Islam and Modernity in Turkey: Power, Tradition and Historicity in the European Provinces of the Muslim World Author(s):

Brian Silverstein Source: Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 76, No. 3 (Summer, 2003), pp. 497-517 Published by: The George Washington University Institute for Ethnographic Research Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3318188 . Accessed: 10/10/2011 13:38
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SOCIALTHOUGHT AND COMMENTARY

Islam

and
the

Modernity
Tradition
and

in

Power,
in

Turkey: Historicity
of

European
Muslim
World

Provinces

the

Brian Silverstein
Los University California, Angeles of

Dis-enchanting the Orient

n 1962 MichelFoucaultdelivered a paper entitled 'LeDesenchantmentoriental' in Ankara,Turkey.'Itseems Foucaultnever publishedthe paper (and it does not appear in the posthumous collection of his works),but the theme announced by its title is symptomaticof a certaindiagnosisof the statusof the present. D'senchantement, the inexorable process whereby 'society' is constituted as a distinct object separate and following different laws and temporalitiesfrom the cosmicor 'religious,' centralto the seriesof effectsattributed is to the proliferationof the Enlightenmentmode of knowledge as critique.2 The connection between the 'Orient'and Enlightenmenthas recently been broughtto the fore again in the contextof Turkey the elections of November by 2002, in which the partythat emerged victorious,brushingaway the near totalityof the country'spoliticalestablishmentin the process,was the Justiceand Development Party (Adaletve Kalkinma,or AK)Party.The party'sacronym 'ak'also means 'white' or 'clean,' while its emblem is a light bulb, connoting The enlightenment ('aydinlatma').3 fact that this party is led by figures forassociated with the Islamist'NationalView'(MilliGirus)movement and merly its repeatedly banned and reincarnatedparties only serves to heighten the
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Islam and Modernity in Turkey

sense that 'Orientaldisenchantment' is a field about which we are still quite a bit in the dark. The AKPartyfinds itself in power at an extremely pivotal moment as the WarII;a U.S.-led economy is haltinglyemergingfrom its worstcrisissince World war in neighboringIraqhas changed the regime there, after the Turkish parliamentrejectedU.S.troop movementsthroughthe country,leadingto concerns that Turkish companies may not get a significantshare of the contractsto rebuild Iraq;speculations have not abated that Turkishforces might increase their presence in Northern Iraqto defend Turkey's'interests';and relations and Unionare coming down to concreteparticulars time tawith the European on to the urgencyof majorbreakthroughs Cyprus. is clearthat It bles, all linked the currentTurkishleadershipdid not calculate that they might better guarantee their future by the nature of their participationin events in Iraq;they Union. have ratherplannedall along to do this throughentryinto the European Meanwhilesome prominentWesternEuropeanpoliticianshave declared pubinto the Union"wouldmean the end of Europe."4 liclythat the entry of Turkey and to Whilequestionsof Turkey's relationship Europe of the statusof Islamand have taken on even more of a sense of urgencythan they modernityin Turkey normallycommand,there seems to be something more deeplytroublingabout Turkey, troublingto established and emergingframeworksfor thinkingabout the relationshipbetween Islam,Europeand modernity. Whatbecame the Republicof Turkeyin 1923 was heir to the institutional structures and administrative experience and apparatus of the Ottoman Empire,the longest-lived and most powerful Muslim polity the world has is seen.5 Today,with a populationof over 65 millionTurkey one of the world's member. Those countries and also a NATO most populous Muslim-majority administrative elites who were instrumental in the establishment of this Republichad been born and launched their careers in the late Ottoman enII vironment, i.e. the reign of AbdOlhamid (r.1876-1909) and the subsequent Turkregimes of the Committeeof Union and Progress,or CUP(1908Young 1918). Whattranspiredin the transitionfrom Empireto Republic,what does this entail for the status of the Turkish present, and what are the implications of the structureof this present for our understandingof Islamand modernity?6In these pages I address these questions by outlining a genealogy of the Turkishpresent, tracing the historical context in which Turkishinstitutions have evolved and the relationshipbetween culturalforms and the context of imperativesof power. Forwhile it is widely known that cultural institutions have changed relativelyrapidlyover the last century,the specificsof how and
498

BRIANSILVERSTEIN

why tend to be less known, leading to a mis-recognitionof important feaI tures of the Turkishlandscape. In particular, will argue that attending to this reformulationsof frameworksfor understanding genealogy entails profound the relationshipbetween Islam, Europeand modernity,as well as the nature of these entities themselves.

Power and tradition in European Provinces of the Muslim World

of Recentprominentworkin the anthropology Islamhas takenthe formof studin ies of ethicaldisciplineamong Muslims orderto mount a critiqueof models of autonselfhood and agency derivedfrom liberalhumanism(e.g. individualistic to and to argue for their inappropriateness understandIslamicpractice omy) liberalhumanism and discourseand Muslimselves.7The aim is to provincialize as but one mode of subjectionamong others, in which selves are neither more with powerthan in any other mode, and whose virtuesare cernor lesssaturated no more 'natural'or self-evidentthan others.8These well-put critiques tainly come, however,at the cost of appearingto equivocateon the degree of alterity to be ascribedto 'non-Western' on traditions vis(including this account Islamic) a-vis'Western' ones. Islamic traditions(andtheirattendantmodes of subjectformation)are impliedto be essentiallyseparatefrom, 'other'or alternativeto the and ethical Muslims selves are taken to be logicallyand temporallyconWest,9 stitutedpriorto articulation with practices discourses and whose historicity not is Islamic mass media, mass literacy, standardized education,etc.), specifically (e.g. due to the analyticalprimacyaccordedto the notion of continuity. atHowever, to the genealogy of the historicalconditionsof possibilityfor contemtending and poraryIslamic disciplines suggestthatthe questionof the 'inside' the 'outside' of Islamic traditions-the politicsof continuity-as these have evolved in a global contextof poweris more complexthan it has come to be mapped in (andgeneralizedfrom)the post-coloniesof the MiddleEast.Nordo studentsof Islamand the traditions Turkey appearto haveadequatelyconceptualized statusof Islamic in the countryin relationto the evolutionof regimesof powerand knowledge.10 WhileIslamby definitionhas criteriafor definingits inside and outside through normativejudgments about correct practice(as do all other traditions),"1 the and contexts of power in which these kindsof judgments specific imperatives have evolved overthe lastfew centuriesin the OttomanEmpire and Republican have not been sufficientlyunderstoodwhen attemptsare made to anaTurkey lyze the structureand status of Islamicdiscourseand practicein the country.
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Nazim General Ottoman and Minister War the outbreak the Balkan of at of decorated Pasha, 1912.Assassinated a groupof Young Turk officersinJanuary 1913whenit became Wars, by in clearhe wasaboutto concedethe lossof the former to Ottoman capitalEdirne, Thrace, the Wars. particular in the backOf note Bulgaria; coupset off the secondphaseof the Balkan of or attacheunder officer, ground this photois the ubiquitous yaver, military aide-de-camp his arm,whosecombined administrative military and functions weresucha pervasive character of Ottoman Behind pompof the Pasha, calculating the the bureaucratization governance. of power, a Ottoman already longstanding practice the timethis photowastakenanda by featureof the legacyto the Republic. defining 500

BRIANSILVERSTEIN

Westill have not adequately interpretedthe historicalrelationshipbetween modern practicesand discoursesand the evolution of Islamic characteristically discoursesand practiceson the one hand, and the relationshipbetween these and transformations the relevantcontextof poweron the other.Itwill be a matin this articleof ascertainingthe historicity culturalinstitutionsand pracof ter tices in a countrythat is the heir to a genealogy of Muslimreform,what this reformconsisted of, in the name of what was it undertakenand in the context of what kindsof imperatives.Thisprocessis usuallyglossed as 'Westernization' I in historiography; want to argue that this is an inadequate conceptualizaand elides the question of the relationshipbetween the emergence of tion, modern techniques, practicesand modes of subjectionon the one hand, and the historiographic constructionof 'Europe,' well as the position of Muslim as polities vis-a-visthis emergence, on the other. The question of the relationshipbetween Islamand its 'outside'did not appear in the Ottoman heartlandas a theoretical problem or question of identity, if it did anywhere. Bythe middle of the 18th centurythe Ottomanswere well aware that they had begun to lose battles, mainly against the Austrians and Russians, which they used to win. The situationas it presenteditself to the Ottomanswas essentially: "Given that it is a fact that we are in possession of the true faith, why are we losing wars to infidels?" reflected in the minutes As of divan councils between the Sultanand his highestrankingciviland religious functionariesand militarycommanders,the Ottomansbegan to discussamong themselves their problems with polities bordering them on the north and west in terms of diplomacy, military power and technique.12 The problem was taken to be essentially a technical one involvingorganization,expertise and equipment, and the eventual strategywas the well-knownreorganization of the militarybeginning with Selim Ill'sNizam-ijedid in the late 18th century and continuing under the Tanzimatafter Mahmud II'sdestruction of the Janissarycorps in 1826.13 Thus it is importantto recognizethat the incorporationinto Ottoman administration the characteristically of moderntechniques identifiedby Weberas formal rationalization and generalizeddisciplinedid not take place as a result of colonialism,but ratheras sovereignstate reformon the partof a Muslim polity.14Nor,and this is equally important,should we understandthis incorporation as constitutingsimply 'Westernization,' by this term we would elide the if characterof many regionsthat would eventuallyrefragmentedand provincial fer to themselvesas the 'West.' Indeed,such placesas Spain,Swedenand Russia were also sending officersand administrators such centers as Paris,London to
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and Berlin,like the Ottomans,to observe and acquire those emerging techof modernformsof power.15 Ottomans The niquesconstitutive the distinctively were simply one of these sovereign polities seeking more efficient ways to maximize resourcesand prosecute more efficient warfare.16 prospectsof The to do so were alreadybecomingclearto the Ottomansby at leastthe secfailing ond half of the 18th century. Furthermore, process of incorporationof the these new technologies of governancedoes not appear to have been experienced by the Ottomansas a capitulationto the hostile enemy's 'culturalimother perialism'even in later periods,for, as Keyderhas pointed out, "Unlike nationalistsof the ThirdWorld, Ottomansdid not feel particularly the resentwithstoodovertcolonizationand preserved the ful towardthe West[sic].Having of the state, they perceived their predicament in the paradigmof integrity interstatesystemand in the perspectiveof intricate alliancesand the European enmities that fueled the world of the GreatPowers."17

European Muslims: re-situating Turkey in the Balkans

In the wake of Ottoman defeat by Timur at Ankara in 1402, the central Whilethe Ottomanswould quicklyconOttomanlands became the Balkans.18 clude that a polity centered solely on either WesternAnatoliaor the Balkans was untenable and the empire's center of gravitywould alternate between them, the importanceof the Balkansto Ottomanpoliticalculture has tended to be much underratedin historiography. Contributing greatlyto this erasure is the fact that no center of power emerged from the ruins of the Ottoman to of with an interestin emphasizingthis centrality the Balkans the emEmpire not the various Balkan nation-states, whose nation-building pire; certainly reducingthe processes have spent a great deal of energy on a historiography to a brief nightmareof imposed rule from without. Various Ottoman period Balkan nationalisms beginning in the nineteenth century have carefullyorin of chestratedthe 'alien-ness' Turkish speakingMuslims the region,as partof attemptsto constructboth homogeneous nationalstates and to write histories to of of the allegedlynaturalrelationship these nation-states Western Europe.19 with the have been largelysuccessfulin erasingthe associationof Turkey They Balkans,and this has had wide-rangingeffects both on the way people have come to think of the Balkans,and the way Turks(and others) have come to been particularly thinkabout Turkey.20 have Turks Nor eager to situatethe empire in the Balkans,since by centering it on Anatolia(the latter-dayTurkish Republic)it is easier for the more nationalist among them to take up the
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Ottomanheritageand greatnessas naturally their own.21 Thisis of courseto the extent that present-day Turks interestedin talkingabout the Ottomansat all; are their estimation of the Ottomanshas tended for most of the existence of the to Balkanpopulations Republic be much more similarto those of contemporary than is often appreciated.22 late Notwithstanding nineteenthcenturyOttomanemphases on pan-Islamic unity [ittihad-iIslam],and attempts to strengthenthe ties between the center and the Arabprovinces,23 significanceof the Balkansto the identityof the the empire is renderedclear when one considerswhat the loss of the territoriesin the BalkanWars 1912-1913 meant for Ottomansat the time. AsZurcher, of one of the foremost historiansof the period, writes: [The] importance of the Ottoman losses in the Balkanwar cannot be overstated. It was a disaster in human, economic and cultural terms. The empire lost nearly all its Europeanterritories,over 60,000 square miles in all, with nearly four million inhabitants. Again, as in 1878, Istanbul was deluged with Muslim refugees who had lost everything. There were severe outbreaks of typhoid and cholera and a very high mortalityrate among the fugitives.Theirresettlementcaused enormous problemsand many refugeesspent the next few years in squattertowns. Butthe significance went even deeper:the areaslost (Macedonia, Albania, had been core areas of the empire for over 500 years.Theywere Thrace) the richestand most developed provincesand a disproportionate partof the Ottoman rulingelite hailed from them. Salonica,after all, had been the cradle of the Committeeof Union and Progress.24 The genealogy of social and politicalforms in Turkey need to placed squarein this Balkancontext,which raisessome conceptual points in the context of ly a discussionabout Islamictraditions.Mostobviously,perhaps, is the prospect that one of the most powerful,and culturallyinfluential, polities the Islamic world ever produced,the Ottoman Empire,was in arguablycrucialrespectsa Balkanpolity.The aim here is not to replacecategorieslike East,Westor Middle Eastwith 'the Balkans.'25 I referto the Balkanshere for mainly heuristicpurposes, i.e. if we insist on identifyingthe politicaldevelopment of the Ottoman Empireand Turkish Republicwith a particular geographicalregion,this region the ought to be the Balkans,for it will prove more fruitfulin clarifying nature of things likethe politicalculturethat has been characteristic Republican of social life. Weneed to overcomeour sense of anxietyat the locationof majorcen503

Islam and Modernity in Turkey

ters of classicalIslamoutside the region now knownas the MiddleEast,forthe fact is that the geographynow knownas Europeis an integralpartof that classicalIslam.Theconverseis also the case, namelythat important featuresof classical Islamiccivilizationtook place in what is now considered to be Europe and (Andalusia the OttomanBalkansbeing two obvious cases in point).Thisresituating of the Turkishpresent in a Balkan Islamic context aids in understandingthe genealogyof late Ottomanand earlyRepublican politicalelites and their rationalities; structureand status of discourseand practicein Turkey; the intellectual social movementslikereligiousrevivalism nationalism; and and and populartastes, architecture,spatial sensibilitiesand lifestyles. Illustrative the fact that the identityof politicalelites in the laterempire of was not associatedwith Anatolia,and had to be explicitlysituatedthere is that in an interviewAtaturk said to have respondedto a question about his date is of birththat it was on the day he 'set foot in Anatolia'to take up leadershipof the Nationalist forces in 1919. It is significantthat so much emphasiswould be on his arrivalin Anatolia,for this implies an arrivalfrom without (in the put event natural,since MustafaKemal-later Ataturk-was born in Salonica,now in Thisaccount, I would argue, amounts to a metonymicshift GreekMacedonia). the homeland of the Turkishnation comes to be identified with whereby Anatolia,an equation that was previouslynot an obvious one.

Force of Reason in the Balkan 'laboratory'

The importance of the Balkan context thus should be kept prominently in mind when consideringthe transitionfrom the Empireto the Republic,as a prominent in the large number of figuresand personnel (officersof the CUP) SecondConstitutional period (1908-1918)who would playan active role in the nationalist resistance, Independence War(1921-1922) and establishment of the Republicin 1923 were born and/or spent formativeyears in the Empire's It Macedonianand Thracianterritories,in the Balkans.26 is worth noting in chosen as the 'national'pubthis context, moreover,that the dialect of Turkish lic standardwas not that prevailingin Anatolia,but ratherthe BalkanTurkish of one. Itcontinuesto be the case that the standardTurkish nationalradioand of television sounds much more like the Turkish Thraceand Macedoniathan that of the Anatolianhinterlands. To illustratethe necessityof situatingTurkeyin a Balkancontext to understanding its present and recent past let us consider in more detail how this Balkan context greatly influenced subsequent developments in the early
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of referred the Ottoman to landsas Turkey, Vestiges "European Turkey" Western powers (the a of or wheretherewasnone)in inappropriately applying political principle ethnicity nation to Wars 1912-1913. in all the warswerean unmitigated of disaster for All 1909,prior the Balkan the Ottomans, lostalmost entirety theirEuropean who the of Macedonia, provinces, including Albania Thrace, and whichhadbeencoreterritories the Empire over500years. of for

Republic. During the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913, Edirne, the former Ottoman

capital, was lost, and then retaken by Ottomantroops. Recent historicalwork has suggested a crucialrole having been played in the 'liberation'of Edirneby a group of volunteer officers in the CUPwho were known asfedais.27Manyof these figureshad been active in the suppressionof the countercoup againstthe CUPin 1909, and had served in Tripolitania (Libya), organizingguerrillaresistance against the Italianswhen they invaded in 1911.28Underthe directionof
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EnverPasha,once Edirnehad been taken, agents of his "specialservices" (teskiwere directedto foment behind-the-scenesrebellionand guerlat-i mahsusa) rillaresistancein western Thrace,in orderto put pressureon Bulgaria,which had occupied the area, at peace talks.Thetacticworked,and similarstrategies in were used to suppressseparatistmovements,particularly the Arabprovinces, War. Zurcher, among others, has come to considerthat the exduringthe World for "servedas an important'laboratory' the nationalresistancemoveperience ment which would develop in Anatoliaafter the FirstWorldWar."29 The Balkantheaterwas thus the incubusin which those active in the Warof of and and in the establishment organization the Republic gained Independence tumultuoustime, in whichfinThiswas an extremely theirformative experience. were subjectto the brutaltest of efficiencyand success in the face er principles of military onslaughtby more powerfulenemies; the priceof failurewas loss of land and propertythroughwhat is now called ethnic cleansing.These exlife, periences figure prominentlyin the rationale of the early Republicanelites, who were clearlyactingand organizingin and for a worldcharacterized this by type of environment,and who had no illusionsabout the fate of those polities felt by their neighborsto be 'weak.'This is what the front line of the Muslim world vis-a-vis'Europe'had come to look like by the 20th century,and goes a of supported long way towardexplainingwhy a majority ulemaenthusiastically of and Abdulhamid the restoration the Constitution.30 the 1908 CUP coup against One of the featuresof the Balkansmost destructiveto Ottomaneffortsat self(and,of course, so liberatingin the eyes of the respectivepopulapreservation tions)was nationalism.To the extent that ruralpopulationscould be 'infected' (as the Ottomanssaw it)with the new ideology it was much easier to get them to see the Ottomansas foreign,and therebyincitethem to rebellion.Clearly, by nationalismwas 'the only game in town';it was beBalkanWars the time of the ing used most effectivelyby formerlysubjectpopulationsin the series of rebellions and disastersby which the Ottomanseffectivelylost formerheartlandsin the Balkans.The officers prominent in the subsequent Turkishnationalistresistancemovementcame out of this environment,and it has clearlymarkedthe characterof Turkish politicalcultureever since.

Beyond 'difference' and incommensurability

A furtherexample of the impact of Balkansocial and politicaltendencies can of be seen in the effectsof nationalismas the model of politicalsovereignty the WarI, and the Warof World new Republicthat emerged from the BalkanWars,
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Independence. Throughforced migrations,expulsions and exchanges, as well as informalpressureon remainingminorities,the populationof what became the Republicof Turkeywas dramaticallyhomogenized from a multi-confesone sional and 'multi-ethnic' into a 98 percentMuslimone, on the model of the formation of nation-statesin the Balkans(whichsaw the violent expulsion of hundredsof thousands of Muslimsand their flighttoward remainingOttoman This process,in turn, led to an interestingsituand later Republicanterritory). ation for the Republican elites, for the nascent bourgeoisieof the late Ottoman had been predominantly miperiod composed of (mostlyGreekand Armenian) norities,who were also consideredin a sense to 'standbetween'the Muslimmajority of the empire and Europe.This bourgeois class was now gone. Keyder describesthe ensuing situation for the new Republican(MuslimTurkish) elite identityvis-a-visEuropethus: The social removalof ethnies consideredalien... had the effect of purging the ambivalencethat the nationalistelites would otherwise have had to wrestlewith. Thisremovalof the materialanchoringof Westernpractices and lifestylesmade it possibleto imaginea fictionalWestwith no immediate materialreference.Itcould,therefore,be presentedin rhetoricin an idealizedversionwith no damagingor dislocatingeffects. Oncethe negative dimensionwas eliminated,modernization couldbe presented an enas was necessary. tirelypositiveprojectagainstwhich no defensiveposturing Theelites did not feel any colonialresentment; did not see themselves they as belongingto a worlddifferentfromthe one they sought to emulate31 By 1915, one out of four Muslimslivingin remainingOttomanterritorywas a refugeefromthe Balkans Causasus the childof one.32Ifwe considerthat or or few of these refugeeswould have been Kurds assimilatedinto Kurdish or very environments,it follows that a very high proportion,certainlymore than half, of the non-KurdishMuslim population of what would become Republican were of Balkanor Caucasianextraction.33 This provenance,along with Turkey the extreme brutality the violence many of them sufferedand witnessed priof or to and duringtheir migration,as well as the fact that many of the Ottoman officersthat were commandingOttomanarmiesdealingwith these events in the BalkanWarsand Caucasuswere themselves from the Balkansand Caucasus, goes a long way toward explaining the tone and emphasis of what Zurcher has called the period's'reactivenationalism,'an increasingly beleagueredand pragmaticeffort by Ottomanleaders to preventthese events from happening 507

Islamand Modernityin Turkey

again (e.g. at the hands of remainingminoritieslikethe Armenians,leadingto the latter'sdeportationand massacre).34 Turkeyhas thus in many senses been on the front line of the assault by techniques of disciplineand politiesthat were in the processof incorporating outlined above. The hisRussiaand Austro-Hungary) (Imperial governmentality Turkey today may be considtory of the late OttomanEmpireand Republican ered an extended and ongoing experiment in the chain of events entailed by the engagementof a sovereignMuslimpolitylocatedon the near marginof the heartlandof industrialcapitalismwith the specificallymodern formsof power The and their attendant modes of subjection.3s structureof the positionsfrom which problems were identified and analyzed and measures proposed-in short,the relationsof powerand force, and conditionsfor strategiccalculation case the clear and explicittraces of a soverand agency-bears in the Turkish eign polity(insofaras the state's legitimationof its exerciseof powerdid not refer beyond itself to another polity,but in this case did referto God),attempting to incorporatemodernforms of power in orderto preventits own domination by non-believers,as would eventually be the case of so much of the Muslim and applicationof new world.Whatthis entailed,of course,was the production kindsof knowledgewhich existinginstitutionswere not producing,but which of had to be gleaned from elsewhere. The incorporation modern disciplinary techniqueswas to be sure a bringingin from without, but from the perspective of the historyof Islamthere is nothing new about this per se.36Whatwas new, however,was the relativeauthorityand prestigeaccordedto those knowledges the proliferationof which was consideredto enable Muslimsto defend themselves (e.g. militaryengineeringand medicine;sanitationand hygiene;etc.). came to be called Thisis the originof the arrangementsthat later in Turkey context does not so much representthe sepsecularism,which in the Turkish arationof something called religionfrom something called publiclife (whichit for has nonethelesscome to mean, in principle, many),but refersin practiceprito institutionalissues of how much power is to be accorded to those marily whose authority derives from their knowledge of the Islamictradition. The generations questionas it posed itselfto the Ottomansand the earlyRepublican who had just foughtthree warsover more than a decade for their own survival, was not a philosophicalone, nor was it an identityissue. In importantMuslim it and Caucasus had become clear by the late 19th cencenterslikethe Balkans tury that there would simply be no more Muslimsthere if they failed to reorganize the regime of power and knowledge,and those involvedcertainlydid not consider it to be a matter of measures that would lead to their abandon508

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ment of the Islamictradition,versus others that would not. Similarprocesses have taken place in other partsof the Muslimworld,includingthe MiddleEast, but perhaps not so dramatically. Mostof the countriesconsideredto un-problematically constitute a partof the present culturaland politicalgeographyof 'Europe' were activelyengaged in a similarprocessof incorporating (from'without')as much of these modern commissionsto techniques as possible, by sending militaryand administrative These processeshave been retrospecParis,Londonand Berlinas observers.37 tively normalized, aided by nationalist historiographiesof those aspiringto Europeanstatus, as developments 'within'a homogeneous Europe;in the case of the transferof these techniques to Ottoman lands, it somehow becomes a In matter of 'civilizations'. other words, I am arguingthat there is nothing 'unnatural'about Ottoman appropriationsof modern disciplinarytechnologies of power, any more than there is anything 'natural'about Vienna, Rome or of Petersburg doing the same.38Evidence this can be found in instanceslikethe PrussianChiefof Staff Moltkewritingin his memoirs of his experiences as an inspector,reorganizerand trainer of Ottoman forces in the 1830s, where he who comparesMahmudII-quite unfavorably-with Peterthe Greatof Russia, had similarlyrequested assistance from Berlin,Parisand Londonin the reorganization of the Russianmilitary:"[I]nRussiathe foreignersmay have been hated; in Turkey [sic]they are despised."Ottomanliberalsmay well have been simply imitating postures originating in points further west; the important point is that Greek,Serbianor Bulgarianliberalswere no differenton this and similarscores, nor for that matterwere Spanish,Russianor Danishones. Thusthe Ottomanand Turkish case is a particularly potent one for the project of provincializing the point being that we cannot analytically asEurope,39 sume an entitywith a coherent, homogeneous 'Western' 'European' or essence, fromSpainto Russia, fromthe Balkans Ireland, to that simultaneously stretching producedand experiencedmodern regimesof knowledgeand power as natural, authentic and indigenous, and then exported them to 'foreign' ('nonclimes. The developments describedabove all took place within one Western') of the most importantpartsof the Muslimworld, the central Ottoman lands. Whatin this context-which afterall encapsulatesparticularly potentlythe global context of power relationsMuslimshave found themselves in-is the Islamic of to tradition,and what are the criteria continuity according whichwe mightarrive at a definition?This question, which goes to the heart of the matter of Islamin the contemporary world,cannot be adequatelyaddressedby anyframeworkthat would have us elide the historyof the pastfew centuriesoutlinedhere.
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of or commentators both)do not Invocations continuity(on the partof Muslims, in practice.Ever constitutecontinuity since the events outlinedabove, the study of practicesin and through which Muslimselves are constituted,that is, the modes of Islamicethical subject formation, must necessarilytake account of these micro-levelarticulationsof modes with differentialhistoricities. The imneed to be recognizedas now a portantpoint is that these multiplehistoricities feature of Islamictraditionsthemselves.

An archaeology of Turkish secularism: the mode of the Turkish modern

the is Ina sense, perhapsironically, questionof modernityin Turkey less equivocal and wroughtwith ambivalence as it seems to be in neighboringGreece, which is certainlynot to implythat Turkey's 'moderncredentials' any more are secure in any one's mind.40 Greece,everythingis supposed,due to modernist In of historical to constructivism, be in placefor the countryto take its poprojects sitionamong the indisputably 'modern','Western' countries;they are, 'afterall,' are the Christians, they not, and, more importantly, 'homeland'of democracy? Yetthere seems to be a great deal of anxietyamong Greeks to whether they as are reallymodern,or Western.41Turks the other handare Muslims on (smallbut minorities of Orthodoxand ArmenianChristiansand historicallysignificant It Jews notwithstanding).42 is well known that in the process of engineering the formation of something called the Turkishnation, religionand language were the main criteria.A Turkish speakingMuslimis, by definition,a Turk,reof where he or she was born, regardlessof what 'ethnicgroup'any of gardless his or her relativescame from. Butthe primarycriterionof nationalitywas religion,which was cemented in the convention on the exchangeof populations signed between Greeceand Turkeyin 1923. That religionwas consideredover language is shown by the inclusion of the Karamanlipopulation of Turkish speakingAnatolianOrthodoxin the exchange;when it landed in Greecemost of this population had little or no knowledgeof Greek.43 Thereis seemingly,thus, much less that is 'obvious'or supposedto be taken for grantedabout Turkey's modern, Westernstatus; it is not something that is failTurks' to be the case, and isn'tsimplybecause of contemporary 'supposed' in is their 'own' past. Modernity Turkey felt to be an explicit,pubings vis-a-vis of rhetoric 'the This a lic project, workin progress. is the reasonforthe ubiquitous but and Revolution', especiallypronouncedamong Kemalists the military, which even informsmuchof the ethos of discourseamong the populationat large.The
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outlinedabove has been that in the courseof the last sum of the transformations in later Ottoman periods) Islam has increasinglybecome century (beginning defined as havingto do with privatebelief (and/ordoincreasingly 'privatized,' mestic affairs).44 importantpoint to recallhere is that this processwas not The one that was consciously initiatedas such, but rather a resultof shiftsin preswas and tige and resourceallocationsassociatedwiththe creationof new institutions of knowledgeforthe identification effectivedealingwiththe problems and types discussedabove; the processwas alreadyunderwaywell before it startedto be theorized, and most certainlywell before the establishmentof the Republic.It is this process of Islam becoming a 'religion'roughly in the mould that has emerged from the historyof power strugglesbetween the Church, princesand an emergent bourgeoisie in WesternEuropethat is continuing to unfold in and in many partsof the Muslimworld.The Republican state did make Turkey a conscious projectof this privatization, which is the meaningof 'Turkish secularism,'and, I would argue,this is the core issue aroundwhich the 'modality'of Turkish or tend to locate modernityhas been elaborated.Rightly wronglyTurks the modalityof their modernityin what they call secularism[laiklik]. To clarify:in makingthe argumentoutlined above, I am in no way suggesting that secularismor the status of Islamin Turkish society is 'really'an obstacle to-or, for that matter, solution to-debates about Turkey'smodern, Westernstatus. Nor,to be sure, do I implya unilinearhistoryof stages through which other Muslimcommunities are likely (or ought or ought not) to pass. Rather,as people like the historian Ilber Ortaylihave emphasized for years now,45Turkeyis 'as modern and European'as countries like Russia,Greece and Serbiaare. Butat the same time, most Turks have hesitationsand anxdo ieties about their country'smodern, European status. I am arguingthat most of these anxieties have been playedout, for most of the existence of the Republic since 1923, in terms of secularismand the role and status of Islam in Turkish society and politics, mainly because the disciplinesthat began to increasingly and minutely individuatepeople were historically encountered in (a problemwith universalist models of citizenship. Thisdoes not mean that atic)articulation Islam is really a 'problem' in Turkey'srelations with, say, the EU,or that it should be one. Butcentralto Republican reforms overthe courseof the Turkey's 20th century,arguablythe sum effect of them has been the transformation, in practiceif not in principle,of Islaminto a religion,and that only as a matterof principleonce it was already well under way as a matter of insititutionaladjustmentsto imperativesof power.Thisis the meaning of my claim that the issue of secularismis the centralfeature of Turkish modernity.
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the InTurkey experienceof secularism, then, is manifestlynot that whichdeworld whereby the state simply claimed to have veloped in the Anglo-Saxon to say on the issue of religion,whichwas increasingly comingto be relnothing egated to the realm of the 'private'.The Turkishmodel is much closer to the French that is, in whichsomethingcalled religionis not separatedfrom 'laicism', something called public life, but ratheris dominated by a state that considers itself to be founded on principlesnot grounded in a 'religious'regime of power and knowledge.46 such a society,the questionthat animates publicdebate In is not so much one of the extentto whichthis privatized religionis goingto play a role in public life, but rathera matterof how much power will be accorded tradition. derivesfromtheir knowledgeof the religious to those whose authority The issues of Islamand modernityin late Ottomanand Republican Turkey of thus have mainlybeen experiencedas a questionof the distribution authority of and power among practitioners differentkindsand statuses of knowledge. Shallthe ulema [scholarsof Islamictraditions]be in a position to directlyinwhich is locked in fluence the decisions of the technicians?Shallthe military, and of a life and death strugglefor the survival the Empire then for a homeland for Muslims,be able to upstage the ulema? That this should be the understandingof the question of Islamand the state among the politicalclass in the young Republicis, as I argued above, intimatelytied to the late Ottomanexeconomic and culmilitary, perienceof state collapse in the face of a protracted tural onslaughtfrom politiesto the northand west.

European Provinces of the Muslim world

and of capitalism emergedon the nearmarginof the heartland industrial Having politicalcultureis in crucialrespectsBalkanin nature, Turkey's governmentality this for to in though not less problematic its relation Europe all that. Nonetheless, should be our startingpoint when attending to the significanceof Islamand modernityin Turkey. then becomesclearthat powerand agencyin the Muslim It worldcannot be adequatelyunderstoodif our studiesare limitedto cases drawn fromthe politicsof piety,cultureand identityin the post-colonialMiddleEast. Duringthe last few centuriesMuslimshave been adaptingthe resourcesof Islamin orderto understandand adequatelycope with situationsorganizedby haveanydoes not necessarily and centersof powerwhose historicity discourses the thingto do with Islam.From capitalof an empire,ruledbya figurewidelyrecto from Bosniato the Hijjaz, and stretching to be the Caliph scrambling ognized preserveits sovereigntyin the face of constant militaryattack--especiallyby a
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Russiathat was in a parallelposition of importingdisciplinefrom points to its west-the answersto the pressing, life-and-death questionsof 'whatto do' did not simplycleave intotwo sorts,those that would entailan abandonmentof 'thetradition'and those that would not. The notion of tradition,involvingin its positivity sincere commitment to the morallybindingcharacterof past precedent,is indeed appropriate the studyof Islam;47 is not a 'constructivist' for this critique of the 'inventionof tradition.'Butthe delimitationof the criteriafor arriving at a determinationof the inside and outside of the Islamictraditionought not be limitedto a historically rathernarrow and practices whichare rangeof discourses closely linkedto the contingenciesof their conditionsof possibilityin the Arab The MiddleEast. contextof powerin which Islamic traditionshave evolvedin recent centuriesis obscured in analyses emphasizingincommensurability, which the and equivocateon precisely degree of discreteness alterityin the relationship between Islamicdisciplinesand dispositionsand specifically modern practices. Thisis not to argue that the specificdirectionin which the late Ottomanpoliticalclass took the countrywas inevitable;nor, however,should we have any doubts about what were and what were not the crucialmattersfacing Muslims in the Balkans,Caucasusand Anatolia in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These situations are, as far as many Turksare concerned, essentially analogous to the situationthe entire Muslimworldfinds itself in its confrontation with powerful non-Muslims.This confrontation itself involved the intimate and minute articulation traditionalIslamicinstitutions of with specifically modern techniques of redoubled rationalizationof administrationand normalizationof objects of governance, leading to Islamictraditionsof discourse and practicethemselves takingon a status and historicity that are not entirely externalto the geographyof governmentality. LateOttomanand Turkish Republican elites--liberal, nationalist,secularist, Islamistand all in between-were not and are not characterized a sense of by 'trauma' resentmentderivingfromthe centuriesdescribedabove, forTurkish or historical consciousnesssenses them as havingunfoldedas a matterof course in continuitywith the past.The sum of the laterOttomanexperiencesof strategic into and nation-state reform,peripheralincorporation industrial forcapitalism, mation has profoundly imprintedthe Turkish presentand experienceof moderwere not 'outside'European transformations the eighteenth of nity.TheOttomans and nineteenth centuries,looking'in,' but were activelya partof the milieu in which these transformations took place. It is thus only througha total failureto historicize'modern Europe'that self-styledEuropeanscan permit themselves the arrogantprevarication that Turkey's entry into the EUwould representthe
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If 'endof Europe.' suchclaimsaretakenseriously EUmembers,it mightindeed by the end of the projectof Europe, prominentTurkish as commenalreadysignal tatorshave noted, and markthe abandonmentof the Enlightenment projectof projectof knowledgethrough knowledgethroughcritiqueof the Enlightenment of the inevitablerelationsbetween authority, critique knowledge,and power.48 to and Theverynatureof Turkey's and presentholdsa mirror Europe, in the past Unionwhat is at stakeis nothing betweenTurkey the European and negotiations less than the past and futureof Islamand modernity.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

and StefaniaPandolfo AihwaOngfor helpful Iam grateful Hamid to Michael Meeker, Algar, also and comments the themeselaborated on here.Dipesh Chakrabarty VincePecora offered commentsalongthe way,for which I owe them thanks.
ENDNOTES

1994. Dits in Gallimard, 1"Chronologie"M.Foucault, et icrits: 1954-1988,vol. 1. Paris: MIT trans.Cambridge: The 2SeeHansBlumenberg, Legitimacy theModern R.Wallace, Age. of New York: an Vintage, Press,1983 [1973]; Peter Gay,TheEnlightenment: interpretation. 1966; Karl Polanyi, "PoliticalEconomy and the Discoveryof Society,"in The Great Boston:Beacon,1957. Transformation. of credentials the partywere indeedemphasizedin speechesby par3The'Enlightenment' "I for officials, instancechairman citingVoltaire's maynot agreewithyourviews, Erdogan ty cerebut I will give my life defendingyourrightto havethem"in the party's inauguration on since mostcommentators the new partyinmonies.Themessagewasevidentlyreceived, that terpretedthe emblem as signifying the partysaw itselfin the roleof enlightenment. in Interview Le on chairof a "convention the futureof Europe." Giscard 4Valery d'Estaing, 2002. 8 Monde, November, with and an 5For accountof the lateOttoman Empire earlyRepublic, specialattentionto the On London: Tauris. a Erik transitional I.B. history. periodsee Zurcher, 1994. Turkey: modern 1974. Theventure other Muslim the Ottomans of empiressee Hodgson,Marshall vis-a-vis Univ.of Chicago Press,pp. 99-133. Islam,v. 3. Chicago: subtleand, as one has come to expectfromthe aurecentstudyis an extremely 6Meeker's fromthe Ottoman to Republican periods,with thor,uniqueargumentabout continuities for culture.Whilehe makesa compelling attentionto political argument the role particular of of Islam-as a 'discipline sociality'-in this political culture,he does not go on to drawthe of conclusionsI am here aboutthe state of prevailing anthropologies Islamand theirabilinterestedin how his itiesto accommodatehis findings,nordoes he appearto be explicitly which I wouldarguethey of our conclusionshelp to 'provincialize' understanding Europe, the Michael. 2002. A Nationof Empire: Ottoman do. Meeker, Modernity. of Legacy Turkish Press. of University California Berkeley: in and 1993.Genealogies Religion: Talal. 7SeeAsad, of Discipline Reasons Power Christianity of Virtue Charles 2001. "Civic and Islam.Baltimore: Johns HopkinsUniv.Press;Hirschkind, Cultural an Reason: Islamic and Religious 16(1);Mahmood, Anthropology, Counterpublic," on and Embodiment the DocileAgent:some reflections the Saba2002. "Feminist Theory, Cultural Islamicrevival," 16(2). Anthropology, Egyptian
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of the 8Thesecritiques liberalism would, however,appearto downplay fact that classiclibMill theoristslikeLocke, eralpolitical Kant, and even Hobbesnevertookforgrantedthe conto necessary a politicsbased tingentnatureof the virtuousqualitiesof mindand character on natural freedomand equality, arguedforthe necessity theiractive,even coerced, and of 1999. Virtue and the Making Modern cultivationand inculcation.See Peter Berkowitz. of Princeton: Princeton Liberalism. Press. University laborof the notion of incommensurability frameworks in build9Onthe unacknowledged workon tradition the practice virtuesee AndrewMason, and of Macintyre's ing on Alasdair on and and Tradition, "Macintyre Liberalism its Critics: Incommensurability Disagreement," in J. Hortonand S. Mendus,eds. 1994. AfterMacintyre: on critical perspectives the workof NotreDame:University NotreDamePress. of Alasdair Macintyre, 101n additionto the studiescitedabove in note 7, on Turkey for exampleJennyWhite's see a recentwork;White, 2002. Islamist Mobilization Turkey: studyin vernacular in Jenny. poliof tics.Seattle:University Washington Press. Asad.1986.TheIdeaof an Anthropology Islam. 11Talal of University Washington: Georgetown Center Contemporary Studies. for Arab references these meetingsandthe ensuingproposals Berkes, to see 1998 [1964]. 12For Niyaz. TheDevelopment Secularism Turkey. in London: 1996."The of Routledge, 72. Carter p. Findley. Ottoman Administrative and Middle in ed. East," L.Carl Brown, Imperial Legacy the Modern the Legacy: Ottomanimprinton the Balkansand the MiddleEast. New York:Columbia Press. University a 13For classicand exhaustivetreatmentof this periodsee Berkes,Niyaz.1998 [1964].The in London: Development Secularism Turkey. of Routledge here that in emphasizing pointthe aim is not to celebrateprestigedethis 141 mightclarify fromsuccessful 'resistance' to argueforthe 'localorigin'of these modernformsin or riving the Ottomancontext.Rather, will become evidentbelow,the move is in the oppositedias these specifically modernformsand rection;upon their emergencein northwestEurope, practiceswere receivedas foreignand often hostile by the populations(urbanworking 'rebellious' classes;peasantries; peripheries; who would be subjectto them. etc.) an see 15For analyticof modernsocialformsand practices MaxWeber1947. TheTheory of Socialand Economic New York: OxfordUniv.Press;see also "Bureaucracy" Organization. and "The of in HansH.and C.Wright eds. 1946. From Max Meaning Discipline" Gerth, Mills, Weber: NewYork: Oxford Univ.Press. the roleof the emergenceof the On essaysin sociology. human sciences in the minute applicationand effectivenessof these modern modes of to of Michel.1978 power,and in close proximity practitioners raisonde'tat,see Foucault, and the NewYork: [1975].Discipline Punish: Birthof the Prison. VintageBooks. 160n Ottoman exercise poweras on parwithotherEuropean of the powers through 17thcenwho tury see the fascinatingwork by the OttomanmilitaryhistorianRhoadsMurphey, writes: "The revolution whichtransformed and organizational European military practice allowedforthe sustaining armiesof massmobilization the firsttime cameto realization of for Thisrevolutionin practice was inionly in the closingdecadesof the seventeenthcentury. tiallydrivenby necessityratherthan invention,and resultswere at first mostlylimitedto France. the closeof the seventeenth At the werestillleaguesaheadof their century Ottomans in modesfor resource extraction European contemporaries the developmentof centralized and allocationfor use in war." Rhoads.1999. OttomanWarfare, 1500-1700.New Murhpy, Brunswick: Press,p. 98. Rutgers University on of 17Keyder, Identity the Margin Europe." Review, XVI, (aglar,"TheDilemmaof Cultural 1, Winter 1993, p. 22. 18Halil Inalclk, "Balkans," of Enclyclopedia Islam.

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Harvard 19SeeMarkPinson, ed. 1996. TheMuslims Bosnia-Herzegovina. of Cambridge: UniversityPress,and MariaTodorova.1997. Imaginingthe Balkans.New York:Oxford Press. University 20SeeH. Poultonand S. Taji-Farouki, 1997. Muslim eds. and State.New Identity the Balkan York: NewYork Press. Univerity 210n the nationalistconstruction Turkish of cultureand the erasuresand emphases in2002. and volvedsee YaelNavaro-Yashin. Faces theState: Secularism Public in Turkey. Life of Princeton: Princeton Univ.Press. as failedtheo22This backward, overwhelmingly negativeview of the Ottomans a barbaric, Turks contributes greatlyto theirsense that the lastthingthey logicalorderby present-day want to be held responsiblefor is whatevermistakesand/or abuses the Ottomansmay havedone. 230nthe (ultimately attemptsof the AbdOlhamid regimeto come up with a unsuccessful) 1998. The workablepoliticalidentityfor the Empire duringthis periodsee SelimDeringil. Well-Protected 1998. Domains,London: Tauris, I.B. 1994, 24ZOrcher pp. 113-114. of of 1997 for a discussion the issueof the reification a regioninto 'the 25SeeM.Todorova and and Balkans' its representationsin the 'West' in the regionitself. Kemal attendedthe military will 261t be recalledin this connectionthat Mustafa highschool in (nowformerYugoslav) in Manastvr Macedonia, alongwithsuchfiguresas AliFethi (Bitola) See who laterplayedprominent rolesin the Republic. Andrew and Mango. Okyar KizimOzalp milfromthe Ottoman in and 1999.Atatirk.London: JohnMurray, on continuities personnel the see Erik. to Factor: roleof theCommittee of itary the Republic ZOrcher, 1984. TheUnionist 1905-1926.Leiden: Brill. in National Unionand Progress the Turkish E.J. Movement, on 271 relyon ZOrcher (see note 26) herefor information the Teskilit-iMahsusa. hisand most responsible of 28The precisehistoryof the activities this groupare shadowy, torianshaveconcludedthat boththose who had been involvedin them and the personnel of activein the eventualestablishment the Republic overlap) (whichin any event partially of wanted it that way;most of the writtenrecords this grouphave not survived. 114. 29ZOrcher, Itis also worthnotingin this contextthat it is most likelythat the innerCUP Minister Vizier Interior and and Pasha the Grand of underthe direction Enver leadership Talit in for Pashathat was responsible initiatingthe deportationand massacreof Armenians in Anatolia 1915 made use of these same agentsof the Special Services, manyof whom had been frustratedin their attemptsto save their own homes, familiesand propertyin the forcesin the Balkan and at from brutaldestruction the handsof Bulgarian Greek Balkans visiteduponthe not The Wars. pointhereis certainly to attenuatethe atrocities subsequently Armenianpopulation,but ratherto point to one more instancewhere Ottomanexperitone and and in ences of nationalism the Balkans the violenceit entailedlent a particular qualityto subsequentdevelopmentsin Anatolia. to of practice sendingmanySufisheikhsintoexilealsocontributed theirsup30AbdOlhamid's This today,and it is assumedthat the uleportforthe CUP. is not generallyknownin Turkey of ma and Sufisheikhs(as 'reactionary forces')had been opposed to the restoration the Istanbul: workof IsmailKara, Constitution. the interesting See SiyasiGirusleri. Islamolaron 1994. IzYayinlarl, and in in of the "Whither Project Modernity? Turkey the 1990s," S. Bozdogan Keyder, 310aglar in Seattle:Univ.of and R.Kasaba, 1997. Rethinking eds. Modernity NationalIdentity Turkey. Press,1997. Washington Nationalists: and Turkish OttomanMuslims Erik. identity Turks, 32ZOrcher, 2000. "Young Leiden: Brill, 160. Past ed. in EJ p. Turkey. 1908-1938," K.Karpat, Ottoman and Today's politics 516

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is of estimatesthat between40 and 50 percentof the population today'sTurkey of 33Karpat that intermarriage the imof or Caucasian Crimean Balkan, ancestry. Again,if one considers of was with localKurds lesscommon,one is leftwitha veryhighpercentage Turks migrants of non-Kurdish originhavingancestryin these regions.Itshould be obviousthat the point of to but hereis not to determineorigins, rather estimatewhatimpactthe experiences these the and mighthavehad populations during collapseof the empire,lossof territory migration on discourseand practicein the earlyRepublic. 2000, xvi. Karpat 34Zurcher 2000, pp. 160; 172. Stanford Stanford: Judith.1997. Thepsychic of power:essaysin subjection. life 35SeeButler, Univ.Pressfor a succinctdiscussionof these modes. of formationhad been in36For techniquesand strategies military example,administrative fromthe Persians Byzantines the expandingMuslim and polityas it came inby corporated traditionsof to contact with them; the profoundMuslimengagement with Aristotelian philosophyis likewisewell known. 37These delegationswere interestedin visitingpreciselythose militaryschools, hospitals and factoriesFoucault (1978)describesso well. Oxford Univ. second ed. Oxford: in Bernard The 38Cited Lewis, Emergence Modern of Turkey, Press,1968, p. 82. and see postcolonial Provincializing thought hisChakrabarty, Europe: 390n this project Dipesh Princeton: Princeton toricaldifference. Press,2000. University the on Herzfeld. 1987. Anthropology 401 base my remarks Greecehere on Michael Through Glass. Press, and JamesFaubion.1993. Modern Cambridge: Cambridge University Looking Press. Greek Lessons. Princeton, Princeton NJ: University so 41This anxietyon the partof Greeks, well documentedby researchers foreignand doIt mestic, is almost totallyunknownin Turkey. tends to be the case that when addressing or to themselvesto Turkey merelyreferring it, Greeks havea habitof actingas if theirhouse is completelyin orderon this count. these caveatsit seems we willalso haveto get used to addingAlevis,who in the polit42To climateof Turkish icallyliberalizing societyand politicsseem to be poised to asserttheir Thereis a virtual of on and explosion journalistic pseudo-academic 'identity'. writing the topto books ic at present, it is practically and impossible keepup to date withthe latestjournals, and conferences. 1987.A ShortHistory Modern Greece. Richard. of 43Clogg, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,pp. 120-122. of into a sphere considereddistinctfrom 'politics' 'the or 440n the privatization 'religion' C. and economy'see Wilfred Smith.1991 [1963].TheMeaning Endof Religion. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.On the issue in the conext of Islamsee T.Asad,"Religious in Criticism the in Middle East" his Genealogies Religion. Baltimore: JohnsHopkins Press,1993. of University and relationto neighboring 45Seehis approachto Ottomanhistoriography the Ottomans' En 1995 [1983].Istanbul: Yayinlari. Hil European politiesin Imperatorlugun UzunYOzyili. modernTurkish taken its termfor secularism, has fromthe French laic. 461ndeed, laiklik, Talal.1986. TheIdeaof an Anthropology Islam.Centerfor Contemporary Arab 47Asad, of Studies. 480n the declineof authority a mode of poweramong moderns(anddistinct as fromcoersee is in cion and persuasion) HannahArendt.1968. "What Authority?" BetweenPastand in Future: eightexercises politicalthought.NewYork: Viking.

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