Combat Between Modernism and Revivalism

Abstract

If one thing that the failed coup by a small but some of the top hierarchy of Turkish armed forces on that fateful July 15, 2016 day made clear, it was: the ordinary civilians, unarmed as they were poured into the streets to defend the government whatever way they can. This massive public sympathy and support for Turkish President Erdogan and his government would be hard, if not impossible to understand, without knowing the historical intellectual, academic, and moral combat between the modernists and Islamist groups working within the country. Mustafa Kamal had turned Turkey, mostly by force, from Ottoman empire into the secular mode influenced by the teachings activists like Ziay Goklap. Mustafa Kamal used the military power to take over the Turkey and forced the last Caliph to Europe. Later on various Islamic revolutionary outfits and countless revolutionaries struggled for the revival of Ottoman empire. Among them Bediuzzaman Said Nursi managed to cast a strong influence through their interpretation of Holy Quran. A little later slow but steady and steadfast effort influenced by Nursi movement continued and remain continuing still, though Islam-shy Western powers managed to create an alternate power structure against sitting President Tayyep Erdogan. They, however, failed due to result oriented social work delivered by his regime in as Mayor (27-March-1994 to 6-Nov-1998) and then as Prime Minister (March 2003 to August 2014). It is a lesson for all other revolutionaries anywhere in general and Islamic revolutionaries and Governments that if politicians deliver no power can oust them like a bee from butter.