Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 2015 The Dialectics of Secularism and Revivalism in Turkey: The Case of Said Nursi Zubeyir Nisanci Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the Sociology Commons Recommended Citation Nisanci, Zubeyir, "The Dialectics of Secularism and Revivalism in Turkey: The Case of Said Nursi" (2015). Dissertations. 1482. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/1482 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 2015 Zubeyir Nisanci LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO THE DIALECTICS OF SECULARISM AND REVIVALISM IN TURKEY: THE CASE OF SAID NURSI A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY PROGRAM IN SOCIOLOGY BY ZUBEYIR NISANCI CHICAGO, ILLINOIS MAY 2015 Copyright by Zubeyir Nisanci, 2015 All rights reserved. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am deeply grateful to Dr. Rhys H. Williams who chaired this dissertation project. His theoretical and methodological suggestions and advice guided me in formulating and writing this dissertation. It is because of his guidance that this study proved to be a very fruitful academic research and theoretical learning experience for myself. My gratitude also goes to the other members of the committee, Drs. Michael Agliardo, Laureen Langman and Marcia Hermansen for their suggestions and advice. I should also mention other faculty members from the department of sociology at Loyola University Chicago who were not in the committee. I am thankful to Drs. Marilyn Krogh, Judith Wittner and Anne Figert for the support and guidance they provided me during my studies at Loyola University Chicago. I would like thank my dearest parents İbrahim and Ayşe Nişancı who have loved and cared for me and given me all that they can since the earliest days of my life. I am thankful to God for making them my parents. I also thank my late grandmother Mediha Nişancı who adorned my childhood with love and compassion. My older brother and my first mentor Şükrü Nişancı who planted in my mind the seeds of analytical thinking deserves gratitude as well. It was him who handed me the first book I read in my life and it was again him who introduced me to sociology and history. iii I cannot adequately thank my beloved wife and friend Aslıhan for the emotional and intellectual support she gave me especially during the writing of this dissertation. Our children Mediha and İbrahim have also been sources of joy and inspiration for me. I wrote the entire dissertation at home and I excelled in making maneuverable paper planes for them from the print outs of this work. Thusly, the writing of the dissertation became a connecting point for us rather than disconnecting us. Last but not least, my thanks go out to my friend and neighbor Muhammed Ali Asil who helped me in printing and submitting the finalized hardcopies of this dissertation to the graduate school as I was overseas during this process. iv To my family TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ................................................................................................. iii LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................... ix LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................................ xi Abbreviations Used in Bibliographic Citations .............................................................. xi ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... xiii CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................1 Ontology, Moral Philosophy and Political Philosophy in the Sociological Context ....... 5 Significance of the Study ............................................................................................... 16 Methods and Content Outline ........................................................................................ 29 Data ............................................................................................................................. 32 Content Outline ........................................................................................................... 34 CHAPTER II: A CRITICAL REVIEW OF SECULARIZATION DEBATES ................41 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 41 The Secularization Theory: The Same Old Story or the Same Old Question? .............. 44 The Rational Choice Theory: A Reductionist Fallacy? ................................................. 61 Alternative Perspectives: Human Agency and Secularization as a Socially Constructed Meaning System ..................................................................................... 75 CHAPTER III: THE DEVELOPMENT AND TRANSFORMATION OF SECULARISM IN TURKEY .......................................................................................103 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 103 Reforming the Army, Saving the Empire: The First Wave of Modernization Reforms (1779-1839) ................................................................................................ 107 Reforms in the Tanzimat Era: Centralization and the Rise of the New Bureaucracy .............................................................................................................. 115 Reactions to the First Wave of Reforms (1779-1839) and the Tanzimat (1839-1876)............................................................................................................ 121 Did Secularization Start During the First Wave of Reforms and the Tanzimat? ...... 128 Between the Two Worlds: The Young Ottomans and Westernization ........................ 140 Declaration of the First Constitution (1876) ............................................................. 169 Secularism on the Rise: The Young Turks and the Committee of Union and Progress ..................................................................................................................... 172 The Committee of Union and Progress, and Nationalism ........................................ 178 The Young Turk Revolution of 1908 and the Counterrevolution of 1909 ............... 193 Science and Secularization in the Late Ottoman Society ......................................... 201 The Turkish Republic: Top-down Secularization ........................................................ 244 The Turkish War of Independence and the Rise of Mustafa Kemal ......................... 244 vi Ideological Backgrounds of Mustafa Kemal ............................................................ 252 Establishment of the Turkish Republic: Secularism as a State Ideology.................. 259 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 268 CHAPTER IV: THE DEVELOPMENT AND TRANSFORMATION OF SAID NURSI’S REVIVALIST DISCOURSE .......................................................................282 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 282 The Reformist Discourse of Said Nursi Until 1910 ..................................................... 284 Back in the East: Conversations with the Kurdish Tribesmen and the Sermon in Damascus ........................................................................................ 297 Transition from Reformist Discourse to Religious Renewal: Publication of Muhakemat ............................................................................................................. 298 Qur’an as the Absolute Source of Guidance: Publication of İşarat-ul icaz .............. 304 Said Nursi’s Revivalist Discourse after the Establishment of the Turkish Republic .................................................................................................................... 310 The Elementary Dialectics of Religious vs. Secularist Moral Philosophy and Ontology in Said Nursi’s Revivalist Writings ....................................................... 311 Religious Responses to the Secularist Conception of Human Perfectibility ............ 341 God or Nature?: Responses to the Ontological Foundations of Secularism ............. 350 Why Not Political Struggle? ..................................................................................... 356 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 358 CHAPTER V: THE NUR MOVEMENT’S MOBILIZATION STRATEGIES .............364 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 364 The State, Civil Society, Religion and Religious Movements in the Recent History of Turkey ...................................................................................................... 365 The Special Mission of the Nur Movement: ‘Jihad