Table Of ContentReading Islam
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Social, Economic and Political
Studies of the Middle East
and Asia
Founding Editor: C.A.O. Van Nieuwenhuijze
Editor
Dale F. Eickelman
Advisory Board
Ruth Mandel (University College London)
Bettina Gräf (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität)
volume 123
The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/seps
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Reading Islam
Life and Politics of Brotherhood in
Modern Turkey
By
Fabio Vicini
leiden | boston
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Cover illustration: Image drawn from Giorgio Tentolini’s artistic work “Namaz.”
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Vicini, Fabio, 1981- author.
Title: Reading Islam : life and politics of brotherhood in modern Turkey /
by Fabio Vicini.
Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, [2020] | Series: Social, economic and
political studies of the Middle East and Asia, 1385-3376 ; volume 123 |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019037124 (print) | LCCN 2019037125 (ebook) | ISBN
9789004409316 (hardback) | ISBN 9789004413757 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Muslims--Turkey--Istanbul--Intellectual life--21st century.
| Muslims--Religious life--Turkey--Istanbul. | Gülen Hizmet Movement. |
Weşanên Nûbihar. Rêza Riŝaleyên Nur--Reading. | Islamic learning
and scholarship--Turkey--Istanbul--History--21st century. | Islamic
renewal--Turkey. | Islam and politics--Turkey. | Islam--Social
aspects--Turkey.
Classification: LCC BP63.T82 I788 2020 (print) | LCC BP63.T82 (ebook) |
DDC 297.094961/8--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019037124
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019037125
Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface.
ISSN 1385-3376
ISBN 978-90-04-40931-6 (hardback)
ISBN 978-90-04-41375-7 (e-book)
Copyright 2020 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi,
Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag.
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For Asya
∵
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Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Note on Transliteration and Turkish Pronunciation xi
Introduction: Reading Islam in Modern Times 1
1 Reading is Transcending 3
2 Accommodating Modernity 7
3 Thinking Islam 11
4 A Revival of Muslim Civility 17
5 Fieldwork in Two Concealed Communities 22
6 Before and after July 15 27
7 Outline of the Book 31
1 Outreaches of Religious Service 33
1 Reading the Risale 36
2 Reforming Society through Educational Service 39
3 From Hizmet to Individual Duty 45
4 Modernity and the Displacement of Islamic Ethics 50
5 The Islamic Revival, Urban Life and Community 56
2 Living the Brotherhood 63
1 Daily Life in the Houses 64
2 Discipline and Prayer 69
3 Time and Prayer 72
4 Living by Example 74
5 Brotherhood between Pedagogy and Authority 79
6 Brotherhood between Civility and Corporate Personality 84
7 Virtues of Mutuality 87
8 Living Sincerity 92
3 Reading, Reflection and the Search for Transcendence 97
1 Appealing to the Imagination 101
2 Iterative Reading 105
3 Reading as Cultural Practice 109
4 Genealogies of Reflection 115
5 Toward a Sufi Cosmology 119
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viii Contents
6 Reflecting on Death 124
4 Putting Islam to Work 132
1 Education, the Nation and the Islamic “Ethos” 134
2 Accessing Quality Education 141
3 Modern Times, Docile Methods 145
4 From Jihad to Reforming Society 148
5 Life and Tutoring in the Gülen Housings 151
6 Romanticizing Prophethood 155
7 Learning by Example 158
8 Embodying Responsibility 162
5 Politics of Brotherhood 169
1 “You’ll Be of Service to This Country” 171
2 The Nur Self’s Spaces of Will and Freedom 173
3 The Relativity of the Good: On the Modern Liberal Conception of the
Self 177
4 Being an Aware and Responsible Muslim 183
5 On Brotherhood and Moral Reasoning 188
Conclusion 198
References 207
Index 230
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Acknowledgments
This book is the outcome of several years of research, fieldwork, and writing,
and would not have been possible without the support and contribution of a
number of interlocutors, colleagues, friends, and family. I would first like to
express my deepest gratitude to Armando Salvatore. With intellectual rigor
and philosophical erudition, but also by example, Armando has been a funda-
mental reference point for me, as a scholar and a person, during these years.
Those who are familiar with his work will recognize the influence of his
thinking across most of this book, and there are no adequate words to
express my gratitude. I also owe special thanks to Michelangelo Guida and Se-
trag Manoukian, both of whom have played a crucial role in my intellectual
initiation. Michelangelo has extended to me most of what I know about
Turkey’s society and politics and has encouraged me to explore the religious-
conservative camp with scrutiny and dedication. As a colleague and a friend,
he has always expressed the greatest generosity to me, and I am indebted to
him for this. To Setrag, I am particularly grateful for having introduced me to
seminal debates in the anthropology of Islam and the Middle East several years
ago during my graduate studies at the University of Milano-Bicocca, and for his
encouragement and advice during these years.
Besides, I have particularly benefitted from conversations with Paola Aben-
ante regarding the anthropology of Islam, Sufism, and the place of “modernity”
in the exploration of this complex field; Kim Shively and Martin van Bruines-
sen on the trajectory of Islamic movements in Turkey, and the sociopolitical
transformations of the last decade and a half; and Nada Moumtaz about the
question of continuity and change in Islamic tradition. I am also grateful to all
my other colleagues whose engagement with my work have contributed to
giving this book its final shape: Fida Adely, Hatsuki Aishima, Schirin Amir-
Moazami, Ercüment Asıl, Philipp Bruckmayr, Estella Carpi, James Seale-Collazo,
Feray Coşkun, Kristina Dohrn, Dietrich Jung, Jakob Krais, Önder Küçükural,
Gennaro Gervasio, Oğuzhan Göksel, William Holt, Kasper Mathiesen, Shireen
Mirza, Paulo Pinto, Francesco Piraino, Emin Poljarevic, Dietrich Reetz, Samuli
Schielke, Mark Sedgwick, Kirstine Sinclair, Abdulkader Tayob, Mara Tedesco,
Caroline Tee, and Berna Zengin Arslan.
The research project that lies at the heart of this book was initially con-
ceived at the Istituto Italiano di Scienze Umane in Siena (now Istituto di Sci-
enze Umane e Sociali, Scuola Normale Superiore, Florence and Pisa). I owe
special thanks to people from the Centro AMA, particularly to Maurizio Bettini
and Simone Beta for their support and help. A particular thank you also goes to
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x Acknowledgments
Leonardo Piasere, who has encouraged and advised me at critical moments of
my fieldwork; to Claudia Mattalucci for her guidance and friendship; and to
Ugo Fabietti, who sadly has left us too soon.
I would also like to thank the Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures
and Societies (BGSMCS) and Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) for having pro-
vided me with a fellowship at the beginning of the writing of this work. I am
also grateful to the organizers and participants of the 2012 UCSIA Summer
School, Antwerp. In particular, I would like to thank Robert Hefner, Grace
Yukich, Nancy A. Khalil, and Pooyan Tamimi Arab, for suggestions and criti-
cism. This project was completed at Istanbul 29 Mayis University, where apart
from people already mentioned above, I would like to thank Emrah Safa Gür-
kan and Özgür Ünal Eriş for their sympathetic support and friendship.
I am particularly indebted to the series editor at Brill, Dale F. Eickelman, for
his encouragement and support at different stages of the process, as well as to
my in-house editor Nienke Brienen-Moolenaar for her assistance with the
completion of this book. I am also grateful for the valuable suggestions and
comments made by the anonymous reviewers for Brill. I would also like to ex-
press my gratitude to James Disley for assisting me with editing a preliminary
version of the manuscript.
Needless to say, this book would have not been possible without the help,
patience, and humanity of the people I worked with in Istanbul, whose names
I have not mentioned in order to protect their privacy. A thank you goes to the
elder brothers and students of the communities that I researched who trusted
me and dedicated their time to me.
Finally, this work would have never been possible without the support of my
family, in particular my mother and father. Last but not least, my deepest grati-
tude and affection goes to Entela, the person who has probably taught me
most about humanity. Without her encouragement and her unshakable belief
in me and my work, this book would never have become a reality. Thank you
for having chosen to take this long journey with me.
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