Conclusion: Muslimism in Turkey and Beyond

Abstract

In this book, I have concentrated on the changing interactions between Muslims and modernity in Turkey. Instead of defining these interactions either generically or normatively as “moderate” Islamism, I have argued that, in content and in practice, they embody the rise of a new Islamic orthodoxy. I use “orthodoxy” simply to denote a commitment to a religious tradition by infusing the super-empirical into everyday life. This orthodoxy is “new,” however, because it rejects both the attitude that modernity and religion are absolutely incommensurable and the attitude that there is little conflict between global modernity and religion. In other words, it is neither a liberal translation of religion into modernist terms nor a fundamentalist rejection of modernity. Instead, it is a hybrid framework that engages aspects of modern life, while submitting that life to a sacred, moral order.