Abstracts Philosophy, Religion, and Theology

Islam and the freedom of religion or belief : perspectives from contemporary Turkey

by Özlem Denli Harvey

During the 1980s religion, throughout the world, left its assigned place in the private sphere and made its way into the public arena of moral and political contestation. This tendency was even more pronounced in Muslim countries, especially in the Middle East, where Islamic movements moved to the center stage and entered political equations in different ways. Alongside with the rise of religious fundamentalism that is antithetical to secularism - defined as structural differentiation - and the principle of religious freedom, there emerged non-fundamentalist and yet public forms of religion that have a positive role to play in the modern world. This thesis studies Islamic voices and movements that are not fundamentalist and yet assume public and political roles in the social and historical context of Turkey in the 1990s. My focal concern is to describe and assess the potentials and limitations of the Islamic expressions briefly described above for accommodating the principle of the freedom of religion or belief. More specifically, the aim of this study is to depict the extent of religious liberties endorsed within the fremework of the Islamic positions at hand, and to comprehend the normative grounds of their affirmation.