European opposition to Turkish accession to the EU. It argues that the foundations of secularism-the powerful a prioris that structure the debate in Europe regarding religion and politics-make it difficult for Europeans to cope with what is often described as an "Islamic challenge" to Europe, both internally and externally. Turkish candidacy makes these stumbling blocks explicit, as Turkey has become the symbolic carrier of domestic European angst about religion, particularly Islam, and politics. Turkish candidacy highlights unfinished business in the social fabric of the core EU members, including what it means to be secular and how religion, including but not limited to Islam, relates to European identity. These sticking points are what the debate over Turkish membership is really about, and it is for this reason that it is culturally-in addition to economically and politically-so contentious.
Topic:
Economics, Islam, and Politics
Political Geography:
Europe and Turkey

66. Islamic Literature in Contemporary Turkey from Epic to Novel

Author:
Roberta Micallef
Publication Date:
03-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
This work's title Islamic Literature in Contemporary Turkey From Epic to Novel might give some readers the impression that this book is about different genres of Islamic literature available in Turkey today. It is not. Readers familiar with Bakhtin's essay, “The Epic and the Novel: Towards a Methodology for the Study of the Novel” will be better prepared for what is in this book. Çayır investigates Islamism and the changing compositions of Islamic identities in Turkey through a study of the Islamic literary fictions of the 1980s and 1990s. He explores the political and sociological processes of identity construction in the context of Turkey in that period. Instead of opting for breadth, the author examines Islamic novels in depth by focusing on two 'salvation novels' of the 1980s, Müslüman Kadının Adı Var and Boşluk, and two 'selfreflexive novels' of the 1990s, Halkaların Ezgisi and Yağmurdan Sonra, which have canonical status in Muslim circles and because they are the prototypes for the narrative structure for each time period.
Topic:
Islam
Political Geography:
Turkey

67. President of Turkey, Abdullah Gül

Publication Date:
09-2010
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
Columbia University World Leaders Forum
Abstract:
"What Next? Turkey's Global Vision for a Prosperous Future" An address by President Abdullah Gül of Turkey followed by a question and answer session with the audience.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Islam
Political Geography:
Turkey, Middle East, and Asia

68. Pax Ottomana

Author:
Hugh Pope
Publication Date:
11-2010
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Foreign Affairs
Institution:
Council on Foreign Relations
Abstract:
Turkey's ruling party is sometimes criticized for being Islamist or ideological, but its policies remain essentially nationalist and commercially opportunistic.
Topic:
Islam
Political Geography:
Afghanistan, Europe, Turkey, and Middle East

69. Muslim Democrats in Turkey and Egypt: Participatory Politics as a Catalyst

Author:
İhsan Yılmaz
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Insight Turkey
Institution:
SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research
Abstract:
Partial and limited opening of authoritarian political systems in Turkey and Egypt created new democratic opportunities for Islamists to participate in public life. It also fostered democratic learning by permitting Islamists to compete for power and popular legitimacy. In the process of democratic opening, Islamists have had to address and represent the interests of a group much larger than their own ideological constituency. They have also had to endure repression and party closures in a semi-democratic political framework. However, the democratic learning process coupled with the establishment's constraints has paved the way for the transformation of Islamists to Muslim democrats. While the process in Turkey is almost complete, in Egypt there are still heated debates on the transformation among the Islamists. This study highlights the importance of the democratic opportunities given to Turkish Islamists and argues that if given similar opportunities, Egyptian Islamism will also transform to a post-Islamist phase.
Topic:
Islam
Political Geography:
Turkey and Egypt

70. The Growing Threat of Radical Islamic Groups in Germany

Author:
David Perl
Publication Date:
04-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
Abstract:
Germany has been increasingly forced to confront "homegrown" Islamist terrorism, the threat of radicalized converts to Islam, and the threat of non-integrated Muslim immigrants. In 2003, Iranian-backed Hizbullah was found to have identified Israeli, Jewish, and American facilities in Germany as terror targets. Which are the prominent radical Islamic groups operating in Germany? The Islamic Jihad Union (IJU), one of the most significant threats to German national security, is a Sunni terrorist organization closely associated with al-Qaeda. IJU is well known to the German public due to frequent video threats published on the Internet and on television. Hizb ut-Tahir al-Islami (HuT) is a clandestine, radical Islamist political organization that operates in 40 countries around the world including Germany, which banned the organization in 2003. Prior to its ban, HuT operated mainly in college towns in Germany, and orchestrated a terrorist attack in 2006, when two terrorists placed two suitcases containing bombs (which failed to detonate) on regional trains in Germany. The Islamic Center in Hamburg (IZH), which was under the direct guidance of Iran's Ayatollah Khameini between 1978 and 1980, is considered to be the most important Hizbullah base in Germany and is the institution most engaged in exporting the Islamic Revolution of Iran. It has branches in Berlin, Munich, Muenster, and Hannover, pointing to the ability of Hizbullah to launch attacks within Germany at any time in line with directives from the Iranian Supreme Leadership. Millî Görüş (MG), a radical Islamic group associated with Islamist parties in Turkey, is anti-Western, anti-Semitic, anti-Israeli, and opposes integration into Western society by the 2.5 million Turkish immigrants and their families in Germany. Yakup Akbay of the Fathi Mosque in Munich told Turkish television in 2007: "When Europe, as we hope, will be Islamized, the credit has to be given to the Turkish community. That's the reason for us doing the groundwork."
Topic:
Political Violence, Islam, Terrorism, and Armed Struggle
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, and Germany