Turkey

Islam in Turkey

Turkey is a predominantly Islamic country, where up to 99% of Turks are Muslim. Turkish Muslims are largely Sunni, and follow the Hanafi school of legal jurisprudence. Alevi Muslims make up anywhere between 15-20%, and smaller Ja’afari Shi’a Muslim communities are present. Sufism has had a long presence and a profound impact on...

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Judaism in Turkey

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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Kemalism

Kemalism refers to a series of sweeping reforms instituted by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, which included republicanism, populism, secularism, reformism, nationalism, and statism. Kemalist reforms had a direct impact on Turkish daily life (though with greater visibility in urban areas). For example, like Turkey’s patchwork of ethnic minorities, Ottoman Turkish was seen as a conglomeration of Turkish, Arabic, and Persian, was written in the Arabic script, and inherently linked to Turkey’s...

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Kurds in Turkey

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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Millet System, The

The Millet System refers to the Ottoman administration of separate religious communities that acknowledged each community’s authority in overseeing its own communal affairs, primarily through independent religious court systems and schools.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

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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Mustafa Kemal Atatürk

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

Ottomanism

Ottomanism was a political trend popular in the 1870s and 1880s in which loyalty to the sultan was replaced with loyalty to the Ottoman state, the fatherland (vatan). A single Ottoman citizenship was intended to replace religious, ethnic, and linguistic divisions among the Empire’s diverse subjects. Administratively, Ottomanist policies emphasized a strong central state to which all subjects were bound. In promoting religious equality (Tanzimat Reforms), the state assumed control over...

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PKK, The

The PKK (Partiya Karkarên Kurdistan, Kurdistan Workers Party) is a transnational Kurdish movement led by Abdullah Öcalan that seeks an independent Kurdish state (Kurdistan) in southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq. The PKK dominated Kurdish political discourse in the 1980s and 1990s, and violently targeted the Turkish military and security forces. The heavy handed response of the Turkish state, including indiscriminate violence and the use of torture, triggered a wider popular...

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Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

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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