Only Politics

The non-Islamic world has of late been familiar to the militant face of Islam but has Islam survived for over thousand years by wielding the sword alone? The world has also seen the soft countenance of Islam in the Sufi saints revered by people from all faiths. The question that now arises among the Muslims as well as the non-Muslims is then what is the true face of this world religion. This riddle might soon be solved by the Islamic scholars of Turkey who are engaged in rewriting the basic tenets of Islam. Turkey under the leadership of the Islamic government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is striving to establish 21st century Islamic governance for the country based on Sharia Laws. Does this mean that the secular constitution of Turkey established by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923 after uprooting the Ottoman Turk rule will be upstaged by Turkey’s return to Islam? Secular Turkey has always despised anything Islamic, with ironically secularism attaining a militant form in the country. Such has been the disdainful attitude of secularists towards Islamic conservatism that women in headscarves were banned from entering the premises of Universities in Turkey. Decades of aloofness of the secular, upper-class urban Turks has caused rise in resentment among the adherents of the Ottoman faith. In due course of time, the Muslims of the country taking advantage of the secular education system of the country have managed to occupy positions of prominence in the country with an Islamic party currently being on the helm of the political affairs in the country. Turkey, keen to join the European Union, will not of course tread the path of ultra-Islamic beliefs. Instead, it is set to adapt an Islam compatible with the current age and time. In fact, Turkey’s aim of returning to Modern Islam is paying dividends in the form of abolition of the death penalty, campaign against honour killings and training and appointment of several hundred women as imams. A prominent problem that Turkey faces not unknown to the western defenders of democracy is the presence of a strong military in Turkey who consider themselves as the guardians of the secular tradition established by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. It has clashed with Erdogan’s government in recent years and even threatened to intervene over the presidential election last year. A clash between a ‘secular’ military and an Islamic democratic government cannot be ruled out if the current government of the country succeeds in establishing Sharia laws in Ottoman Turk land.