Shi’ism in Turkey is represented by the large Alevi minority and the smaller Ja’afari community. Outside of Turkey, Ja’afaris (a reference to the role of Jafar al-Sadiq in developing Shi’a jurisprudence) are called Ithna’asharis or “Twelvers” for their belief that twelve imams succeeded the Prophet Muhammad. Twelver Shi’a Muslims make up the largest group within global Shi’ism. The Turkish Ja’afari community is concentrated in Eastern Turkey and in Istanbul, and originates from Azerbaijan, having fled from the 1878...

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Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (b. 1954) is the Prime Minister of Turkey and leader of the Justice and Development Party (AKP). In his youth, Erdoğan (pronounced “er-do-wan”) passionately advocated on behalf of Islamist interests and in the 1990s became a member of the Welfare Party led by Neҫmettin Erbakan and was the first Islamist elected as mayor of Istanbul. He served as Mayor of Istanbul from 1994 to 1998; despite fears of an openly Islamist politician, he impressed many by overseeing improvements...

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Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (d. 1938) was a Turkish military officer who led the Turkish army during the war of independence, and subsequently became the first President of the Republic of Turkey. He championed a series of striking nationalist and secularist reforms, known as Kemalism, which significantly altered the Turkish political, cultural, and religious landscape, and initiated longstanding tensions between Turkey’s secularist Kemalists and its pious Muslims, particularly those among the rising Muslim political...

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Fethullah Gülen (b. 1938) is a prominent Turkish Islamic scholar and founder of the international Gülen Movement, which evolved from the Nur Movement in the 1960s. Gülen stresses education as the vehicle for transforming the contemporary world. Where Said Nursi emphasized personal transformation as a means to effect social change, Gülen looks both to personal transformation and social and political activism, and fully embraces Turkish nationalism—the defining characteristic of which is Islam, not nationality—...

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Armenians form a small but highly politicized minority community on account of the 1915-1916 Armenian Genocide, during which over one million Armenians were killed as a result of population policies instituted by the Young Turks during and after the First World War. International efforts to push Turkey to officially recognize the Armenian Genocide have had a negative impact on the lives of Armenians living in Turkey. The current Armenian community is estimated to be around 70,000, the...

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There are roughly 20-25 million Kurds across the Middle East, almost half of whom live in southeastern Turkey, northern Iraq, northern Syria and northwestern Iran, a region that some Kurds refer to as Kurdistan. Kurds make up around 18% of Turkey’s population; Turkey’s largest Kurdish population lives in Istanbul (2 million). The majority of Kurds are Sunni Muslim, with Alevi Shi’a Muslim, Christian...

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Sufism (tasavvuf) is an Islamic modality that emphasizes self-discipline and personal reform through spiritual practices beside the essential practices that comprise Islamic orthopraxy. These spiritual practices include dhikr, individual or collective recitation of litanies composed of supplicatory prayers, Qur’anic passages, and the names of God. Despite reforms that dissolved Turkish Sufi orders and banned Sufi practices in 1925, Sufism survived through underground networks and flourishes in Turkey today.

Though only a minority of Turks belong to Sufi...

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The Young Ottomans (YO) was a constitutional reform and Ottoman state opposition movement that was influential in Ottoman politics between 1860 and 1876. The YO were a response to the Ottoman Tanzimat Reforms, which members accused the government of using to cement an autocratic bureaucracy led by the Ottoman elite. Instead, the YO promoted Ottomanism, which replaced loyalty to the sultan with loyalty to the state, attempted to...

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Mustafa Kemal Atat√ºrk (d. 1938) was a Turkish military officer who led the Turkish army during the war of independence, and subsequently became the first President of the Republic of Turkey. He championed a series of striking nationalist and secularist reforms, known as Kemalism, which significantly altered the Turkish political, cultural, and religious landscape, and initiated longstanding tensions between Turkey's secularist Kemalists and its pious Muslims, particularly those among the rising Muslim political and social elite represented by the AKP. Atat√ºrk is remembered as more than a... Read more about Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

There are estimated to be around 20,000 Jews in Turkey today, concentrated in Istanbul and Izmir. Judaism was present in the Ottoman Empire at its earliest foundations in the 14th century, particularly among the Greek-speaking Romaniots, who were descended from Jews living under the Byzantine Empire in Greece and Anatolia that had been unable to freely practice Judaism and so welcomed the Ottomans, and Jewish communities existed throughout the Levant, taken by the Ottomans in 1516. European Jews arrived during the 14th century, drawn by Ottoman policies that permitted Jewish and...

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Turkey has a longstanding Baha’i Faith community which today numbers roughly 10,000. The Baha’i Faith was founded in 19^th century Iran by Mirza Hosayn-Ali Nuri Baha’ullah (d. 1892) and developed from Babism, an Iranian messianic movement, and Shi’a Shaikhism. Baha’is acknowledge numerous prophets, including Muhammad, Jesus, Krishna, Buddha, and Baha’ullah. The Baha’i Faith is monotheistic and universalist, recognizing the truth claims of other religious traditions. Followers believe in progressive revelation, such that each age has its prophet and revelations specific to that...

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The Tanzimat Reforms were a series of edicts between 1839 and 1876 intended to preserve the weakening Ottoman Empire. These included the 1839 Hatt-ı Şerif of Gülhane (“Noble Edict of the Rose Chamber”) which guaranteed life and property rights, instituted tax regulations, outlawed execution without trial, and other liberal reforms which recalled the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen (1789); and the 1856 Hatt-ı Hümayun (“Imperial Edict”). Both edicts asserted the equality of Muslim and non-Muslim Ottoman subjects.

The Tanzimat reforms were directed at...

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A dhimmi refers to a non-Muslim subject of the Ottoman Empire. Derived from Islamic legal conceptions of membership to society, non-Muslims ‘dhimmis’ were afforded protection by the state and did not serve in the military, in return for specific taxes. The dhimmi status was legally abolished in 1839 with the Hatt-ı Şerif of Gülhane and was formalized with the 1869 Ottoman Law of Nationality as part of wider Tanzimat Reforms. Regardless of these official changes, in...

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Turkey has a small but growing Greek population, most of whom are Greek Orthodox Christians. Greek Orthodox Christianity was one of three main groups under the Ottoman millet system, which dissolved with the creation of the secular state, at which point the Greek patriarch was temporarily expelled from Istanbul and secular education was imposed in Greek schools. Like the Armenians, the Greeks suffered massacres and expulsions from Turkey leading up to and during WWI, and many more were removed to Greece during the 1923 population transfer of Greeks and Turks.

The Greek...

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The Armenian Genocide refers to the deaths and deportations of between 700,000 and one million Armenians during and after WWI. Heightened tensions arose between the Ottoman government and its Armenian subjects beginning with the 1830 annexation of Eastern Armenia by Russia, triggering an Armenian cultural revival that led to the emergence of Armenian nationalism, which made claims to a homeland in Eastern Turkey. The genocide also reflects population policies instituted by the Young Turks to “Turkify” and homogenize the Turkish population. These policies were issued in the context of a...

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