Between Islam And The State: The Politics Of Engagement

Book Summary

"The need to understand Islam is obvious. Berna Turam's elegant and incisive ethnography of Turkey's Gulenist movement makes a major contribution in showing tension and diversity within the Islamic world."--John A. Hall, McGill University "In dealing with Islam, books have seemed incapable of going beyond terrorism, jihad, and al-Qaeda. But, Berna Turam ably demonstrates that Islam has multiple faces and diverse ways of dealing with the existing secular world. For anyone who wants to understand the evolving role of Islam in the Middle East and beyond, Between Islam and the State is a must read."--Joel Migdal, University of Washington Throughout the Middle East, the clash between Islamic forces and authoritarian states has undermined many democratization efforts. But in Turkey, Islamic actors--from the Gulen movement to the pro-Islamist Justice and Development Party--have been able to negotiate the terms of secular liberal democracy. This book explores the socio-political conditions and cultural venues in which Islamic movements cease to confront and start to cooperate with secular states. Though both the Gulen and JP have ambivalent attitudes toward individual freedoms and various aspects of civil society, their continuing engagements with the state have encouraged democracy in Turkey. As they contest issues of education and morality but cooperate in ethnic and gender politics, they redraw the boundaries between public sites and private lives. Showing opportunities for engagement between Islam and the state, from Turkey to Kazakhstan to the United States, "Between Islam and the State" illustrates a successful means of negotiating between religion and politics.

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