Between Islam and the State: The Politics of Engagement

Features

• Cover Type: Paperback with 240 pages
• Published by: Stanford University Press
• Edition: 1st Edition October 26, 2006
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 0804755019
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-0804755016
• Book Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Weighs: 4.8 ounces

Product Review
"Between Islam and the State is a very good book that has a timely question and intriguing cases. The Turkish experience is full of lessons for those who are interested in Islam-state relations in other Muslim countries. This book, therefore, is a candidate to become a must-read for the students of Middle Eastern politics in particular and of religion and politics in general."—Comparative Political Studies

"Berna Turam's book is one of the best to have been published recently on the interaction between Islam and the secular state in Turkey Her study stands as an great analysis of what one might call 'Turkish exceptionalism.' As such, it is must reading of anyone who wishes to understand contemporary Turkey and the implications of the Turkish experience for other Muslim-majority countries."—The Middle East Journal

"Turam's book is an great counterintuitive account of Turkish politics in the last ten years Turam shows how a non-confrontational politics have allowed the Turkish secular state and the Islam-inspired Gulen movement and the Justice and Development Party (known by its Turkish acronym AKP) to interact, reshape each other, and expand democratic institutions."—Contemporary Sociology"Turam's essay is an important contribution to the Islam–state interface in Turkey. Not only does it refute the received wisdom concerning that relationship, which has long attributed less than valid motives to both the Islamic actors and the secularists in Turkey, but it also to a great extent explains the evolving dynamics behind that interface This essay deserves to be a must-read for students of the Islam–state relationship both in Turkey and elsewhere."—Turkish Studies

Product Description
Throughout the Middle East, the clash between Islamic forces and authoritarian states has undermined many democratization efforts. But in Turkey, Islamic actors—from the Gülen movement to the pro-Islamist Justice and Development Party—have been able to negotiate the terms of secular liberal democracy. This book explores the socio-political conditions and cultural venues in which Islamic movements cease to confront and start to cooperate with secular states.

Though both the Gülen and JP have ambivalent attitudes toward individual freedoms and various aspects of civil society, their continuing engagements with the state have encouraged democracy in Turkey. As they contest issues of education and morality but cooperate in ethnic and gender politics, they redraw the boundaries between public sites and private lives. Showing opportunities for engagement between Islam and the state, from Turkey to Kazakhstan to the United States, Between Islam and the State illustrates a successful means of negotiating between religion and politics.