Political Muslims by Abbas Tahir; Hamid Sadek; Ahmed Sameera

Author:Abbas, Tahir; Hamid, Sadek; Ahmed, Sameera
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Syracuse University Press
Published: 2019-02-13T00:00:00+00:00

Islamists who acquired or bear the hope to find a position in media, in bureaucracy, in associations or Islamists who—while avoiding any status—tied their fate to these Islamists through friend circles and prioritize their friends’ sake to truth and justice became the agents of a disastrous corruption. Unfortunately, Islamism, which was a call to morals and justice, is turned to a ruthless instrument of tyranny by these carriers and proponents. People, who revolt against oppression and raise the voice of dignity, came to a point where they cannot think of Islam as independent from the corrupt language of the powerful. (Kızılkaya 2014)

Here, Sinan Kızılkaya points to the increasing patronage relations formed between AKP governments and Islamic business circles, civil society organizations, and media outlets. Although Islamic business organizations and the flourishing Islamic civil society organizations were key drivers of Turkey’s democratization in the 1990s and early 2000s, especially during early AKP governments, these organizations eventually became dependent on state funds, developed clientelistic relations with the government, were co-opted by the governing party, and lost their autonomous, civic qualities (Sarfati 2017). Similarly, Islamic media organizations became AKP mouthpieces through corporate and personal relations, thereby losing their independent, critical qualities. In this political atmosphere, where an Islamist government became increasingly authoritarian and its actions were legitimized by most Islamic social actors, Islamism became “a cursed identity,” according to one activist (Serdar, interviewed by the author, May 23, 2017).

Another activist explained how the AKP’s corrupt practices undermined the appeal of Islam to the youth: “Particularly this theft issue, the issue of not standing trial after [the events of] December 17–25 alienated a segment of Turkish people from religion. There are youth who do not have any relation to Muslimhood” (Suat Yalçın, interviewed by the author, June 5, 2017).

Anticapitalist Muslims

The organization Anticapitalist Muslims was formed in 2012 by a group of young activists who were gathered around İnşa Cultural House (İnşa Kültür Evi), a nonprofit cultural center run by İhsan Eliaçık, a central figure in the group’s ideological evolution. Mostly youngsters, the organization’s members come together each week to read passages from the Qur’an and to discuss how these readings can inform contemporary socioeconomic conditions. Unlike the Labor and Justice Platform, Anticapitalist Muslims has a marked ideology, which weaves a radical, antisystemic critique of neoliberal capitalism with an Islamic worldview. Anticapitalist Muslims claim that their “Muslim” identity is an eternal and universal one, while their antagonism toward capitalism is “a historical [contingent] emphasis” because “capitalism is the name of our epoch’s dominant system,” and that “each prophetic message opposed the dominant system in its own epoch” (Antikapitalist Müslümanlar 2012).

Accordingly, the group’s manifesto (Antikapitalist Müslümanlar 2012) provides a critique of capitalist relations that is grounded in different verses from the Qur’an. For instance, based on the verse “And that human has only that for which he labors [strives for]” (Al-Najm 39), it claims that “value is [created in] the space where God’s blessing [nimet] interacts with labor.” Therefore, “the right to property is seen not as a freedom but as an instrument to create hegemony and authority.

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