Submission, Delusion and Manipulation: The Art of Islam

The world of phenomena and objects are often cannot be seen as what they are, but they are perceived as what previous generations have told it to be. Controversies and challenges to existing values often undermined with learned wrongs. For example, atheists long supported that the image of god and the existence of religion is nothing but mere sedatives and directives of power focuses. Just like every other counterpart throughout the world, Islam in Turkey, like other dominant religions in other countries can be seen like misdirection from certain matters that some interest groups dictated on regular and inadequately educated people.

It would be best to start with the etymologic background of the word, Islam. Although it may be seen like a long shot and an inference can be too literary, it gives a hint to what kind of society that we sociologically grow into. The word, Islam comes from the Arabic root “s-l-m” which means acceptance or submission, not necessarily to god, but a general surrender. Oddly enough, we use the word not only to utter the dominant religion in our country, but we greet each other with a different derivative of this root, “selam”. All in our country use this word to greet each other, either formally or informally. Again, this may seem like a speculation, but saying each other that we submit to the will of someone, or we surrender ourselves into the hands of the people we greet, is a deep scar originated in Turkish language, adapted from Islamic religion.

Turkic people, who are originally from middle Asia, indigenously have Tengriism, a polytheistic religion that originated according to their lifestyles and behaviors. Until the 8th century, Turkic people scattered around the world, either continued to believe in Tengri or assimilated into other religions. 8th century marked a significant event, Battle of Talas, between Arabs (and Turks) and Chinese. With the success of the Arabs, and the cooperation formed in the war, Islam began to expand over Turkic people and culture. Arabs had close bonds with Turks for various reasons, and the question needs to be raised here, why Arabs, specifically Abbasids treated Turks well.

The answers lie within future profits of the Arabs. In the 9th century, a new form of army, Mamluks (also known as Kolemen – which means slave man or owned man) appeared within the ranks of Arabian army. They have gathered immense strength and become a powerful military caste. The military needs of Arabs could only be fulfilled by the decisive Islamic promises. Islam used as a sedative and a way for Memluks to go to heaven, and in return, Arabs ask them to fight Arabic wars for them.
After the battle of Manzikert, the peninsula of Anatolia was ultimately under control of the Seljuq Turks. The decline of the Seljuqs gave way to Ottoman State to be established. The primary goal of the Ottoman State has been to conquer Byzantium and Istanbul. For nearly two hundred years, it has been seen as a “Muslim crusade” and a job that has been given by the prophet Mohammed. The hadith –which means the sayings of Mohammed – about Istanbul is widely spoken at those times, and even it is widely known and revered today’s Turkey is goes like this: “What a beautiful commander who conquered Istanbul, and what a beautiful army who conquered it.” This hadith become a motto while motivating the conquest, and the army. However, while Islam is used to motivate the public again, Sultan Mehmed II has declared himself as Kayser-i Rûm, which means Caesar of Rome. That shows his true intentions are rather becoming a new Roman emperor, and using the words of the prophets is an effective way to do it.

Curiously enough, his grandson, Selim I went to Egypt to get the protectorate of Caliphate. It is hard to believe it is only for the religious matters, but he showed his people that the reason to attack Egypt was to protect the Caliph. However, the riches and the spoils of the war with Mamluks were immense, and there rose questions, that if he used Islam to gather more wealth for Ottomans. After he captured the caliph and put him “under protection”, he has become a savior of the Islamic faith. However the caliph suspiciously surrendered the title caliph to Selim I willingly.

The caliphate has provided many advantages to Ottomans. All Islamic lands and people were somehow under control of Ottoman Empire regarding religious matters; and the sharia (religious law) was the prominent law of that time. Thus, it provides a great power over people. Caliphates have continued until the modern state of Turkey established in 1923. Mustafa Kemal has made an attempt to abolishing caliphate in 1924. Laicism, which also means secularism, was one of the Kemalist ideologies and a blooming modern Turkey. According to Mustafa Kemal’s reformation programs, Islam and therefore the identity of Muslim was belong to Ottoman Empire, and without the caliph, and with a secular system will create a new “Turk” identity.

However, the abolition was a critical and controversial matter. The Islamic faith in Turkey is extraordinarily strong for a secular country, and establishment of secularism in Turkey was not a step-by-step process of separation of church and state like in the West. In the Ottoman Empire, all spheres of life, at least theoretically, had been organized according to sharia, and Sunni religious organizations had been part of the state structure. With abolishing the caliphate, the head of the Islamic faith, the importance of being Muslim in state matters have disappeared, and while religious people found it disturbing, they also tried to sustain their religion in every aspect of the state. That led to confusion in politics, like conservative parties in Turkey have become mostly religion oriented, and they usually exploited common people’s religious beliefs. These religion-oriented parties have more and more dominant in the politic sphere, and conservatism has gained a new meaning in Turkey. They used religious elements for their own benefit, like making the Islamic tradition of wearing turban into a sense of crusade, where women supposed to protect the right to wear a headscarf in public areas and universities, where secular education and life is going on. It became a symbol of freedom for some people, but secularism, which is the foundation of this country, was now endangered.

As told by Karl Marx “religion is the opium of the people.” Throughout the history, we have seen that Islam has affected Turkish people in many ways, but this effect was mostly used by power focuses to gain advantage over people. Thus, Marx’s argument cannot be retaliated; religion is a perfect sedative and also stimulating product of mankind.