Turkey, The Islamic Revival Movement Research

The Republic of Turkey stretches across the Eurasia and plays an important historical role in linking up the East and West civilization. It is the most democratized and secularized countries of all the Muslim countries in the Middle East. With Islamic resurgence in world, Islamic movement in Turkey tends to spring up, so this dissertation focuses on the studies of Turkish Islamic revival movement. Through discussing the evolution of it in the process of modernization, the author aims to explore the essence of Islamic revival movement. This dissertation is divided into three chapters besides the introduction and conclusion.Chapter 1 mainly analyzes the historic base of Turkish Islamic revival movement. From expounding the vicissitude of political and secular system and the relationship of state and religion in the Ottoman Empire, the author concludes that Islam has a profound and lasting foundation in Turkey. Kemal reforms carried out from above to below caused great change in the socio-economic field, which provide material safeguard for Islamic revival movement. The construction of national sovereignty and the start of modernization put the social basis for Turkish Islamic resurgence. In some sense, we can say that Kemal reforms have bred the germination of Islamic revival movement in Turkey. Turkey inherited and continued the coexisting of official and folk Islam in Ottoman Empire. When Kemalists government controlled orthodox Islamists, the Sufism in illegal station developed secretly. After the World War II, Islam becomes active in all fields, which is the prelude of Islamic revival movement.Chapter 2 mainly discusses the rising of Turkish Islamic revival movement. After the start of multi-party democratic system, Islam firstly spring up in education, media and intellectuals territories, which strengthens mass's Islamic consciousness. So some Sufi orders become active and take part in economic, cultural and even political cause. New Sufism movement such as Nurcu Movement and Gtilen Movement also develop very quickly. They pay more attention to study such subjects as relation between religion and science, modern education ideas, Sufism, inter-religion dialogue, and modernization style, and then put these thoughts into practice through education and media activities. This stands for a new direction of Islamic revival movement. As religious minority, Alevis and Islamic terrorism organizations are also the indispensable parts of Turkish Islamic revival movement. Alevis become flourishing in cultural aspect and take active part in party's action. So their marginal status begins to change gradually. Islamic terrorism organizations emerge in the situation where the struggle of ideology is fierce, and with the advancing of modernization, they will lose their existing space in the future.Chapter 3 mainly probes into the climax of Turkish Islamic Revival Movement. Islamic parties represented by Welfare Party take part in democratic election and contend for power, which impetus Islamic revival movement to tend to upsurge. Though the Virtue Party and the Justice and Development Party inherit some thoughts of welfare Party, in the context of globalization, they propose new political platforms such as pluralism, democracy and human rights. This suggests that they have abandoned classical political program and objects in order to gain more popular support, to protect national interest and to spur the progress of modernization. So in the era of globalization, Turkish Islamic revival movement has alienated their original projects. The government controled by Islamic parties don't change political guiding principles and the direction of Turkish modernization, so Islamic revival movement doesn't break through Turkish existing political structure.The conclusion sums up the above three chapters: all kinds of factors join in together and cause the appearance of Islamic movement which undergoes the transformation from cultural territory to political field and from conservatism to pragmatism. Islamic revival is the logic result of the lenient political environment in Turkey, which mobilizes more and more common people to participate in politics and express their requests in official territory. So it makes Turkish multi-party system be more perfect and leads to be consistent of official will and popular will. Turkish Islamic resurgence is decided by special democratic environment and stands for the rise of popular politics, which is not only the outcome of democratization, but also promotes the perfect of democratic system. Through contrasting the Islamic revival movement of different Muslim countries in the Middle East from the macroscopic angle, the author concludes that the essence of modern Islamic revival movement is to use Islam as a tool to deny those outdate political systems, and even to make common people participate in political decision and share more political rights. Islamic revival movement also means that Islamic groups explore multi-dimensional modernization pattern and construct native and national modernization style. In this sense, we can say that Islamic revival movement is not the pitfall or difficult problem of modernization, but the bond of classical society and modern society.