Islamic Economics: The Islamic Bourgeoisie and the Imagined Community

Thesis submitted to the

Institute for Graduate Studies in the Social Sciences
in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Master of Arts
in
Political Science and International Relations

by

Joseph S Doherty

Boğaziçi University

2007
 Islamic Economics: The Islamic Bourgeoisie and the Imagined Community

The thesis of Joseph Steven Doherty

has been approved by

Assist. Prof. Dr. Koray Çalışkan _______________________________

(Thesis advisor)

Prof. Dr. Binnaz Toprak _______________________________

Assist. Prof. Dr. Murat Akan _______________________________

ii
 THESIS ABSTRACT

Joseph Steven Doherty, “Islamic Economics: The Islamic Bourgeoisie and

the Imagined Community”

In this thesis I examine the languge of the Islamic Bourgeoisie in Turkey as

represented by MUSIAD, a business association known for its religious conservatism, to

show that the Islamic bourgeoisie imparts its own meaning to the terms of capitalism and

Islam in a struggle over hegemony in defining the Muslim community in Turkey today.

Where liberalism and notions of community conflict, this class imagines old concepts in

modern ways so that Turkish society can be Muslim and Capitalist at the same time

without violating the values of either Turkish-Islamic tradition or Capitalism. This work

is premised on the theory that the ideas expressed through language give shape to reality;

thus, novel reinterpretations of concepts can bring about changes in social practices,

particularly when the imaginaries produced through those reinterpretations become

institutionalized. This is a socially relavant issue in Turkey today due to the increased

access that the bourgeoisie has to media outlets and government ministries.

iii
 TEZ ÖZETĐ

Joseph Steven Doherty, “Đslami Đktisat: Đslami Burjuvazi ve

Hayali Cemaat”

Bu tezde dini muhafazakarlığı ile bilinen işveren örgütü MUSĐAD tarafından temsil

edildiği şekliyle Türkiye’deki Đslami Burjuvazi’nin dilini inceliyorum. Đslami

burjuvazinin, Türkiye’deki müslüman cemaatini tanımlama üzerinde verilen bir

hegemonya mücadelesi dahilinde kapitalizm ve Đslam terimlerine kendi anlamını

yüklediğini göstermeye çalışıyorum. Liberalizm ve cemaat mefhumlarının birbiriyle

çeliştiği noktada bu sınıf, Türk toplumunun Türk-Đslam geleneğinin ve Kapitalizmin

değerlerini ihlal etmeden aynı zamanda hem Müslüman hem de kapitalist olabilmesi için

eski kavramları modern şekillerde tahayyül ediyor. Bu çalışma, dille ifade edilen

fikirlerin gerçekliğe şekil verdiği, dolayısıyla kavramların alışılmamış şekillerde yeniden

yorumlanmasının, özellikle tahayyüller bu yeniden yorumlamaların kurumsallaşması

üzerinden üretildiğinde toplumsal pratiklerde değişiklik yaratacağı kuramına dayanıyor.

Burjuvazinin medya odaklarına ve bakanlıklara erişiminin arttığı dikkate alındığında

bunun toplumsal olarak anlamlı bir mesele olduğu görülüyor.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter

1. INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................1

2. LITERATURE REVIEW .........................................................................................9

Islamic Perspective ............................................................................................11
Academic Perspective ........................................................................................14

3. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND.........................................................................22
Cornelius Castoriadis..........................................................................................22
Bill Maurer..........................................................................................................25
Cihan Tuğal.........................................................................................................28
Hegemony...........................................................................................................30
Kemalism............................................................................................................31

4. METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................ 36

5. MUSIAD MEMBER: ŞEN......................................................................................38

Time and Tradition ............................................................................................39
Lifestyle and Choice ..........................................................................................41
A Business Model for Social Development .......................................................44
Being a Member of the Muslim Community in Turkey ....................................47
Imaginary ...........................................................................................................50

6. MUSIAD MEMBER: BURHAN............................................................................54

Spiritual Reward vs. Financial Gain...................................................................54
Community in the Marketplace .........................................................................57
The Bourgeois Burden .......................................................................................60
Imaginary ...........................................................................................................63

7. MUSIAD MEMBER: AĞCA .................................................................................66

The Duality of Morality......................................................................................66
A New Social Contract ......................................................................................69
Community Expansion .......................................................................................71
Imaginary............................................................................................................73

8. MUSIAD MEMBER: ADAMOĞLU......................................................................76

The Need for Greater Religiosity .......................................................................76
An Islamic Panacea.............................................................................................78
Small Government vs. Welfare for the Rich ......................................................81

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 Imaginary ...........................................................................................................83

9. OVERVIEW AND OBSERVATION..........................................................................85

Summary of Those Interviewed..........................................................................85
Being Muslim and Capitalist .............................................................................90
Outlying the Community....................................................................................94
Conservatism at Work in Society.......................................................................96

10. CONCLUSION..........................................................................................................98
Suggestions for Future Study............................................................................101

BIBLIOGRAPHY....................................................................................................102

APPENDICES
Interviews....................................................................................... ..................105
Interview Questions..........................................................................................106

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 CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

In this thesis I focus on Islamic economics in Turkey. Islamic economics seeks to find

and institute a specific understanding of justice in the economic sphere, which is

intimately related to the social and political spheres. I have chosen to focus on economic

relationships and attitudes within the Muslim community because understanding the

economic dynamics could shed light on how the idea of a community of believers is

articulated. What this community represents and the form it should take are areas of

contention within Turkey. Part of the debate is centered on the ability to strike a balance

between class and community.

The phenomenon I am concerned with has social, cultural, political, and economic

implications that reach beyond the sphere of any particular locality; however, it should be

absolutely clear that this study presents no more than a moment in time with strict

empirical limitations on social and cultural factors. In this work I seek to illustrate a

potentially powerful minority in the Muslim community in Turkey, the Islamic

bourgeoisie. This group is the economic elite of a spectrum of Turkish society that

identifies strongly with Islam as a guiding force in daily life. This is a business class that

has generated itself with a self-supporting entrepreneurial spirit. This group has started

and maintained its own businesses in a climate of liberal market economics. The people

in this group display their religious identity as a defining part of their business ethic.

This identity is expressed through the products that are produced, the networks that

1
connect businessmen with each other, and the way that businesses are operated in

reference to a particular religious understanding. The Islamic bourgeoisie, small and

medium sized industrialists operating within an Islamic frame of reference, has an

advantage over other actors in the community due to its financial prowess, which affords

it easy access to mass media. There is a struggle over ideas that shows that the Muslim

community is divided and in need of some way to acclimate itself to economic

development and integration with global capitalism.

The desire to define itself and others within the field brings the Islamic bourgeoisie

into conflict with others claiming to be Islamic who are opposed to capitalism; moreover,

it is opposed by secularists with a tradition of animosity toward Islamism. Symbols and

signifiers are challenged and debated as the actors tread over their common ground, or

shared space, and discover divisive boundaries between symbol and reality. These

boundaries do not represent closed borders because meaning and its import travel back

and forth between actors, who are borrowing, imitating, and enlarging each other’s

arguments even in the process of refuting them. Instead, these boundaries are fecund

environments from which the possibility of understanding and making oneself understood

compels the reenactment of the search, discovery, propagation, and refutation of truth.

Justice is a key concept in this discourse; however, this word is normatively bound, so

within the community, which is unified neither ideologically nor geographically, justice

is a contested concept. In the economic field Islamists apply their religiously inspired

principles to bring justice to economic systems that they criticize for being inefficient,

exploitive, and void of spirituality.

2
 Community, ribâ, and zakat are three recurrent themes in Islamic economic writing

(Siddiqi 1981). Islamists seek a balance between material and spiritual wealth so that the

perceived community of believers develops as a community and the righteous receive

their rewards both in this world and in the afterlife. This idea of community is central to

Islamist thought because the community creates an environment that structures an

individual’s behavior according to Islamic mores. The community, once properly

established, would provide the individual with moral support when he is weak and moral

correction when he errs.

Another theme is the prohibition against ribâ (an archaic form of usury which often

resulted in slavery for insolvent borrowers), which is often equated with taking interest

on loans. This is forbidden because taking profit without effort or risk encourages

idleness and contributes to the ills of society. The other theme is the collection and

distribution of zakat, the tithe on income. This is a means to redistribute wealth and

finance the provision of services to the community. The ideological position that an

Islamist takes on these issues stems from his concept of justice. For example, the

acceptable degree of income inequality that does not threaten the solidarity of the

community depends on one’s opinion of how much inequality is just. Some say no

inequality is just whereas others say that a moderate amount is morally acceptable, but

there is even disagreement over what is meant by a moderate amount (Chapra 2000, p. ).

I argue that the Islamic bourgeoisie is engaged in a struggle over meaning and value.

It is faced with opposition from secularists and anti-capitalist Islamists. It balances its

socioeconomic position with religious signification and uses its economic resources to

foster a social imaginary that values both individualism and communalism.

3
 My study of the Islamic bourgeoisie is centered on one particular group which is

active and well recognized within Turkey, Mustakil Sanayici ve Is Adamlari Dernegi

(MUSIAD). It should be noted that the word mustakil means independent, so the idea

that it is a Muslim organization is only implied in the organization’s name. This business

association was formed in 1990 as a means for Muslim businessmen to network and pool

their resources in what they perceived to be a hostile social, political, and economic

environment dominated by an anti-religious military state and a state sponsored industrial

bourgeoisie. Its Islamic nature is rooted in its identification with Islam as an organizing

and motivating force. MUSIAD explains its business ethics and approaches in religious

terms. The members of this association are primarily small and medium sized

businesses, many of which are based in Anatolia.

The secular standard maintained throughout the greater part of the twentieth century in

the Republic of Turkey owes its vitality to a military with a strong domestic presence and

an industrial bourgeoisie identifying with state ideology under the banner of Kemalism.

Taha Parla (2004), Cağlar Keyder (1987), and Umit Cizre Sakallioğlu (1996) have argued

that these secular forces, which once hegemonized such concepts as modernity and

democracy, have sought from their inception to define Islam and Islamic groups in such a

way that they could be relegated and tamed. The Kemalist attempt to shape religion was

part of an overall objective to unify Turkey through social and cultural homogenization.

However, from the secularist attempt to create a politically docile religion the fusion of

politics and Islam arose in the social imaginary of the populace. In exploring the struggle

over meaning and value between secularists and the Islamic bourgeoisie I discuss the

4
ways in which these actors have contributed to the development of each other’s meaning

through criticism, suppression, and co-optation.

Likewise, the Islamic bourgeoisie exists alongside other Islamists who reject not only

the secular order but also the capitalist system. For example, Cihan Tuğal refers to one

Turkish writer who likens capitalism to the Islamic equivalent of the Anti-Christ (Tuğal

2002, p.101). In their efforts to define themselves and each other they generate new

contradictions and open new possibilities of reality for the other to find meaning in. I

explore the constructive process that these actors are engaged in. This discussion is

based on the notion that there are varying degrees of what it means to be Islamic and that

the capitalist is more or less Islamic than the anti-capitalist. In this competition over

symbols and significations one actor must choose to accept what the other sees as an

Islamic precept or redefine that precept in a way that coincides with his own modality.

The Islamic bourgeoisie is one result of a process that includes the actions and ideas of

a multiplicity of actors inside and outside of the bounds of Islam as a key for self-

identification. It is a living phenomenon still open to change and development; however,

this study does not propose to speculate on the future of Islamic business in Turkey. I am

attempting to give a clear description of a group that emerged in the last decades of the

twentieth century so that the economic dynamic in the study of political Islam receives

full consideration as one factor influencing and being influenced by others in a matrix of

relationships which may be perfectly visible or concealed within a mire of dogma,

language, and ideology in both the community and the academic endeavor to understand

it.

5
 Focusing this study on the Turkish context requires one to address the place of the

Turkish state within society. This means examining state ideology and its invasion of the

social consciousness. Turkey has had an enduring secular tradition due in large part to

the success of state ideology in appropriating Islamic symbols. Ultimately, however, the

state could not eliminate Islamic sentiments from society. It is necessary to view the

Islamic revival in Turkey as a reaction to state policies, which at times have been

oppressive and at times encouraging.

The competition over symbols indicates that the meaning applied to those symbols is

contestable and apt to change under the right conditions. In other words, there is no fixed

relationship between a social symbol and the reality it is supposed to represent. Although

this creates room for a flat denial of truth, seen more positively, it represents the

possibility for inquiring minds to encounter an increasing number of horizons from which

one may attempt to improve himself and the world. The evolving nature of social

symbols and their meanings is a significant part of this work.

Interpretation stands alongside imagination as an operation whose performance locates

meaning. The imagination links reality with non-reality, things and the symbols and

words used to represent those things. This work considers the social significance of the

imagination and the constructions of the social imagination, which spawn and structure

new modes of social behavior and, thus, new realities.

The struggle to define social relationships is a hegemonic struggle. In their bid for

political power social actors seek to dominate the field so thoroughly that any opposition

employs the same language and concepts as the dominant in political discourses. The

dominant exists within a framework to which the subordinate acquiesces. In this work I

6
will discuss the theoretical issue of capitalism as a possible hegemonic mode with which

religiously motivated Muslims are forced to reconcile.

All of the issues raised above contribute in varying degrees to the formation of

individuals and communities. Some of these aspects of society may favor individualism

while others might favor communalism. It is my contention that the Islamic bourgeoisie

is a hybrid phenomenon with both individualistic and communalistic features. In the

work that follows I will describe this hybridization and its significance.

This approach involves first identifying the operational material and cultural

elements. Then, it involves locating areas of agreement and disagreement, mutual

reinforcement and conflict, between the material and cultural realms and within each of

these realms taken individually. My focus is on the Islamic bourgeoisie as it is

represented by the Islamic business association MUSIAD. Therefore, I will define the

material structure in which this class finds itself, and I will outline the symbolic

framework through which it finds meaning. This will show the Islamic bourgeoisie’s

formation in relation to social-economic institutions and processes and in relation to the

non-Islamic bourgeoisie, the Islamic proletariat, and the Islamic movement in general.

These relations will expose areas of struggle, agreement, and compromise over material

and cultural concerns. After analyzing these areas it should be clear that ideas and

opportunities can lead to action and that in the course of such action, new ideas and

opportunities arise.

To answer my question I will focus on the areas of material and symbolic

compromise, which are informed by areas of agreement and conflict. I will explain how

such compromise came into being and why it is significant for the Muslim community in

7
Turkey. My purpose is to better understand the bourgeois Muslims and create a fuller

picture of what this social-economic class represents.

8
 CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

The inspiration for this study stems from my reading of Recognizing Islam by Michael

Gilsenan. Gilsenan presents a broad study of the forms that Islam takes in various

contexts. A current of class conflict flows through his work as he explores power

relations operating through diverse spaces. He shows that through Islam some people

find ways to improve their material conditions, and others discover ways of interpreting

the world that allow them to justify their social status or lack there of. By taking a

holistic approach that considers material and cultural issues, Gilsenan is able to express

the complexity of the relationship between religion and society (Gilsenan 1993).

The works of Cihan Tuğal and Bill Maurer make up the bulk of my theoretical

approach in this research project. Cihan Tuğal explicitly articulates an approach that

synthesizes cultural and material factors in order to demonstrate the struggle over

meaning within the Islamic movement. Tuğal dismisses ideas that religion is simply a

tool for social domination, a tactical framework for resistance to domination, or an

apolitical oasis from reality (Tuğal 2002, p.87-90). Thus, he rejects the notion that

Islamism is simply a class movement that would follow the same course as Third World

nationalisms. He appreciates the conception of Islamism as the product of historically

defined socio-economic processes; however, he points out that this approach does not

account for the existence of a popular imagination that serves to legitimate political

action in the name of religion. Drawing from the work of Cornelius Castoriadis, Tuğal

9
states that the imagination of a human being is a force that divides social realities such as

the relations of production from the sign system that represents such a reality. If a

change in the imagination becomes an institutionalized marker for socialization, the

social imagination evolves and elicits a corresponding change in social practice. By

examining Islamist print media in Turkey he goes on to show that the socioeconomic gap

between Islamist rich and poor is a source of conflict in the Islamic movement which

intensifies as the actors compete in defining capitalism in reference to an imagined ideal

of justice.

Bill Maurer writes about Islamic banking and finance as a means to explore the

inability of language to ever truly capture its object and to criticize academic methods

and writings that do not recognize the extent of the creative process in which they are

engaged directly and indirectly with the social phenomena they are studying. For

Maurer, Islamic banking is analogous to the positivist academic pursuit of knowledge

(Maurer 2005, p.111-115). Both represent a failure in terms of their ability to produce

their promised results. Islamic banking recreates capitalism by fetishizing the commodity

and money forms with religious value. Likewise, positivist academics produce a glut of

information without yielding any new knowledge. However, he does not fault either of

them for their efforts. In fact, his work carries an overall positive tone that suggests that

random, novel, and unforeseen consequences may arise from what appear to be the most

insignificant events. Thus, the evolutionary process of the generation and regeneration of

meaning continues.

10
 The Islamic Perspective

Before continuing with a review of the literature that studies Islamic economics from

the outside, I would like to summarize the mainstream position of those who study the

subject from inside the discipline. Some Islamists are especially critical of capitalism and

others are critical of socialism; however, the “alternative” path that mainstream Islamic

economists favor is the market economy with limited government regulation. This may

appear to be very similar to economic systems in the West, but Islamist writers

differentiate themselves from Western economists by emphasizing moral as well as

material values. It is worth noting that Islamic economists are well versed in the

language of the conventional economics taught in the West, and that they equate

economic survival with the survival of the Muslim community itself. Thus, efficiency

becomes a virtue that must often be weighed against other Islamic injunctions that could

threaten the movement’s long term survival.

Maurer points out that M. A. Mannan and Muhammad Nejatullah Siddiqi, both

following in the footsteps of Sayyid Abul A’la Mawdudi, are the most widely cited

writers in the field of Islamic economics (Maurer 2005, p.30). A brief look at their work

with contributions from other significant writers in the field provides an overview for the

mainstream Islamic economic thought treated in this thesis. At the root of the Islamic

project is the recognition that social and economic issues are treated in the Koran and

derived from the traditions of the prophet. In other words, Islamic law extends to the

field of economics so that the Islamic community may find economic justice. However,

as Mawdudi writes,

11
 For establishing economic justice, Islam does not rely on law alone. Great
importance is attached for this purpose to reforming the inner man through faith,
prayers, education, and moral training, to changing his preferences and ways of
thinking and inculcating in him a strong moral sense that keeps him just. If and
when these means fail, Muslim society should be strong enough to exert pressure
to make individuals adhere to the ‘limits.’ When even this does not deliver the
goods , Islam is for the use of the coercive powers of law to establish justice by
force (Sididiqi 1981, p.13).

This is a social project that aims at the total transformation of society, starting at the level

of the individual and bolstered by the state. The basic philosophy of Islamic economics

is characterized by this concern for society with the ultimate goal of performing God’s

will. Included in this philosophy there are two important points stated clearly by Siddiqi.

First, “The will of Allah constitutes the source of value and becomes the end of human

endeavor” (Siddiqi 1981, p.5). This plainly removes the mystery of value by putting it in

absolute, undeniable terms. Once accepted, this should remove the temptation toward

speculation, which is forbidden, and obliterate any notions of radical redistribution of

property based on the labor theory of value. The second point is that “The entire

Universe with all its natural resources and powers is made amenable to exploitation by

man, though it is owned by Allah and Allah alone” (Siddiqi 1981, p.5). Thus, a person is

only acting as a caretaker endowed with the privilege of utilizing the material at hand.

This emphasizes the notion that all of humanity stands equally before the judgment of

God with nothing but his past actions to prove his worth. Siddiqi writes that within the

Islamist literature there is agreement over the basic economic philosophy but

disagreement over the just distribution of wealth and the relations of people that result

from or promote such a distribution, including acceptable measures of social control.

12
 M. A. Mannan presents a comparative study in economics that essentializes

capitalism, communism, socialism, fascism, and Islam so that he can differentiate Islamic

economics from other economic forms. However, he states quite clearly at the outset of

his comparison that conventional economics and Islamic economics share the same basic

approach to the issue of scarcity. The main difference between these kinds of economics,

he continues, is in the choices that economic actors make. In conventional economics,

choices are dependent on the whims of individuals acting in their own interests. In

Islamic economics, on the other hand, economic actors operate according to the dictates

and guidance of the Koran and Sunnah (Mannan 1983, p.3-4). In addition, Mannan

claims that Islamic economics discusses economics as it should be, unlike conventional

economics, which describes economics as it is. By conventional or modern economics

one can understand that he is referring specifically to the Western study of economics

which perpetuates capitalism.

Both Mannan and Siddiqi take time to criticize capitalism and socialism. Siddiqi

states that capitalism’s emphasis on self interest is harmful for social unity and an

impediment to market efficiency (Siddiqi 1981, p.46). Socialism, which would

nationalize property, is not acceptable because the right to own property is linked to

freedom. Furthermore, Siddiqi claims that Socialism is undemocratic. These things limit

the spiritual growth of humanity (Siddiqi 1981, p.52). On the positive side of their

criticism, Capitalism is compatible with democracy and respects the individual’s right to

own property, and socialism is at least philosophically guided by a humanistic spirit.

Therefore, Islam seeks to create what is basically a capitalistic society tempered by

socialistic ideas and institutions (Mannan 1983, p.58).

13
 M. Umer Chapra is in agreement with this general attitude towards capitalism as he

addresses the welfare-state. He recognizes that the welfare-state had humanitarian goals;

however, he claims that too much government regulation has led to market inefficiency

and a movement calling for a return to stricter liberalization. Ironically, this has a

striking similarity to the conservatism found in the West. Chapra ultimately advocates a

welfare-state with a market system supplemented by moral self-discipline, family values,

and social solidarity (Chapra; 2000, p.372). Whereas Chapra recognizes the need for

state regulation due to human weakness, Siddiqi emphasizes the need for individual

moral transformation so that one lives his life in service to society.

Siddiqi holds that there is consensus amongst Islamist writers, including Chapra, that

employers and employees should engage in labor relations in a spirit of cooperation and

justice in which hard work is recognized as a moral virtue that should be remunerated

fairly (Siddiqi 1981 p.39). Siddiqi notes that there is disagreement over how a just wage

should be determined. For example, some writers emphasize a wage based on the overall

profitability of the company while others assert that the wage should be tailored to the

needs of the worker. In any case, Siddiqi and Chapra would agree that the community

itself should have the final say.

Academic Perspectives

Academic approaches to the study of political Islam provide the base for the narrower

study of Islamic economics in Turkey. There are several approaches focusing on a

variety of factors. Approaches that focus exclusively on one element have serious

14
disadvantages. This literature review seeks to summarize works that deal with three

aspects of this research project: works that seek to describe and explain political Islam

generally, Islamic economics generally, and political Islam and Islamic economics in

Turkey specifically. I will discuss these works’ various strengths and weaknesses while

addressing the authors’ themes. The subject of this study and the previous works that

inform it defy simple classification because there is a broad range of contradicting ideas

and a significant amount of crossover from one area of writing to the next.

In Islam and Political Development in Turkey Binnaz Toprak shows that as society

changes, Islam’s impact on political development also changes. In other words, she holds

that historical processes structure the form and function of political Islam. Although she

notes that certain features in Islam such as a legal code give it a political nature, she

concludes that Islam in Turkey as a political ideology serves a function that allows people

who were historically excluded from the Kemalist political project to enter the political

arena and voice their interests. Viewed in this way, political Islam is easily

interchangeable with other political ideologies. In fact, she implies that political Islam is

a “substitute” for other genuine political ideologies (Toprak 1981, p.122).

Karen Pfeifer focuses explicitly on Islamic economics to highlight the differences it

has with conventional economics and point out some theoretical and practical problems

in Islamic economic thought. She takes a socioeconomic approach, which “sees

economic behavior as embedded in social institutions, specific to a social system which

evolves over time,” (Pfiefer 1997, p. 154). She goes on to explain that Islamic economics

is a response to the failures of state-capitalism and economic liberalization to develop

15
Muslim countries. Here, Islamic identity is a corrective instrument with a particular

function, and as such it is interchangeable with other development projects.

Yeşim Arat also emphasizes the function that political Islam plays in bringing

excluded groups into the political process. She focuses on women’s integration into the

Turkish political sphere through Islamism. She states, “women are waiting to be

politicized” (Arat 1999, p.62). An Islamic ideology provides some women a means to

associate in the public sphere. Arat’s work suggests that even though Islam is used to

justify things such as discrimination against women, women involved in the political

movement find personal satisfaction through solidarity with other women. One could

conclude from her work that if other options were available to Islamist women, they

would readily seize those opportunities.

Sam Kaplan writes that an Islamic identity has been imposed on the Turkish populace

by the state, which appropriated that identity for itself so that it could legitimate the

military’s presence in society. This is an example of instrumental logic that denies the

populace any creative agency of its own. Culture is handed down from above for the

express purpose of controlling society. This overlooks the possibilities of social and

cultural evolution finding genesis in the imaginations of the subordinate majority, those

with little or no direct influence on political institutions. However, his work shows that

one cannot dismiss the role of the state while analyzing political Islam in Turkey (Kaplan

2002).

Nilüfer Göle describes the emergence of an Islamist elite, which includes intellectuals,

engineers, and technicians (Göle 1997). Oddly she does not include the Islamic

bourgeoisie as a part of this elite, but she may have purposely excluded them because she

16
wants to steer the subject away from material concerns into the realm of culture and

identity. Göle avoids the term social class in favor of status group, which denotes a

group with a shared cultural code and life-style. She notes that the urban middle class

had access to Western education and symbols that divided them from the religious rural

population. Having a lasting disposition toward an Islam-based meaning system,

migrants moving to the cities used Islam to place their changed environments into

perspective. Göle states that:

In a seemingly paradoxical way, the more those peripheral groups have access to
urban life, a liberal education, and modern means of expressing themselves
politically, the more they appear to seek Islamic sources of reference to redefine
their life-world. (Göle 1997, p. 52)

It is in this reactive way that secularization has shaped Islamic identity. She puts her

explanation of the secularist-Islamist debate in terms of a class conflict of sorts.

However; she does not indicate where the boundaries of the symbolic might lie or how to

weigh the multiplicity of influences that could affect the meaning system. She cannot

explain why some people accepted secularism and others did not. Furthermore, she

cannot explain divergences within the Islamic identity groups or the waxing and waning

of Kemalist hegemony.

Ayşe Buğra takes the position that culture is an outcome of social, political, and

economic interaction and does not determine behavior. She analyzes how the Islamic

business association, MUSIAD, and the non-Islamic business association, TUSIAD,

represent the interests of their constituencies (Buğra 1998). Buğra emphasizes the

historic role played by the Turkish state in an industrial modernization project that

facilitated the growth of an industrial bourgeoisie loyal to the state. State policy makers

envisioned large industry as the path to development, so they were uninterested in small

17
and medium size businesses. The political economic process that led to economic

liberalization resulted in the weakening of protectionist policies that had benefited the

state sponsored industrialists. Buğra notes that this allowed for the expansion of small

businesses which were better suited to adapt to rapid advances in technology. She argues

that MUSIAD came to represent these groups in opposition to an environment of cultural

and political hostility toward religion and democracy. She points to MUSIAD’s use of

Islam “as a basis for cooperation and solidarity between producers; as a device to create

secure market niches or sources of investment finance; and as a means of containing

social unrest and labor militancy,” (Buğra 1998, p.528). She briefly mentions

MUSIAD’s attitude toward labor relations, but she is uncritical of it because her purpose

is to describe the competition between MUSIAD and TUSIAD and the implications that

this competition has for democratization.

M. Hakan Yavuz takes a constructivist approach which considers the reciprocal

influence that cultural and material factors have on each other. In his typology of actors

in the Islamic identity movement he identifies a society centric Islamic movement, which

seeks to change social relations through the media and the market, and he clearly

indicates that the current Islamic identity movement in Turkey is rooted in the urban

market (Yavuz 2003, p. 81). He writes that liberal economic policies allowed for the

generation of an economic base that supported the establishment of associations in which

people realized their identities. This explanation suggests that people stored a

subconscious identity that revealed itself after being triggered by a new sense of freedom

of movement and association. Thus, cultural dispositions merge with opportunities to

shape new realities. He writes:

18
 Islamic doctrine and practices increasingly are becoming rationalized as a result
of the combination of religious discipline, ethical solidarity, and entrepreneurial
dynamism that has occurred under the leadership of the successful small and
medium enterprises known as “Anatolian tigers.” (Yavuz 2003, p.82)

Still, Yavuz recognizes that liberalization has not provided everyone with the same

opportunities. He points to social and political divisions within the identity movement

based on socioeconomic class. Unfortunately his treatment of class is not critical of the

bourgeoisie at the level of production. He distinguishes class through patterns of

consumption rather than through a functional definition relative to production.

One approach seeks to explain political Islam as rooted in cultural specificity. The

least productive form of this approach is rooted in an orientalist tradition that clings to

certain features of Islam and essentializes Islam according to those things. Timur Kuran

reduces the idea of Islamic economics to a fundamental opposition to Western or global

society in cultural terms (Kuran 1996). Kuran takes identity as given. He draws heavily

form Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations thesis and combines it with social psychology

to promote the theory that Islamic economics is motivated by feelings of guilt

experienced by Muslims who have in some way transgressed the mores of Islamic

civilization.

He argues that there is an inherent contradiction in Islamic economics because it seeks

to improve the economic level of Muslim society through communal morality, which he

sees as a historic failure. He argues that while medieval “Islamic civilization” had an

essential collectivist morality, medieval western Europe had an individualist morality.

“After the Middle Ages, this difference in moral systems contributed to Europe’s

growing economic dominance over the Islamic world,” (Kuran 1996, p.440). Because of

his approach, he is uncritical of capitalism, and he does not consider issues of

19
colonialism, regional politics, modern history, or global economics. An approach of this

kind is indefensible because it does not account for the fact that ideas and behaviors

evolve over time and place and are subject to internal and external influences that may

effect change or stasis.

In Islam and Capitalism Maxime Rodinson bases his Marxist critique of Muslim

society on an essentialist understanding of Islam and a materialist understanding of

Islamism. Thus, he implies that the purpose of Islamism should be to improve the lives

of workers, and he is critical of this apparent failure. He writes:

The Muslim religion has influenced neither the structure nor the functioning of
the capitalist sector in the countries of Islam, even in that field where naive people
might have supposed that a religion would have had something to say, namely,
the field of humane treatment of workers (Rodinson 1977, p.168).

Because of his essentialist approach, his work suffers from a debilitating conceptual

weakness. He does not differentiate the doctrine of Islam from the project of social and

political transformation which has been referred to in this text as Islamism. Thus, he

overlooks the modern day social and political nature of Islamism and its effect on

capitalism. A large part of his argument is devoted to showing that Islam is not only

wrongly perceived as an obstacle to capitalism but also insufficient in itself to practically

oppose it. The bulk of his evidence comes from characterizations of early twentieth

century Muslim societies, in which Islam did not prevent the Muslim bourgeoisie from

exploiting Muslim workers. A more rounded consideration of Islamic ideology would

reveal that Islamists are critical of other Muslims living within the same society and of

those having lived in an earlier historical period of the same society, but they tend to fault

poor leadership and spiritual weakness of the community of believers rather than blame

religion itself.

20
 Like Rodinson, Rodney Wilson also fails to differentiate between Islam and Islamism;

however, while Rodinson is determined to explain the pervasiveness of capitalism,

Wilson states plainly that a critique of capitalism is unnecessary because the alternatives

have failed and faded into history (Wilson 1997, p. 2). Wilson is writing on ethics, but

the methodological position that he takes in the introduction to his book leads him to

gloss over issues of labor relations and class, both of which have ethical implications do

to the fact that income levels are directly related to health and educational opportunities.

Wilson claims that there is solidarity between employers and their employees even in

the presence of great income disparities because praying together makes them all

essentially equal before God. He goes on to say that collective bargaining is not

practiced in Muslim countries in the same way that it is in Western countries (Wilson

1997, p.211). This is problematic because he describes a particular type of labor

relationship, highly favorable to employers, that negates class and assumes that

everyone’s interests are unified under the identifying mark of Islam. He does not take

into consideration issues of authoritarian repression of social action or the lack of

employment alternatives and economic support structures that may be found in some

Muslim countries. The primary focus of his book is on competition, interest, and

financing. He evaluates business practices according to relationships between

companies, companies and consumers, and business and state.

21
 CHAPTER 3

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

Cornelius Castoriadis

Castoriadis’s theory of the radical imagination provides a significant link between the

works of Tuğal and Maurer. One of his primary goals is to give an ontological account of

the mutually supporting individual and society. He does this through a careful

consideration of creation, including the creation of being, information, society, and the

individual. This has specifically political implications due to the fact that his theory

bears on the organization of life and the ability to recreate the forms that structure the

world’s organization.

He asserts that being is groundless chaos existing through time, which is itself

synonymous with creation. Thus, to negate time in one’s consideration of being would

be a serious mistake because it would obligate one to take forms and their alteration as

given, determined, and determinacy necessarily clashes with his understanding of

creation as the creation of new forms. His rejection of determinacy means that “the

question ‘What is it, in what we know, that comes from the observer (from us), and what

is it that comes from what there is?’ is, and will forever remain, undecidable”

(Castoriadis 1997, p.4).

He states that people create information for themselves. “The conditions under which

a statement constitutes a piece of information for someone depends essentially on what

22
that someone already is” (Castoriadis 1997, p.258). He rejects the notion that

information exists in nature and that it is simply up to an individual to collect it. A

person must carry within his identity and his memory both the knowledge and the interest

to give meaning to that which he perceives. “Sensibility belongs to the imagination, as

the power to make ‘images’ be for a subject” (Castoriadis 1997, p.259). For example,

one would have to carry within himself the concept of burning pain (amongst other

things) to formulate the meaning of “Don’t put your hand on the hot stove,” or “the

suffering of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki constitutes a war crime.”

He writes that society produces the individual, who is bound to reproduce society due

to his social conditioning. The institution of society is a coherent whole that amounts to

the unity of social imaginary significations, “the immensely complex web of meanings

that permeate, orient, and direct the whole life of the society considered” (Castoriadis

1997, p.7). Social imaginary significations are creations that are not entirely rational or

real and which circulate amongst an anonymous collective. These creations constitute a

way of thinking that justifies its own social identity. In other words, a society constructs

its own particular world of meaning, in which it defines and interprets itself as reality.

Thus, society is a self-creation, independent of any creative forces external to it. Each

society perpetuates itself through a certain amount of closure. It posits particular myths

as given and unquestioned. Myth has no rational basis but it functions to give meaning to

that which would otherwise be meaningless.

The problem in locating the source of the individual and the society lies in the notion

that these things are hidden from plain view by a structure that denies the chaos of the

universe. Society gives the veneer of order to groundless existence through language.

23
Signification creates what appears to be an obvious determination of a thing in relation to

its signifier. Simply stated, something enters into existence in language once it has a

name. This relationship of signification has social currency only to the extent that it is

accepted within society. In other words, there must be an acceptable amount of closure

for people to communicate effectively. This closure, when carried through, embeds

meaning in society in a way that defines that society. The society creates itself in the

process of signification, which appears to have a timeless quality due to its ability to

structure thought. Because being cannot adhere except through time, this timelessness is

seen as necessarily existing outside of society, and outside of the world that society

creates. Creative agency is externalized. This explains the organic connection between

religion and society.

Nevertheless, the fact that people, societies, are responsible for the naming of things

prevents one from ever truly escaping from chaos. Time continues to operate in its

forward direction, so being is always in the process of becoming. Castoriadis defines

autonomy as the recognition that one creates and is able to question the foundation of his

creation. Still, the autonomous can never truly escape the vice of signification. This is

especially true in academia.

Signification constitutes the world and organizes the world in a correlative

fashion; it does so by enslaving the latter in each particular instance to specific
‘ends’... All these ends are supernatural; they also lie beyond discussion, or, more
exactly, discussion of them is possible and has meaning only when we presuppose
the value of this particular ‘end’ that has been created by a particular institution of
society, the Greco-Western institution, namely, the search for truth (Castoriadis
1997, p.313-314).

24
 Bill Maurer

Maurer addresses this problem as he juxtaposes academic research and Islamic

banking and alternative currencies. Maurer’s work aims to force the researcher to

question all of his assumptions of not only what he is studying, but also what constitutes

him, the researcher himself, as a researcher. This is more than a radical denial of truth.

He writes to show the creative power and potential of the human mind and social

interaction. He does this through the conceptual framework of lateral reason.

Lateral reason describes an academic conundrum with severe methodological import.

The way that academics define the things that they study is obviously crucial to the shape

and outcome of their analysis. The researcher draws connections between phenomena

based on his interpretation of others’ interpretations. Accounting for competing

subjectivities may not increase knowledge in any measurable sense. Rather, it facilitates

a circular or alternating argumentation that moves back and forth, and that, at best,

produces new concepts which enter the circuit of debate. This conception of lateral

reasoning is premised on the notion that language is incapable of capturing the essence of

“reality”. This is especially true of the descriptions of relations between things.

In other words, I can describe how Islamists define concepts like capitalism or justice

and I can evaluate those concepts based on my own definition but this will only add to

the plethora of already existing, articulated interpretations of those concepts. Perhaps the

extent of the meaning of such an exercise is that it perpetuates the search for meaning, an

unending process due to the failure of language.

25
 Maurer’s discussion of lateral reason is not limited to academics, supposedly

observing a phenomenon from the outside. Inside and outside of the phenomenon

participants seek to redefine the standards in their own terms. Academics and the social

actors that they study exist within a shared overall context in which they may influence

each other’s work. With regard to language and naming they are engaged in the same

struggle to make their usage of social significations dominant.

In naming a thing it becomes objectified. That is, it becomes an object with its own

reality. Its reality obviates any claims of falsehood. At the same time the object enters

into relationships and associations with other terms that spawn new relationships and

associations. Thus, the object becomes a subject in that once a certain signification has

been established it stimulates further thought and action. In this way it acts like an agent

by providing a base from which new or previously concealed meanings can take shape.

This understanding alludes to actor network theory, which claims that all things

entangled in a network that generates a phenomenon have an agentive character.

When a society names a thing, layers of meaning conceal and reveal new and old

associations. Thus, the meaning of the thing is never fixed. Instead, it moves back and

forth . Its truth is not on one side or the other but it is in the movement and the search for

meaning that provides the impetus for such movement. Labeling something as fake or

illegitimate is unproductive because it assumes a fixed point from which to judge.

Furthermore, because the objectification of the thing itself denotes its mediation, the

separation of the sign and signified is reified, resulting in an abstraction that obviates

actual life. Thus, Maurer writes that a counterfeit is efficacious if it circulates.

Something does not necessarily need to be true to have social value. The test of a thing’s

26
worth rests in its acceptance and use in the social context as a standard for judgment.

One should rather ask where such standards for comparison originate and assess the

causes and effects that those standards perpetuate.

Maurer avoids the concept of hegemony to invoke an optimistic tone in his writing

that expresses liberation in the possibility of novel modes of existence, social practices

with wholly new referents, not alternatives to what already exists. He claims that these

modes require people to forget the given meanings of their being and to forget that they

have forgotten. Only this would allow the new imaginary to seep into the social

consciousness. The chain of reference in academia precludes such a forgetting, and the

problem with Islamic thought is that it claims a pre-existing referent, one that has always

existed and is always prior to the present. It refuses to forget. It is a grand justification

for itself in present terms which are dependent on a past that never existed but could

have.

For Maurer, the creation of monetary value is synonymous with signification. He

writes that value does not stop with the creation of a commodity. Labor may be

overlooked and fetishism may obscure the process and method in which a thing was

created, but fetishism, the added, imaginary value attached to a product can act to set in

motion something else with real or imagined existence. It carries consequences with it.

Thus, it is no less real than anything else. This is the real mystery of the commodity and

market based society. By analogy it is also the mystery of the sign system of language

which structures thought and action. It is open ended and in the process of becoming.

27
 Cihan Tuğal

Tuğal tests a theory that the social imaginary transforms and develops as sign systems

and reality diverge. He is attempting to create a theory of what political Islam in Turkey

is as a societal creation at a particular point in history. After criticizing previous efforts

at the same task he finds the merits of approaches that focus on material and ideational

factors and he explains the need to combine them into a theory. Thus, the material is

represented as real in his theory and the ideational is represented as the symbolic and

imaginary. The latter is a dynamic element that prevents his theory from falling into the

same trap as cultural essentialism.

Tuğal begins by ranking different academic approaches to the study of political Islam.

He judges them according to their merits and their weaknesses as one should do when

reviewing the literature on a given subject. Maurer might claim that Tuğal is objectifying

the various bits of information in order to assign values to them and subsequently discard

that which he sees as worthless and give currency to that which can be traded as useful

information. In other words, Tuğal brings a meta-debate into being in his text. One can

imagine two sides to the debate with arguments traveling back and forth between them.

The path that the arguments travel constitutes a mutually reinforced link representing the

productive labor of the intellectuals involved and it provides a scale for those arguments.

As Maurer would predict Tuğal freezes the argument (or the traveler) at a certain point on

this road to proclaim its supreme value and attempt to use it as a base on which to add

new knowledge, which would in turn only act to once again accelerate the back and forth

movement along a continually lengthening scale of accumulated information. The result

28
is that there is never a discovery of the truth. Instead, there is only more information to

consider in one’s search for an increasingly more elusive moment of epistemological

stability.

Tuğal is writing about the construction of social significations in a contested field.

Differences between Islamic groups are played out in the imaginaries linked to those

significations, signaling the inadequacy of the symbolic to the real, the signifier and the

signified. He works to show that Political Islam is not primarily a petite bourgeoisie

movement as materialist writers have argued. He does this by showing the ideational

divisions within political Islam. These divisions are rooted in class. Thus, he can argue

that material reality, which contradicts the symbolic language of Islamist claims of

sharing, redistribution, egalitarianism, and in a word, justice, prevents the cohesion of

Islamist actors in competing social-economic classes. This difference between reality

and symbolism creates space for an imaginary that may (depending on its ability to find

itself institutionalized) become a social imaginary in turn leading to a new reality. The

severity of the difference is determinant of the radicalism of the imaginary.

He argues that the contemporary Turkish scene is composed of three kinds of

Islamists: moral capitalists, alternative capitalists, and anti-capitalists. Moral capitalists

place ethical and community matters above profit making. Alternative capitalists give

priority to economic growth. The actual difference between these two camps is a gray

area. The moralists represent the dominant thought, but the alternatives are over-

represented due to their financial power.

Combined with the notion that the Turkish case is special due to the deep impact of

secular nationalism and continued military suppression of Islamic concerns, global

29
capitalism appears as an overpowering force that will eventually co-opt the movement if

it has not done so already. It is implied that the result of this would be the further

radicalization of poor and working class Islamists in contrast to an Islamic bourgeoisie

having reconciled itself to global capitalism.

Hegemony

Hegemony is the term used to describe the process of ideological domination. It

describes the dominant symbolic system to which people submit, and which provides a

society with a semblance of order and peace. This occurs as dominant actors present

their specific interests as objective. The concept of hegemony holds that ideas carry

power and that these ideas allow the dominant material structure to reproduce itself by

undermining the consciousness or will of the subordinate toward the active pursuit of

change in the social structure. I will briefly mention two ways of conceiving hegemony.

The first imagines hegemony as a strong, determinant force that insures that ideas and

modes of thought remain static. The second holds that hegemony generates possible

conflicts that may have surprising results and allow social and political relationships to

evolve.

In one sense, consciousness can be seen as strictly determined by the material

structure that constitutes a person’s environment. This view maintains that the actors

who dominate the material conditions also dominate the symbolic structure that is used to

interpret such conditions. The symbolic structure acts to form the identities of

subordinates in such a way that they see the prevailing system as natural or even good.

30
This prevents them from identifying their true interests; thus, they passively support the

system of domination that oppresses them. This is often termed false-consciousness. It

implies that people cannot break the mold established for them by their material and

mental enslavement.

On the other hand, the concept of hegemony that I prefer denies the totality of

ideological domination. Here, subordinates do not see the system of domination as

natural or good, but they may see it as unavoidable due to the high costs or time

necessary to alter their conditions. James C. Scott writes that subordinates can demystify

the dominant ideology because their daily experiences reveal contradictions in the picture

presented by the dominant actors (Scott 1990). This occurs because the hegemonic

ideology is based on ideals that cannot be met by the dominant actors. In this way, the

ideals become a source of criticism for subordinates. This criticism could, under

appropriate conditions, lead to changes in society and politics.

Kemalism

Parla and Davison describe Kemalism as the official ideology of the Turkish state

from the establishment of the republic to the present (Parla and Davison 2004). This

ideology takes its name from Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the greatest symbol and

spokesman of an ideology rooted in an earlier historical movement to modernize the

Ottoman state through positive science and social engineering. According to Parla and

Davison, Kemalism is essentially a corporatist ideology. Kemalism is hegemonic in its

overwhelming presence in politics and society. Hence, one cannot research political

31
phenomena in post-Ottoman Turkey without some reference to the structural force and

influence of Ataturk’s legacy.

Based on the work of the nineteenth century French sociologist Emile Durkheim,

corporatism proclaims that society should be organized into occupational groups. This

would allow society to exist as an organic whole in which individuals are recognized

according to their occupational group. The result of such social-political organization

would be a reversal of the alienation caused by technology. What Parla and Davison

refer to as solidaristic corporatism rejects liberalism and Marxism because individualism

and notions of class are disruptive.

In general, however, corporatism seeks to replace liberalism as the superseding

rationale of modern capitalism, but not to replace capitalism itself;. The profit-
maximization logic of capitalism in its competitive phase has been subordinated
to, but not displaced by, another higher logic of capitalism- the logic of system
maintenance and social morality (Parla and Davison 2004, p.30).

Every action should serve the interests of society. In this context, the state should

facilitate the activities of individuals and groups toward solidarity.

Parla and Davison analyze significant aspects of Kemalism with reference to this

understanding of corporatism. The key points of their analysis include reverence to the

memory of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s person and an exploration of the ideological

relationships between the state, the society, and the individual. Parla and Davison

critique and reevaluate the six ideological markers of the political party that Ataturk

represented. These six “arrows” are republicanism, nationalism, populism, laicism,

transformationism, and statism. They claim that typical discussions of Kemalism take

these six arrows at face value and fail to uncover its undemocratic and anti-modern

32
nature. Therefore, Parla and Davison focus on what they see as deeper elements than the

six arrows.

As indicated by the name, Kemalism, charismatic leadership and its legacy have

played a defining role in the ideology. Charismatic leadership represents in the person of

a single, particular individual what humanity should strive to be. It exists on the

shoulders of “the” great leader, who embodies the truth and has the legitimacy to bring

such truth into being regardless of tradition or law. “Charismatic authority, then, by

definition, may be quite hostile to the ideals of classical republicanism (rule by law) and

populism (sovereignty resides with the people)” (Parla and Davison 2004, p.147).

Ataturk has been, even in death, the great leader of the Turkish republic. His vision is

synonymous with that of the nation. In fact, his person is a symbol for the nation itself.

To question the truth as presented and represented by Ataturk is to attack the state,

society, and culture of Turkey.

The Kemalist project is dominated by the call for unity. This requires depoliticization

and homogenization of culture and society. It has manifested itself as ethnically

exclusive and it has sought to reshape religious identity. Ataturk saw the military as a

model to be imitated in all social and cultural areas (Parla and Davison 2004, p.231).

“His views of the youth, education , and even the press indicated that they were to be

reared by the state and ultimately existed to serve the interests of the state” (Parla and

Davison 2004, p.254). Nur Çelik has explained that the Turkish state has experienced a

crisis of hegemony. She states that Kemalism, the hegemonic discourse of the early

republic, can no longer structure political consensus (Çelik 2000). This has allowed

competing ideologies, particularly Islamism, to enter into the social imaginary and

33
displace and redefine concepts related to modernity such as democracy and development.

This conceptual shift has evolved through the historical processes of power struggles in

Turkish politics from the twentieth century.

In 1945 the one-party period of Ataturk’s Republican People’s Party ended and

political parties began to compete for control of the government administration. The

Democratic Party (DP), representing groups that had been excluded from the Kemalist

project such as those with Muslim identities, emerged as the victor in this multiparty

electoral competition. The DP had a populist program that promoted democracy and

sought to bring positive recognition to Islam. By drawing attention to what was

perceived as the state’s mistreatment and neglect of Muslims, the DP presented

democracy as a concept that was antagonistic to the state.

After limiting the freedom of the press to criticize the government, the DP was

outlawed in 1960 by the Turkish military, which assumed control of the government and

rewrote the constitution. The military takeover showed that the military was the true

defender of democracy, thus, Kemalist modernization was linked to democracy. The

1961 constitution expanded civil liberties and emphasized continuity with the revolution.

Çelik states that because Kemalism was successful at absorbing the signifier ‘democracy’

it had become an imaginary.

The constitution allowed for the flowering of distinct political identities. The

Kemalist imaginary created the conditions for diverse groups to articulate their issues.

Marxists, nationalists, and Islamists utilized a discourse reconciled to Kemalist notions.

However, by this time the myth of a unified nation had broken down and it could not

prevent the radicalization of Marxist, nationalist, and Islamist discourses. Violence

34
became a commonplace form of political expression. This led to the military’s

intervention in government in 1971 and 1980.

The military regime of 1980 felt that it was necessary to subordinate democracy for

the sake of peace and national unity. In this way it was very similar to the revolutionary

regime of the early republic. The military laid blame for the nation’s unrest on the influx

of Marxism from foreign countries. It sought to counter leftist ideologies with a renewed

emphasis on Turkish identity. The military expected people to find common ground in

religion and promoted the idea that Islam was a part of Turkishness so that it could regain

popular support for the Kemalist regime.

After civilian government was restored with a new constitution there were restrictions

on political participation. These restrictions forced people to associate informally

without access to government officials. This resulted in the rise of popular struggles

directed against the state. These struggles focused on the anti-democratic nature of the

regime. Islamists were among those who took advantage of informal networks to build a

popular movement. With the state’s inclusion of Islam into its picture of statehood,

Islamism found a new sense of legitimacy as a rationalizing force. This added to the

Islamists’ fusion of traditional and modern values. Thus, Çelik writes, “Instead of Islam

being hegemonised by Kemalist modernization, modernization was hegemonised by

Islam” (Çelik 2000, p. 201).

35
 CHAPTER 4

METHODOLOGY

According to its website, www.musiad.org.tr, MUSIAD, known for its religiously

conservative attitudes, was established on May 5, 1990 with the purpose of facilitating

economic growth for Turkey while promoting what it sees as traditional Turkish values.

It proposes to work towards the holistic development of the world in general and Turkey

in particular. It now has 26 branches and 2000 members. As a business association this

organization links business entrepreneurs with each other and represents their interests in

public. MUSIAD avoids direct references to Islam in describing itself. Rather, it makes

allusions to religion as “universal values that are adopted historically by the people”

(http://www.musiad.org.tr/english/about/identity.asp ). MUSIAD is representative of the

Islamic bourgeoisie in Turkey. For this reason I have chosen MUSIAD as an example.

This thesis is not primarily about MUSIAD itself, but it is about what MUSIAD

represents in terms of social-economic class.

The research for this work involved interviewing sixteen members of MUSIAD in

Istanbul. I made initial contact with MUSIAD headquarters and contacted individual

members from the member database on the MUSIAD website. I present four of these

people in detail as representative of the general themes that are discussed by all of the

members. These four men do not agree with each other on every point, but as a whole

they address the thoughts and attitudes of the others in varying degrees. I have tried to

present ideas in a way that avoids needless repetition, and I suggest ways in which the

36
four people treated in detail here supplement or differ from each other. I have chosen

these four members to focus on because their responses reflect the greatest intellectual

depth. In examining each of these members closely, I consider their similarities and

differences with respect to the themes that they discuss, which include individualism,

community, consumption, capitalism, work, redistribution of wealth, equality, and social

cohesion. I also include a summary of the other twelve members I interviewed.

37
 CHAPTER 5

MUSIAD MEMBER: ŞEN

The thought of Şen includes the notion that capitalism is something natural to the

community rather than something imported from non-Muslim places abroad. Its

appearance as an economic system that has faired better than any other in producing

wealth stands as its own proof that capitalism is natural, logical, and efficient. However,

with capitalism the choices available to people have multiplied exponentially, and

individuals are choosing harmful lifestyles by using the goods they buy in selfish ways.

In one sense, individualism is the dynamic element in the liberal market as it leads

entrepreneurs towards innovations in business and frees consumers to define their own

ever changing preferences. On the other hand, individualism is dangerous and immoral

when individuals use their freedom in ways that conflict with communal values. Thus,

the social problems that exist in Turkey are not the result of a morally corrupt system, but

they exist because people have failed in their responsibility to maintain communal

relationships and behaviors while fulfilling their roles as individual entrepreneurs,

workers, and consumers. This conservative mentality suggests that if everyone works

harder at being good entrepreneurs, workers, and consumers, capitalism will function as

it should and social problems will dissolve and traditions will be reaffirmed.

38
 Time and Tradition

Şen suggests that unlike other businessmen the businessmen represented by MUSIAD

have not had enough time to develop lifestyles different from the traditional lifestyles

commonly found in Turkey. This is important for understanding this member’s

conception of what sets MUSIAD apart from other business associations. Also, it allows

one to realize the significance that traditional culture holds for him in the context of a

society in transition towards global integration. Finally, it introduces the concept of time

as an inescapable agent of change that threatens traditional values.

Şen states that members of MUSIAD became businessmen later in life so they share

values in common with traditional Turkish society. One might call them first generation

businessmen. In the same way that one might immigrate to a foreign country and hold on

to his accent and the traditions of his country, these businessmen carry with them into the

new world of global competition the values of their forefathers. Compare these

entrepreneurs with others who have perhaps been born into the melting pot of the world

market. Like the children and grandchildren of immigrants, those who have been in

business longer have lost their connection to the culture of their fathers. Şen claims that

the big businessmen not in MUSIAD drive luxury cars, live in exclusive areas, and

entertain extravagantly. Their choice of lifestyle is not only beyond the means of the

common people, it stands in contradiction to their values.

Şen equates traditional values with a particular model of family life whose

technological evolution is bringing with it negative consequences for society. He argues

that in the past in Turkey the father of a family would come home and sit down to dinner

39
with his family at the table, and everyone including the wife and children would discuss

matters and solve problems together. He says that now because of television this is

changing. Everyone is choosing something different to watch. From this one can

understand that he feels there is less communication within the family and that family

members do not spend enough time with each other. Thus, the chain of inherited wisdom

has been shattered and children no longer have the cultural referents to keep them

grounded and right-minded, the same cultural referents that guide the actions of

MUSIAD members.

Time appears here as the deciding factor in social development. Şen suggests that as

one spends more time away from those who guard tradition, one turns toward the

fragmented anomie of modern life. Şen claims that the rich and the poor have been

affected equally under the current conditions. Thus, he implies that everyone either

needs to or chooses to spend time away from one’s family. Entering into contemporary

market relations as either an entrepreneur or a consumer is an obligation impending over

each individual in capitalist society, a requirement for survival that shapes the individuals

patterns of behavior according to the capitalist time scheme. Such a time scheme is

organized for the purpose of making money. Şen, however, depicts this as a naturally

occurring phenomenon.

For Şen, because MUSIAD members, by entering into business late, have spent a

relatively short time away from the family environment of traditional Turkey, they have

not been fully integrated into the modern world of moral corruption. While non-

MUSIAD businessmen are living in decadent luxury, MUSIAD members are living in a

way similar to the common people. According to Şen it is an unfortunate reality that

40
even the common people are evolving away from their traditional lifestyle. One could

conclude from this that it is only a matter of time that the so-called traditional values of

Turkey disappear.

Lifestyle and Choice

Because Şen is not critical of capitalism as such, one must analyze what he means by

social system in order to understand how a MUSIAD businessman is exonerated from

any blame as the harbinger of social depravity. First, I will analyze the implied

connection between capitalism and the social system so that one can see that for Şen,

Capitalism is not only natural but good. Next, I will examine the dual role that the ethical

entrepreneur plays as a modernizer and a victim of the modern social condition. Then, I

will show how for Şen the common people in society are misusing technology to their

own detriment, contributing to a social system that conflicts with their basic social needs.

For Şen the economic system of capitalism and the social system present in the urban

centers of Turkey exist without depending on each other as they would in a total system.

Şen sees industrialization as one of the greatest achievements of modern Turkey and the

growth of private companies as the natural outcome of businessmen being able to sustain

themselves and operate more efficiently than the state. He states that the purpose of

money is to bring one pleasure, so one can conclude that in generating wealth and

affording common conveniences, capitalism has provided a great deal toward the

happiness of society. Thus, liberal economics is natural assuming that humanity seeks to

exist as efficiently and happily as possible. Capitalism is a positive development in the

41
history of the world appearing as the logical result of an ethical endeavor toward these

goals. However, Şen speaks of business and the social system as independent elements

interacting in a fatalistic reality. He states that by acting as individuals entrepreneurs can

achieve the highest levels of success, but by sharing their wealth they can act

communally as well. For Şen this is a lifestyle choice that is not conditioned or

structured by capitalism. In fact, his idea of social system is synonymous with lifestyle,

which describes things such as preferences and personal interests. Therefore, one’s

lifestyle is simply his own personal approach to capitalism rather than the result of a

systematic progression of structured relationships.

Businessmen function as critical links between the spheres of economics and society

in Şen’s opinion because by introducing and integrating technology into society they play

a modernizing role; however, they also feel the negative effects of the contemporary

social climate along with the common people. An ethical businessman provides for his

own well-being and the general happiness of society by competing with others in the

pursuit of wealth. Although it should be normal for one to embrace individualism

professionally and communalism personally, many people are choosing to live as

individuals. This has created a negative environment in which to raise a family and

contributes to various social ills. According to Şen, a businessman should spend, aside

from his usual forty to fifty hours per week at work, an additional ten to fifteen hours or

more devoted to a social cause. One can imagine that these things combined with the

time he must also spend looking after his own family must be very taxing for a

businessman. That his children would prefer more leisurely pursuits when they come of

42
age should not be a surprise unless he works extra hard at instilling the same communal

values in his children while they reap the benefits of his individual efforts.

For Şen at the heart of the modern lifestyle, technology challenges the individual to

choose the path that Turkish society will travel in the twenty-first century. Technology

itself, like capitalism, is not to blame for the ills of society; on the contrary, technology

raises the living standards of people and contributes to their happiness so businessmen

should be commended for bringing this good to society. Nevertheless, the way that

people choose to use technology, their lifestyle choice, is harmful because they pursue

their own interests in ways that call for them to individualize their time and space. Each

member of a family seeks his own personally preferred form of entertainment, typically

in the form of television programs. Families no longer eat together or sit together

because television diverts members away from each other. Thus, people lose sight of the

value of communal life which includes sharing the good and the bad in a spirit of familial

togetherness. Individuals face the world alone, without the proper guidance of the

community to prevent them from sinking into the moral degradation of selfishness,

family betrayal, and crime.

A key to understanding Şen’s mentality is recognizing that for him everybody has a

choice in the matter of his lifestyle. Collectively this forms a system that is has no causal

relationship with capitalism, which is nothing more than the natural logic of efficiency in

market relations. While entrepreneurs provide society with the noble service of

facilitating the growth of technology, the public utilizes that technology toward

individualistic ends that drive a wedge between families and debilitate the nation.

Businessmen are pulled into this kind of lifestyle and with time fall victim to the same

43
mistakes as the common people unless they maintain their vigilance or find the support of

others who are rightly guided.

A Business Model for Social Development

Not only is capitalism innocent of threatening Turkish tradition, it also provides a

means for the preservation of core values; therefore, Şen suggests a corporate business

model for the preservation of traditional society. First, I will explain how Şen’s

conservative economic views contribute to his conception of the weakness of the

common individual. I will continue with an account of the general inefficiency of the

state in satisfying the needs of the public. After that, I will show how capitalism could be

used to guide the people back into the kind of lifestyle that values communalism and

practical, if not class-based, uniformity.

The conservative social-economic mentality splits the individual into two conceptually

unequal halves that ultimately devalue the common individual’s worth. The first way

that this mentality achieves this is by explaining that people are fundamentally unequal.

Şen says that he believes that everybody has the same God given rights and opportunities.

He adds that those who can work harder and run faster will be better off than those who

do not make use of the opportunities that are laid in front of them, so one cannot talk

about equality in the absolute sense. For Şen government and society should make

equality of rights and opportunity available to the people so that those who make use of

the opportunities offered to them they will be better off. This describes the strong,

independent side of the individual because it implies that the individual has the power

44
within himself to succeed in his endeavors. On the other hand, these self-empowered

people must prepare the way for the others for they are the ones who make equality of

rights and opportunities available and accessible to everyone. In fact, everyone is

dependent on society for the moral structure that it provides with the dominant few acting

as examples for the masses. In this way the individual is weak and cannot be trusted to

provide for himself if a higher authority in the form of the state or some social-economic

strata does not lead him.

From this one can see that the state is also viewed in reference to a double standard.

First, the state is seen as the benefactor of the public, making rights and opportunities

open to everyone. It provides a necessary service as people left to their own devices

would be incapable of forming a productive society. However, the state cannot really

help the people these days because bureaucracy is too inefficient to solve such large scale

social problems that grow at such a rapid pace. The state itself does not carry with it the

moral or organizational authority to be likened to the family; as a result, it is also in need

of support so that it can regain its seat as the leader of traditional values.

Şen states that N.G.O.s should be responsible for educating people about their

traditions and that these organizations, including MUSIAD, can preserve core values and

help correct the social ills that are present in Turkey today. This is possible because

N.G.O.s operate more efficiently due to their budgetary limitations, high level of know-

how, and their dedication to their missions. An N.G.O. is run like a business and if it

does not connect well with those it seeks to serve, another N.G.O. that is capable of doing

the job will replace it. In this case, N.G.O.s should be able to imbue society with certain

values that share a great deal in common with corporate business culture. Thus, society,

45
like a well organized business, should be compartmentalized with everyone behaving

appropriate to their position. People should live within their means or rather they should

want to live within their means according to Şen. In the material sense they should not

dwell on purchases that they cannot afford because this could drive them to extreme

forms of behavior. One should accept the limits those from above have established for

him as a matter of practicality. Although one of a lower rank could not do the job of one

with a higher rank or afford the same goods, he should not forget that he is a member of a

team. He should derive pleasure from helping others around him according to Şen.

When the team succeeds, everyone succeeds, and there is no need to be concerned about

the financial reward because the true owner of all things is God; likewise, in the capitalist

system the legal owner of the products of others’ labor is outside the team, beyond its

reach.

For Şen society needs to fall more completely into the models of liberal business to be

able to remedy the ills it faces in terms of the breakdown of traditional society as

represented by a patriarchal family structure. The individual plays a key role in that he

must push himself to succeed and overcome obstacles by efficiently utilizing the

opportunities available to him; however, one must also recognize that most individuals

are fundamentally flawed and only a select few are naturally capable of reaching high

levels of wealth and authority. Along with society, the state should facilitate an

environment of equal opportunity for the public; nevertheless, the state is inefficient due

to poor management and staffing, unlike private businesses which are obliged to operate

as smoothly as possible. Therefore, if traditional Turkish values are to be salvaged,

N.G.O.s must take the lead in educating the public that individuals should mind their

46
positions within the team well and forgo any claims to actual ownership of property, as

society should mirror a well run corporation.

Being a Member of the Muslim Community in Turkey

From what one gathers from Şen, one can derive an idea of what it means for him to

be a member of the Muslim community in Turkey and the relationship that the Islamic

bourgeoisie should have with that community. First, the community is in need of help

that the state is unable to supply. Next, liberalism and communalism are both important

parts of the Muslim community’s imagination but people must be educated about the

necessary compatibility of these concepts. Finally, there is an obligation for Muslims to

help those who are in need which proves the worthiness of the members of the

community.

First, it should be clear that the Muslim community for Şen is in a difficult situation

for which there are many causes, not only the contradictions between “material and social

values”. He identifies one of the early causes as the loss of literacy that accompanied the

revolutionary adoption of the Latin alphabet to replace the Arabic alphabet in the time of

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. This affects people today because in his opinion they have lost

their connection with the past, and one can draw from this that such a connection would

carry with it moral lessons and examples in right behavior. One can assume that other

changes in education that occurred as a result of Ataturk’s revolution have had the same

effect, like the closing of religious schools. In addition to this, people are now immersed

in a tumultuous sea of technology that lacks the structure necessary to bring out the

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socially productive qualities of the latest in modern conveniences. The Muslim

community does not recognize itself because it lacks an important part of its memory,

separated by language and electronic entertainment catered to personal preferences. The

population of Turkey, in his mind the Muslim community, is not living as it should. The

state is unable to correct this problem because not only is it out of touch with society, but

its proper function is to aid private enterprises, which are more efficient and more

directly related to the private lives of the populace. Thus, N.G.O.s should take the lead in

guiding people back to Turkey’s traditional social values.

The people of Turkey have embraced liberal economics and understand that

competition in the market leads to improvements in technology and overall living

standards. The Muslim community is composed of practical individuals who seek to

participate in the world economy and benefit from the wealth generated through

capitalism. Members of the Muslim community also imagine a spirit of communalism in

their recent past as something that has shaped their identities. Despite the fact that there

is no contradiction between liberal capitalism and communalism, the Muslim community

is conflicted because people are unaware of the natural harmony in which these concepts

should exist. People miss the connection because their lifestyles lead them toward selfish

individualism. They do not know that they can find happiness by sharing what they have

gained through their hard work as individuals competing in a market economy. They do

not know that their material rewards are not truly theirs because all things belong to God,

so they suffer from selfish pride. N.G.O.s, like MUSIAD, can help people make the

connection between liberalism and communalism.

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 For Şen the criterion for being a member of the Muslim community is not strict. In

fact, there is a great deal of freedom and inclusion of many possible lifestyles. Basically,

one must accept one of the interpretations of the holy texts of Islam. Even if he does not

actively practice the religion by abiding the rules, he is a member of the community by

virtue of his acceptance of one of the interpretations of the religion. However, there are

some things in Islam that are not open to interpretation, and if one does not accept these

things, seeks to change them, or fails to comply, he does not rightfully belong in the

community of believers. For example, Şen says that the Prophet said that if a man sleeps

while his neighbor is in need or hungry, that man is not a member of the community.

This is a warning to those who have grown wealthy and lost their sensitivity to the needs

of the poor. One must abide by this communal value or else he may consider himself

excluded from the rewards that the true believers receive in the afterlife.

This is a general conception of what it means to be a Muslim in Turkey for this

representative of the Islamic bourgeoisie. There is a sense of loss hovering in the

conservative mind that imagines good Muslims corrupted by time. There are no specific

reasons for this loss other than the spiritually harmful lifestyle choices made by

individuals in the course of the twentieth century. The state, as the harbinger for such

choices, suffers from a bureaucratic inefficiency and rigidity that separates it from the

concerns of the common people and makes it unable to remedy pressing social problems.

On the other hand, N.G.O.s have the capacity to educate the public about social values.

Particularly, N.G.O.s should take the responsibility of relating liberal and communal

values in the public’s imagination, which would facilitate a rebirth of altruism in society

and lessen the social-economic gap between the rich and the poor. Finally, what it means

49
to be Muslim is fairly open ended, with an equally vague caveat that requires one to

follow certain beliefs and practices such as the necessity to have compassion for the poor

and help them with their needs.

Imaginary

The thoughts that Şen presents contribute to a modern social imaginary for Turkish

Muslims by defining the benefits of capitalism and the failures of society in such a way

that the ideas of individualism and communalism become blurred. This serves to

strengthen the capitalist system and class structure in Turkey by delegitimating criticism

of both the system and the propertied class with a call to a return to a particular

understanding of tradition and the responsibilities incumbent on such tradition.

Furthermore, the very survival of the community is equated with acceptance of this

mixed bag of values, and the Islamic bourgeoisie, in its unique role as both modernizer

and keeper of tradition, is at the forefront in this struggle for survival.

From this one can understand three main themes. First, the past was an ideal time of

moral correctness that contemporary society has drifted from and people should seek to

return to it. Second, lifestyle is truly a matter of choice rather than something generated

under the structural conditions of particular social-economic relationships, so people can

correct social problems by focusing on their own behavior rather than on the social-

economic system that they live under. Third, individualism and communalism are easily

separable depending on which context one finds himself in, so the key for the individual

50
to make a positive contribution to the Muslim community rests in realizing this

distinction.

In the imaginary that Şen puts forward, as in other traditionalist mentalities, the past is

idealized to the extent that attaining its same standards appears as practically out of reach

without the intense effort of those concerned; however, it is imperative that everyone

struggle toward this goal so that they can survive as a group and maintain the guise that

they inherited from the past. The image of this past innocence and goodness carries the

same influence as the idealized conception of mothers and fathers, grandparents, and

founders. Any trace of resemblance whether actual or fictional lends itself to the notion

of an unbreakable, sacred connection. In such an imaginary it would be extremely

perverted to reject one’s parents because they provide the basis for one’s existence, so

one should do what ever he can to honor and strengthen this connection. In fact, the

traditionalist notion of the past is intimately tied up with reverence toward the family,

whose concept is also itself dependent on the social imaginary.

Capitalism allows fathers to provide for the material comforts of their families to a

much greater extent than in the past, so the modern world holds greater potential

happiness than the past did; nevertheless, thoughtless choices have led people towards

lifestyles that undervalue the family, so family values such as sharing and compassion

have weakened as well. The father, who provides for his family by competing with

others in the market as an individual, cannot be blamed for trying. At the same time he is

applying his skills as an individual and sharing what he earns with his family, blending

individualism and communalism. If his children eat better and have more material

comfort, it is thanks to the opportunities present in the liberal market; however, if they

51
lack moral virtue, it is because they and their father have chosen to abandon time tested

models of righteous behavior. It is an individual failure in the realm of limitless

opportunity.

The way that the community imagines the concept of lifestyle and especially the

appropriate lifestyle for Muslims could determine the level of its acceptance and

approval of capitalism. Again, within this imaginary promoted by Şen there are

significant contradictions between the place of individualism and communalism.

Lifestyle here is something that is chosen by the individual, who is free act as he likes in

the liberal market economy. It appears that there are a number of lifestyles to choose

from. However, if the individual is concerned with pleasing God, he will choose a

lifestyle that allows him to express his love of humanity by sharing what he has with

those less fortunate than himself. In other words, he should embrace a communal

lifestyle. In fact, he should apply himself in the individualistic sense as vigorously as

possible in the market so that he can contribute significantly to the community and raise

it up. One can create more material wealth for the community through capitalism. In this

imaginary it is true that the fittest competitors have a rightful advantage. Thus, when

they seize the opportunities that cross their paths, hard work and practicality prepare the

way for their success. The liberal market is a proving ground for their worth as

individuals and members of the Muslim community. It would be impractical and a denial

of the natural superiority of some over others to assert that the capitalist system itself is

corrupt and in need of correction.

Once the individual understands that the individualistic and communal aspects of

himself are separable depending on the context he finds himself in, he will be able to

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improve himself and the condition of the Muslim community. This distinction is

something that he can learn by understanding certain truths about the absoluteness of

God, who is not only the creator of all things but also the rightful owner of everything in

the universe. The confusion and discouragement that one may feel from the pressure of

work and society can be cleared away once one makes it his goal to please God by

helping others. In this imaginary it is true that this is a troubling time with many

contradictions between material and moral values; however, with the right attitude one

can heighten his moral virtue by increasing his material wealth. Likewise, poor believers

can find solace in the notion that their labor, their individual efforts, are not wasted if

they cannot afford high standards of living because they share the same purpose as the

rich in pleasing God by contributing to the overall wealth of society.

In the imaginary put forward by Şen the Muslim community in Turkey can return to

the high level of morality it enjoyed in the past when people choose lifestyles that

emphasize communal commitments, which carry their own logic and recompense for

God rewards individual efforts in the afterlife. Thus, people should embrace capitalism

because the generation and sharing of material wealth is a means to please God. Finding

the right lifestyle for oneself is a moral responsibility that one has toward the community.

If one is intent on fulfilling this responsibility he will seek to strengthen both his

individualistic and communal sides so that each one can feed and inspire the other.

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 CHAPTER 6

MUSIAD MEMBER: BURHAN

Burhan has contradictory descriptions of jihad and individualism that reveal a

confused attitude toward the values of individualism and communalism which helps to

explain his appreciation of capitalism. First, I will describe what jihad and individualism

mean to him, and I will show how these concepts contradict. Next, I will explain the

importance of this contradiction as the foundation on which Burhan builds the connection

between individualism and communalism. After that, I will show how this connection

leads to his appreciation of capitalism.

Spiritual Reward vs. Financial Gain

Burhan's ideas of jihad and individualism both appear as motivating factors that push

him in the same direction; however, the ultimate goals to which they lead expose

confusion in his notion of why he should work. First, Jihad is a personal struggle that he

projects outward toward the rest of humanity by claiming others’ happiness as his reward,

which he collects not only by improving workers financial capabilities but also their

spiritual lives. Next, Burhan describes individualism as the driving force behind

individualism in such a way that without it there would be no reason to work because he

equates individualism with personal material gain. After elaborating these points, I will

54
show how these ideas clash and create confusion about what brings him the most

happiness from work.

Although Şen claims that the classical conception of jihad is a struggle with one’s

own conscience to do what is morally correct, Burhan takes the view that by bringing

happiness to his workers he is making himself happy and this is jihad. He claims that

when he opens business operations in a foreign country, he can employ four hundred to

six hundred new workers. Even if these workers are non-Turkish and non-Muslim, he

draws great joy from the fact that they are drawing salaries and living with a sense of

pride that he can see on their smiling faces. These workers can afford better lives for

themselves and for their families. In addition to this, he teaches them to live as ethical

human beings at the workplace, which should also bring them happiness. This kind of

instruction, which he says involves sometimes shouting at the workers, includes lessons

in honesty, conservation, and cleanliness.

Workers have an ethical responsibility to work hard especially because he is paying

them for their time. Workers often claim that they can do things that they really cannot.

“They are lying unfortunately. That’s why I became more religious; otherwise, how could

I teach them that they should not lie but unfortunately if he does not lie he cannot find

work.” He tells them that they should not waste water, electricity, or materials because

those things belong not only to him but to humanity. Wastefulness is on par with

polluting and it is a responsibility of Islam not to waste. Furthermore, he shouts at his

workers to keep themselves clean when they come to work; “otherwise, you cannot be a

Muslim; you cannot even be a human being.” When the workers learn these values and

55
they earn money for themselves, they feel happy. Burhan is struggling for their

happiness by employing them and expanding his business operations.

Burhan, who is so adamantly opposed to communism that he claims he once hated all

things relating to Russia, says that without individualism there would be absolutely no

reason to work. Furthermore, Burhan states that God did not create everyone equal,

which amounts to the notion that God never intended for people to have equality so it

would be sacrilege to desire such a thing. He asks, “I will work like a bee and everybody

will be equal? Why should I work?” One can see that he equates individualism with the

desire and capacity for material gain, and he conceptualizes this in a hierarchical sense in

which God has obviously favored the rich as exhibited through their natural talent for

making money. One can gather from this that Burhan would not work if there were no

material reward or if the material compensation were inadequate for his needs since one’s

God given abilities should not only be recognized by others but scaled according to a

market value which gives one his worth relative to the rest of society.

Burhan’s explanation for what motivates him to work bears a serious contradiction in

spiritual and material values that could cause one to confuse the place that Burhan gives

ethics in business. If jihad, bringing happiness to others, were so important to him, he

could not claim that there would be no reason to work if labor only provided equal

satisfaction of everyone’s needs. It may be possible to make workers happy and gain

one’s own material wealth at the same time, but Burhan presents such extreme versions

of each goal that he does not leave space for these motivating factors to coexist. It

appears that in seeking his own material gain, Burhan also derives spiritual satisfaction

from employing and instructing workers. However, it is clear that he would stop working

56
if there were no material reward suitable to his expectations whereas he would not stop

working if workers revealed that they indeed were not happy with the salaries or “ethical”

instruction they received. Obviously, Burhan prioritizes the ethical responsibility he has

in satisfying his own needs, yet his failure to state this as a fact could mislead one into

thinking that he is using his business merely as a platform for his personal spiritual

development.

From Burhan’s speech one can easily see the contradiction that he creates between his

understandings of jihad and individualism. He claims that he works to both make others

happy and make money for himself; however, he describes these goals in such a way that

they do not complement each other. Instead, he depicts individualism and ethics as

existing in two separate spheres. In the first sphere, businessmen should be free to earn

as much money as possible according to their abilities. In the second sphere, they should

show concern for the happiness and spirituality of workers, which involves paying them

and demanding that they abide by certain rules for grooming and conservation while at

work. It would appear that the only thing that sets Burhan off from non-Islamic

businessmen in terms of ethics is that he draws a profit, pays wages, and enforces rules

for employee conduct in a way that gives him spiritual satisfaction whereas non-Islamic

businessmen do the same thing as a matter of course.

Community in the Marketplace

The contradiction between individualistic profit seeking and religiously inspired

company building allows Burhan to create a link between individualism and

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communalism that satisfies his Islamic work ethic. First, it introduces the possibility that

the individual has a responsibility to himself and to the community in working hard so

that he takes care of his own needs and contributes to the improvement of others.

Second, it helps to explain the importance of zakat for competitive individuals in

redistributing their wealth to the community. Third, he suggests that the marketplace,

where individualistic actors interact with each other, provides people with the opportunity

to communicate and learn about others, resulting in better understanding and peaceful,

productive relationships.

Burhan states that he works for the material wealth that he gains, and he works

because by making others happy he satisfies a spiritual calling. Thus, the individual and

community are linked in a vague discussion of personal responsibility and ethics. Burhan

states, “People can only be happy if they have moral values and money.” The way to

attain both of these things is through hard work. This includes the rich and the poor

alike. The communal bond that workers and employers share is contractual for Burhan,

who claims that his religious duty of jihad is satisfied by paying workers their wages, and

that workers have an ethical responsibility to perform their jobs well and conserve his

supplies. This workplace conception of community suggests that because workers and

employers, who are all seeking their own individualistic ends, are contributing to the

material gain of each other, the basis of a community exists.

Burhan is very clear in his opposition to the idea of equality, but he claims that if rich

men pay their zakat their will be balance in society. When one considers the importance

that Burhan gives to the individual and his pursuit of wealth, one should have a clearer

understanding of what he means by balance and how this relates individualism with

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community. Because people are not born with the same abilities, it is natural that some

make more money than others. Furthermore, one should expect to have a higher standard

of living if he possesses superior skills, or he would not work. In the same way that

working to the fullest extent of one’s abilities is a personal responsibility that links the

individual with the community, paying zakat is an individual requirement that draws one

into community with those less fortunate than he is. Also, in the same way that one

primarily seeks his own happiness through labor, “the more you give in this life, the more

richly you will be rewarded in the afterlife,” according to Burhan, who advises everyone

to pay more than the required two point five percent of one’s profits as zakat. He says

that the rich and the poor live in different conditions, so they have different thoughts and

perspectives about the world. For example, “poor people don’t shower everyday so how

could they have the same way of thinking as the rich?” Thus, it stands to reason that the

amount of money to meet the needs of a poor man’s conception of happiness is much

lower than that needed to meet the rich man’s needs. Balance is struck in the fact that

there is already such great disparity in the nature of individuals, whose primary

experience with the community depends on the value of their labor.

Burhan attributes negative attitudes toward Islamists to the general lack of

communication between different groups. He describes how his own negative ideas

about Russians were dispelled after he began doing business in Russia. He adds that in

his dealings with non-Turkish people and non-MUSIAD members, the people he dealt

with were shocked that Turkey and a MUSIAD member were so modern. Thus, through

their interaction in the market, people were able to gain a positive understanding of each

other that brought them together on a shared plane. The individualistic pursuit of wealth

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drives one into the market, where he is compelled to discover his common competitor. In

his bold humanity, he must recognize the likeness he bears to those who are also engaged

in productive labor, for those who abide by the standards of ethical business can dwell as

brothers despite their differences in nationality, culture, or class.

It is clear that Burhan’s primary concern in business is the happiness he feels in

amassing as much material wealth as he possibly can, and he feels justified in such

pursuit because his abilities are God given and because he brings happiness to his

workers by providing them with incomes. His individualistic perspective links to

communalism vaguely through the idea that entrepreneurs and businessmen contribute to

each other’s gain in a shared space of peace and understanding, where balance is

achieved as a market value so determines. The common thread that draws everyone

together into a community is the notion that trustworthy individuals maintain a system on

Earth, like that maintained elsewhere by God, in which hard work pays off.

The Bourgeois Burden

The place that Burhan gives to the individual as a responsible member of the Muslim

community allows him to hold capitalism in great esteem because it facilitates individual

effort and the rewards that supposedly follow such effort. First, in Burhan’s conviction

that money and material wealth are necessary for happiness, he implies that capitalism is

the only way to create wealth. The next way that he places capitalism in the center of his

discourse is that he describes society as naturally divided into a hierarchy of most

productive to least productive, and the market economy is the logical result of this natural

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division. Finally, he sees capitalism as the path towards and the practice of modernity,

without which society cannot advance.

Although Burhan states that Turkey will have difficulties maintaining its traditional

moral values as it grows economically, he is quite clear that in order to be happy one

must have money and moral values. He is critical of Islamists who have advocated

socialist ideas because in his opinion these ideas are not practical or realistic. As stated

earlier, he could not imagine himself working in communist Russia because he cannot

stand the thought of working hard only to have the same living standards as everyone

else. Capitalism appears as the only logical, practical, and ethical way to generate

wealth. Thus, capitalism is the only economic system that can facilitate the happiness of

the community even as morality falls into decay.

Class distinction is something that Burhan carries like a badge to signify the important

position he has in society as a model for the community. “When I was passing a

motorcyclist in traffic,” Burhan said, “the man gave me a look and said ‘I know how you

got your Mercedes.’ I told him I pay my taxes and I pay my zakat.” Burhan not only

appreciates his wealth, he also uses it as a mark of his superiority. He claims that poor

people cannot have the same way of thinking as the rich because the poor do not shower

everyday. He creates the image of his workers, i.e. the poor, as dirty, dishonest children

who need him to supply them with jobs and moral instruction. The market rewards

individuals according to their productivity, which comes naturally as each person

possesses God given skills. Thus, it is only natural that a predefined hierarchy with the

bourgeoisie on top would thrive in such a system.

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 Finally, for Burhan capitalism is the economic system of modernity, in which

everyone now has the opportunity to find the happiness that comes with money and

morality. He believes that entrepreneurs are pioneers of modernization and that they

should be models for society. He credits Ataturk for Turkey’s industrialization and high

living standards compared to other middle-eastern countries. Furthermore, he claims that

Ataturk had both a modern and an Islamic vision for Turkey that was derailed by an

intransigent bureaucracy. A smoothly running free-market is what Turkey needs to get

back on track with the vision that Ataturk had for the country. One can only affirm his

commitment to modernization by accepting and boldly participating in the capitalist

economy. Carrying this through with the guidance of Islam is only natural because

according to Burhan, “Muslim means modern.”

That he is a businessman makes it obvious that Burhan has a high opinion of

capitalism in general, but by considering the value that he places on the individual in the

context of community responsibility, one can gain a clearer picture of what capitalism

means for him. The logic that he uses to tie money with happiness is the same as that

which identifies the failure of communism with philosophers’ dreams. In other words, it

is natural that people need greater and greater material gains if they are to expend their

energy on anything worthwhile because this is a material world only maintained by the

enterprising spirit of the upper echelon of a predestined hierarchy. This class of superior

beings uses capitalism to carry the lower orders into modernity so that they too can

experience what it means to be truly human.

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 Imaginary

What Burhan’s ideas contribute to a possible Islamic imaginary is an extremely

conservative work ethic that equates one’s value as a human being with his capacity and

drive to earn money for himself in the market economy. In describing this work ethic, he

defines what it means to be a good Muslim in terms of labor and wealth. He outlines the

significance of social-economic class in the development of humanity, which can only

exist in the presence of wealth and cleanliness. Also, he puts forward the idea that

community relations are strengthened by the interaction of competitive individuals in the

market where ethical values are smart business.

He states that without money one cannot be a good Muslim. “To be a good Muslim,

to go on the hajj, and to give zakat, you should have money. It means that the Muslim

faith motivates you to be rich. To be a good Muslim you should be rich.” As stated

above, employers and employees have a responsibility toward each other to work hard

because they each contribute to the other’s well-being. If one applies himself with the

abilities he has been granted from God and he works in an ethical manner, he is certain to

find a reasonable position in the social and spiritual hierarchy. On the other hand, if he is

lazy or dishonest, he will not be able to make money, he will not contribute to the wealth

of the community, and he will not be rewarded for his behavior in the afterlife.

In terms of class in Burhan’s imagination, the bourgeoisie plays an important role in

guiding the lower classes toward a dignified level of development to which all Muslims

would naturally aspire. Those who have been graced with the skills to open and operate

businesses are natural leaders who can live as models for the rest of the community. The

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community should try to work hard and live like the bourgeoisie so that they may enjoy

the same sense of spiritual accomplishment even if they cannot experience the same level

of material comfort. The bourgeoisie represents cleanliness in both the physical and

spiritual senses while the poor border on an accursed state of filth, odor, and general

depravity, which they can only escape by entering the modern world managed for them

by the upper class.

What Burhan says also encourages believers to imagine that the Muslim community

has relationships that are rooted in market relations, including the relationships that one

forms in business dealings, the relationships between workers and employers, and the

relationships between coworkers. In the market there is a natural logic reinforced in the

afterlife which claims that the more you put in, the more you get back in return. This

assumes that people will behave fairly and honestly in their relationships because the

most wealth can be gained from an ethically bound system of social-economic

relationships. Such a conception of the market has a universal appeal that erodes the

barriers erected by class, nationality, and even religion. However, members of the

Muslim community can feel emboldened by the notion that the type of ethical market

relations in question are most fully realized through Islamic values since Islam is the

most modern religion.

The work ethic that Burhan puts forward for the Muslim community could be an

important part of an evolving imaginary. This work ethic arises from a highly

materialistic conception of individualism that envisions money as an essential component

of one’s humanity. This work ethic takes the Islamic bourgeoisie as its model because

these entrepreneurs are hard-working pioneers of modernity and justice. Finally, this

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work ethic leads individuals into the market, where they form meaningful relationships

with others that bolster the Muslim community.

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 CHAPTER 7

MUSIAD MEMBER: AĞCA

Ağca's notion of morality, which has both objective and subjective elements, allows

him to depict the Turkish Muslim experience with global capitalism as a work in progress

whose challenges will be overcome with an Islamic understanding of the contractual

protection of the individual and an inclusive approach to community that negates the

ethnic and doctrinal differences of Turkish Muslims. I will begin by explaining Ağca's

conception of the dual nature of morality and will show how this relates to tradition and

modernity in the Turkish context. Then, I will show the importance that Ağca gives to

the individual in society by focusing on his regard for contracts which carry varying

moral weight depending on whether they are conceptualized in Islamic or modern

bureaucratic terms. Finally, I will discuss how according to Ağca the stasis of core

values and the evolution of historical boundaries in thought contribute toward the unity of

the diverse Muslim community that is Turkey.

The Duality of Morality

Ağca’s idea of the dual nature of morality allows him to relate Islamic tradition and

the modernity of global capitalism in a way that permits the Islamic businessman to act as

an ethical agent of what would appear to be a universally accepted economic system.

First, he explains in what way and with what intentions it is good to become rich in

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Turkey. Second, he suggests that capitalism has been growing more humane due to the

changing nature of morality. Third, he claims that traditional communal practices

alleviate the social ills commonly associated with capitalism.

Ağca says that the objective part of morality rests in the fact that every society has

notions of justice and truthfulness, but the subjective part concerns how people define

these things like justice. He claims that with the emergence of capitalism in Turkey, as in

all developing countries, moral questions have arisen and MUSIAD intends to deal with

these issues. He states that MUSIAD members are not guided by Islam per se, but by

universally accepted values that reach into every aspect of their lives, including their

business lives and their personal relationships. Furthermore, he states Turkey can avoid

many of the negative aspects associated with the history of capitalism in the West

because “there is now a more universal consensus on what is morally right and what is

morally wrong so you wouldn’t expect the same outcome as you have from the new

developing countries.” For Ağca, the ethical men who follow this universal standard

stand as proof that being rich or pursuing wealth is not necessarily good or bad. It is

good to become rich if one does so honestly and fairly. The traditional values found in

Islam go hand in hand with what has come to be universally accepted in business.

This is possible because the world of commerce has grown more humane due to the

subjectivity of morality. For example, he says that colonialism, slavery, and child labor

are no longer acceptable. Ağca is basically saying that things like slavery and child labor

have practically ceased to exist not because of political or economic expedience but

because people have naturally come to see those things as immoral. He negates the long

violent history of labor activism that has accompanied the evolution of western

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democracy. In other words, there may be nothing essentially wrong with slavery because

society’s moral view of it could change, in which case it would cease to exist. Turkey is

fortunately encountering the global market at a high point in the moral assessment of

capitalism. Thus, Turkey is starting its development at a higher moral level than those

experienced by the west and the result will also be advantageous for Turkey.

This leaves the social ills of capitalism that result in connection with the great

disparity in wealth between the rich and the poor, but Ağca claims that these things are

balanced in Turkey by community traditions which include paying zakat and caring for

family members. Ağca says that wealth is cycled through the community because many

people give their money to charity. Also, there is a large family structure that maintains

close ties, so people have a strong support network to fall back on in times of financial or

even spiritual crisis. Therefore, he asserts that Turkey does not have problems between

the rich and the poor to the same extent as that in western countries because moral

tradition is equipped to deal with modern problems.

The moral standards that guide the Islamic businessman are a combination of modern

and traditional values. These businessmen are stepping into the market at a high point in

business ethics which they are also able to apply in their personal and social lives. Thus,

in Ağca’s terms, the MUSIAD member earns his wealth as an ethical businessman in any

other country would and he cycles his wealth through the nation of believers according to

Turkish and Islamic tradition. In other words, the moral standard attained in present day

global capitalism and the high moral standard inherent in Islam allow the Islamic

businessman to be both modern and traditional as he negotiates his position in the market.

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 A New Social Contract

The importance that Ağca gives to the individual in society is brought out in his regard

for contracts which hold a significant place in Islamic tradition. I will begin by

explaining in Ağca’s words why such a contract is necessary in business. I will continue

with an explanation for the moral superiority that a contract conceptualized as Islamic has

over the secular bureaucratic contract. Finally, I will discuss how this shows that he

places the individual above the community.

Ağca argues that without contracts there is not just corruption in the relations between

employers and employees but also a deterioration in the business environment in general.

When you have an unregistered economy you have no bills of sale or credit between

actors because it is not recorded. Then, if there is a dispute you cannot go to court so you

have a lot of problems. In an unregistered economy you cannot develop partnerships

because one person cannot trust another person if there is no record of any transactions.

This deterioration in the business environment is a matter of course that people have

received from their parents so they continue to operate in this way, but it is also part of

the legal environment in Turkey according to Ağca. He blames high taxes and strict

regulations for the large degree of unregistered business in Turkey. Although the laws

and procedures that funnel through the bureaucracy are also contracts in the sense that

they legally bind businessmen and employers to fulfill their responsibilities, these laws

have an immoral nature because they do not account for the realities of business needs

and they unfairly limit the endeavors of entrepreneurs. He believes that the burden of

high taxes and strict regulations should be lifted so that entrepreneurs can officially

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register their businesses. After that, they can enter into contracts with other businessmen

and workers that would carry more moral weight because those contracts better suit the

needs of those involved.

Ağca’s call for the revival of the contract shows that he values the individual to an

extent that places him above the community. He says that the most important thing in a

society is that the rights of the individual are not violated. By rejecting state regulation,

which blankets large areas of business, in favor of contracts that actors are free to

personalize, the individual gains the ability to establish his own rights relative to others.

He can protect himself from other businessmen, workers, and the state itself. Nobody

knows his own interests better than himself, so he should have the ability to pursue and

protect those interests. Furthermore, when individuals are able to benefit from such an

ethical arrangement, the society will also develop accordingly.

Ağca says that it is an unfortunate reality that MUSIAD cannot control whether its

members have fully registered their businesses with the state. In fact, he says that it

cannot be expected to do so if even the state itself cannot monitor all the businesses in

Turkey. His primary concern is not seeing that the state put an end to the unregistered

economy. Rather, he values the rights of the individual businessman. Therefore, it is

now more important that MUSIAD members be protected from undue state regulation.

Once this is accomplished, members can be expected to freely register their businesses

with the state, and then, they will enter into contracts of their own designs that express

their personal needs and ethical considerations.

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 Community Expansion

According to Ağca the continuance of core values and the deterioration of historical

boundaries in sect and ethnicity act to unify the diversity of Turkey, which he claims is a

Muslim community in every sense of the word. First, the core values that make one a

Muslim resemble the objective side of morality in that one need only to ascribe to some

abstract principles to belong to the side of religion and morality. Second, he claims that

there are no ethnic divisions in Turkey although there are some lingering memories of an

unpleasant past. Third, he says that individuals form the Muslim community through

their interaction, in any sense of the word.

Ağca maintains a very broad view of what it means to be Muslim and he rejects the

term Islamic as an adjective to describe MUSIAD and its members. Like Şen, he says

that the basic texts provide the foundation for the faith but the interpretations that one

could give to these texts are numerous, so nobody should claim a monopoly on the

religion, which is what is implied by the term Islamic. The broad principles that can be

derived from interpretations of the texts are similar to the notion of objective morality,

which was discussed above. Everyone holds beliefs centered around concepts such as

justice. However, whereas the evolution of the subjective element of morality has led to

universal consensus in the international business community, the Muslim community in

Turkey draws its strength from the de-emphasis of the more specific subjective

interpretations of Islam. Although the international business community and the Muslim

community in Turkey seem to approach morality from opposite directions, they both tend

toward consensus and integration.

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 Ağca’s inclusive attitude also addresses the subject of ethnicity. “I believe that

Turkey today does not have any ethnic imposition on any sub-cultural minority here,” he

says. He states that in the south-eastern part of Turkey economic underdevelopment has

resulted in “grievances” that can be remedied with a combination of economic growth in

the region and time, which is necessary for the aggrieved to forget the problems of the

past which have resulted in ideological differences. If the state makes a sincere effort to

improve the region, such a forgetting will be possible. Thus, the Muslim community in

Turkey, which already lacks an ethnic dimension, will become even stronger.

By looking through a modern lens, Ağca imagines any interaction between Muslims

as the basis for a Muslim community. The definition of all those who accept the basic

principles of Islam as Muslim insures that these Muslims will interact to a tremendous

degree in secular situations. However, the notion that these people are instilled with

social traditions guided by Islam makes seemingly secular interaction a significant re-

enforcement for the community. This notion corresponds to Burhan's idea that through

interaction in the marketplace people find common ground on which to form significant

relationships with each other.

Ağca sees Turkish, Islamic, tradition as a powerful force in the contemporary life of

the nation which has overcome divisions of sect and ethnicity by emphasizing the most

basic moral values of the religion. These divisions have further been reduced by the

interactions of individuals, in which according to Ağca there is social meaning if the

individuals apply justice to their relations. The Muslim community has benefited from

the continued strength of traditional values and modern moral values as experienced

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through participation in the global market. The result for Ağca is a nation that is itself the

epitome of the Muslim community.

Imaginary

One idea that stands out here is that Islam precedes and anticipates changes in

subjectivity as capitalism becomes more pronounced in society. The answers to

contemporary problems have always been there and as the world comes closer to a

universal standard of morality, it becomes easier for Islamic businessmen to relate to and

participate in the global economic system because that universal standard that has

developed with the evolution in subjective morality is itself coming closer to Islam,

which at its base protects individual rights according to Ağca. Thus, what would appear

as the normal operation of capitalism is simply a sign for the fruition of Islam, in which

the efficient and ethical standards for business are inherent and reach further to protect

and enrich individuals whose mere interaction makes up the community.

For the Islamic imaginary this goes beyond suggesting that there is no inherent

conflict between Islam and capitalism to depict a modern economic system that finally

coincides with the objective and unchanging values of the religion. For Ağca this is

apparent because Islamic businessmen are simply applying the same standards of

behavior towards their business activities that they would maintain in their daily social

and family relationships. This is natural for these businessmen who are now compelled

to a lesser extent by unfortunate realities rooted in the struggle for survival posed by

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government inefficiency and the need to operate one’s business without fully registering

with the state.

The imaginary that Ağca puts forward for the Muslim community envisions the

individual having priority over the community in Islam. Ağca claims that a change in the

individual should bring about a change in society and for this to occur the rights of the

individual must be protected so that he may have the opportunity to pursue and

experience his own moral development. Islam carries within it rights that protect the

individual; for example, the idea of the contract protects individual rights in business,

which build a sense of trust and obligation between economic actors and results in the

general growth and development of the economy, which in turn benefits the community.

Ağca would have people imagine that any interaction between Muslims forms the

basis for a Muslim community. As Ağca broadens the idea of what it means to be a

member of the Muslim community, he enlarges the space in which individuals interact as

members of the community. This clearly moves interaction beyond the hallowed spaces

of the family home, the mosque complex, or other spaces with an easily identifiable

religious aspect into the market, where relations had been conceptualized as secular.

Thus, even if people spend less time with their families or less time at their local mosque,

they need not feel removed from their places in the community. One’s participation in

life as a consumer, worker, or employer insures that he is a member of the Muslim

community in Turkey.

The imaginary that Ağca presents shows individuals engaged in daily life, which is

infused with both capitalism in its most moral incarnation and Islam as it has always

been. The natural crossover of these two things means that whatever these individuals

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do in the market, they are acting as members of the community of believers. However,

for them to act as such they must have their rights as individuals protected, and this is

what the fusion of contemporary capitalism and Islam has resulted in, the protection of

the individual. Being able to act and grow as individuals sets the ethical foundation for a

strong and just community.

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 CHAPTER 8

MUSIAD MEMBER: ADAMOĞLU

Adamoğlu has a confused view of liberal capitalism that prevents him from blaming

the capitalist system itself for what he sees as Turkey’s two biggest problems, the loss of

faith among the Turkish youth and the widening gap between the rich and the poor and

that results in a very non-liberal role for the government in solving these problems. First,

I will discuss what the mysterious decline of religiosity means for the Muslim community

and how it relates to individualism. Next, I will review Adamoğlu's view that the income

gap is a result of people not being true Muslims. Then, I will describe the role that the

government should play in solving these problems.

The Need for Greater Religiosity

The loss of religiosity means that the Muslim community has grown smaller in

Adamoğlu’s opinion and it is in need of serious reform. He argues that in his father’s

time all students fasted during the holy month of Ramadan, but just a few years ago when

he was in school, only he and a small number of his friends could be seen fasting at

school. This indicates a general lack of religiosity among Turkish youth, who lie about

attending prayers at the mosque just so that they can visit with their friends. Adamoğlu

states that people who do not follow the rules of Islam, which include praying and

fasting, are not real Muslims. In fact, he states that Turkey is a country that is only

Muslim in name. He says that capitalism has changed everything. When a man is poor,

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he follows all the rules; on the other hand, when a man becomes rich he stops caring

about the requirements of Islam. In addition, when one has work to do or has to travel for

work he does not always have time to attend to his prayers or other duties and in this way

he loses touch with the religion. The members of MUSIAD however try to follow all of

the rules. This suggests that capitalism itself is not responsible for the loss of religiosity

because MUSIAD members strongly maintain their duties to God. This leaves the real

cause as a mystery that would not be solved by eliminating capitalism. Adamoğlu says

that a father can tell his children that they must fast to be good Muslims, but he cannot

force them to fast. In other words, it is the individual choice and responsibility of each

person to abide by the dictates of the religion. Thus, he implies that the loss of religiosity

is a failure on the part of the individual in his choices as a free and self-accountable

human. Although Adamoğlu’s definition of what it means to be Muslim is not as

inclusive as Şen’s, this notion of individual choice coincides with Şen’s idea of lifestyle

and the bad choices that people are making these days. Therefore, it is not capitalism’s

fault that the rich man in Adamoğlu’s example above has lost his religion, but it is the

fact that now that he is rich he has more choices in terms of lifestyle and he has chosen

poorly.

Although Adamoğlu sees a person’s choice to fast or not as one’s own individual right

that cannot be forced, he does not equate this with individualism, which he completely

disagrees with. He claims that there can be no progress if people do not think about the

others around them. He claims that as a sign of increased individualism people do not

know their neighbors. However, he does not dwell on this point and instead prefers to

discuss the financial advantages of working with partners rather than working alone.

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Partnership seems to be synonymous with community. He says that in a persons lifetime

he could build ten buildings by himself, but with partners he could build one hundred

buildings and be richer for it. Thus, community means working together in a kind of

partnership in which one is directly involved in the affairs of another for the mutual

benefit of each. The reason that people have a better understanding of their business

partners these days than they have of their neighbors may be due to the fact that it is often

easier to choose the people you enter into business with than it is to choose who you

become neighbors with. Furthermore, one may understand from the differences in his

and his neighbor’s lifestyles that he has little or nothing to gain from any interaction with

that person.

The main contradiction here rests in the notions that individuals must be free to

choose their own lifestyles and relationships, but individualism is a bad thing for society.

This suggests that Adamoğlu's conception of individualism is confused and limited.

Without being able to define individualism, he also fails to set the boundaries for

communalism. The basic formula stands as such; if one acts alone, he is behaving

individualistically and this is bad; if one acts together with others, he is behaving

communalistically and this is good. The people who have maintained their religious

values work together and this in itself shows their concern for the community. On the

other hand, those who no longer adhere to the requirements of Islam, not real Muslims,

avoid working with others and in this way show no regard for the Muslim community.

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 An Islamic Panacea

Adamoğlu says that the other cause for the decline of Turkish society is the economy.

He claims that there are rich people and poor people, but there is no middle-class. He

says that if everyone paid zakat, there would be no problems because there would be no

problems between the rich and the poor. There would be no thieves. For example, he

says shop owners in Mecca leave their doors open when they go to the mosque at prayer

time. He continues that if you did the same thing in Istanbul, you would find your store

empty when you returned from the mosque. He claims that this is because Turkish

people are not living as real Muslims. This assumes that Mecca is made up of real

Muslims, who pay zakat, and that there are no problems between rich and poor there.

One can see that Adamoğlu does not blame capitalism for any problems between the

rich and the poor or for the gap between them. Instead, the fact that people are not living

as good Muslims is the cause of the problem. He states this again when he says that

watching high society rich people on television results in a neurotic envy by the poor. He

suggests that extravagant shows of wealth disqualify one from true membership in the

Muslim community. (This brings to mind the royalty of Saudi Arabia and makes one

wonder who exactly in Mecca is living as a Muslim according to Adamoğlu.) He claims

that there would be equality if everyone lived as he should.

Although several MUSIAD members see taxes and state regulation as the biggest

obstacle to business in Turkey, Adamoğlu blames interest for the economic imbalance in

Turkey, which coincides with typical Islamic economic thought. He explains that interest

is more profitable for an individual than operating a business so people do not open

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businesses. He adds that one of his neighbors is a jeweler who employs sixty men, but he

does not think of them as just sixty workers because they also support their families,

which are each composed of five people. So this jeweler feels responsible for

approximately three hundred people. He says that the man knows that he could make

more money by putting his money in the bank and drawing interest but it is more

important for him that three hundred people live their lives. This story suggests that

individuals like Adamoğlu’s neighbor are using the market as it should be used. In other

words, this is a positive example of capitalism without individualism because the jeweler

is not only thinking of himself, and he is making a sacrifice for others when he could be

making more money.

Even though he states that there are rich and poor people but no middle class, he may

have a very broad idea of what it means to be rich. Until recently his father had been the

leader of the AKP in the Fatih district of Istanbul and he assisted in handing out money to

the poor. However, he says that they did not let people come to them and tell them that

they were poor. Instead, the party went to the people’s homes to see the conditions that

they were living in. Some of the people were obviously lying according to Adamoğlu

because they had nice cell phones or plasma televisions. The criteria that one must meet

to qualify as poor is not clear but this suggests that people must be in desperate

conditions to deserve any help from those interested in the community.

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 Small Government vs. Welfare for the Rich

Although one member claims that social problems in Turkey are minimal because the

state provides good health care and education, the role that Adamoğlu imagines for the

government in solving the social problems of Turkey reflects his confusion over the

concept of liberalism. He claims that if the government is composed of good Muslims

who are doing a good job, in the way that the current government practically is, it is

unnecessary to pay zakat if one pays his taxes because it would be like paying tax twice.

In other words, the Muslim government would redistribute wealth from the rich to the

poor through taxes in the same way zakat benefits those in need. Adamoğlu disagrees

with the other MUSIAD members in this regard, for Şen and Burhan are insistent that one

must pay taxes to the state and pay zakat. This suggests that in Adamoğlu’s imagination

there is a stronger connection between the state if well led and the religious community.

Şen and Burhan insist that satisfying the state and satisfying Islam’s requirements cannot

be done in the same stroke.

Adamoğlu, who is also part of the Fetullah Gulen movement, says that if someone like

Gulen wanted to build a school in the Mecidiyekoy district of Istanbul the government

should help him. It would be difficult to open a school there because there is no space so

one would have to buy expensive property. Adamoğlu says that the government could

help by forcing the property owner to sell his property for half of what it is worth; on the

other hand, the government could help the property owner too by re-zoning his property

so that it could be used to build both a school and a shopping center. This would make it

more profitable for the owner to sell or develop. This shows that Adamoğlu would not

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mind the government’s interference in the normal operations of the market in determining

the price of property and it creates the possibility that the state could choose its favorites

in the development project. In other words, the state could help certain property owners

to become wealthier. Ironically, the picture often painted of MUSIAD by people like

Ağca is that the organization grew out of opposition to state sponsored enterprises.

Although this aspect of government interference does not appear to be very liberal,

Adamoğlu’s idea of Gulen building a school does express the notion that private

enterprise could do a better, more efficient job at satisfying societal needs that were

once the preserve of the state, such as the building and operation of schools.

Another idea that shows a contradictory understanding of the states role in solving

social-economic problems appears in a proverb that Adamoğlu claims Prime Minister

Erdoğan is fond of: Give a man a fish and he can eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he

can eat for a lifetime. The basic idea is that individuals should be self-reliant rather than

depend on the state’s assistance. This does not coincide with his idea that the state, when

led by good Muslims, should manage the redistribution of wealth as if it were zakat. This

notion of individualistic self-reliance is very liberal in the sense that it aims to

dramatically decrease the state’s role in correcting social-economic problems. However,

at the same time Adamoğlu imagines the state having a large role in assisting the private

sphere in creating new jobs for people.

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 Imaginary

For the imaginary of the Muslim community this would seem to create some

confusion at first sight. However, one may see this not as an attempt to redefine things

like liberalism or individualism systematically, but to take more of an ad hoc approach to

the social and economic dilemmas of Turkey. For example, individualism describes the

selfish, lonely pursuit of wealth, and it can be remedied by forming partnerships, which

are more profitable anyway. This is the basis of community. Furthermore, to qualify as a

member of the Muslim community, it is not enough as Şen or Ağca suggest just to

believe, but one must closely follow specific rules of the religion. Thus, one can see that

a certain kind of participation is required to be a member of the Muslim community in

Turkey.

Striking the word individualism from the acceptable lexicon of the Muslim

community does not remove the concepts of individual choice and responsibility, which

are both key to the imaginary posed by Adamoğlu. He implies that everyone should be

self-reliant and independent. This creates a bigger burden of proof when it comes to

showing one’s claim to being a true Muslim because one has the choice and the

responsibility to follow the rules and practices of Adamoğlu’s conception of Islam. This

idea has two functions. First, it acts to protect the rights of individuals, who cannot be

forced as others would have them live. Second, they prove their worth as Members of the

Muslim community.

If everyone lived as a true Muslim should, there would be no problems in society

according to Adamoğlu. This allows the true Muslims to blame the so-called Muslims

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for things such as inequality, ignorance, and crime. The real Muslims care about others

in ways that the false Muslims do not. This is evident from the fact that people who are

only Muslim in name do not pay zakat, which would be directly payable to the state in

the form of taxes if the government were also composed of real Muslims. Thus, one

should not imagine that any of the problems in capitalist Turkey could not be solved by

turning completely to Islam.

Adamoğlu also imagines a complex role for the state, which should assist

entrepreneurs but leave the rest of society to fend for itself. The state should help

businessmen in endeavors that have some social function like a school. This would not

be like the favoritism shown to certain industrialists by the state in the twentieth century.

This would be more like a partnership between an honest, socially concerned government

and a businessman who seeks to improve his community.

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 CHAPTER 9

OVERVIEW AND OBSERVATION

As stated above I have focused on only four individuals because the depth of their

responses provides for the most significant insight into their attitudes. Here, I will briefly

summarize the responses of the other members that I interviewed and I will show how all

of the interviewees relate. In addition, I will discuss ways in which the interviewed

group as a whole fits into the literature reviewed in the introduction to this thesis.

Although the attitudes of most of those interviewed resemble one, another, or a

combination of the four previously named, there are two interviewees who stand out from

the entire group. I will treat these two separately.

Summary of Those Interviewed

Cağlar agrees with Adamoğlu that capitalism comes with social problems and he sees

Turkish society changing negatively to resemble that of the United States. However, he

claims that because MUSIAD members are conservative and live in the Muslim way,

they have not been corrupted by capitalism. Likewise, he shares Adamoğlu’s idea of

good and bad Muslims but he also includes so-so Muslims. Cağlar agrees with Şen that

employees should be treated like family although, like Burhan, he definitely has a profit

motive in mind when he says that workers will not perform well or they will quit if they

are not treated well. Treating others well means treating them as equals even though

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people are not truly equal due to their varying skill levels and natural characters. Finally,

Cağlar states that Ataturk did what was right for his time, but he would act differently if

he were alive today. In other words, Ataturk would repeal the revolutionary cultural

policies that he initiated because they are no longer necessary for Turkey’s industrial,

economic development.

Delikan is sure that there are no serious social problems in Turkey like there are in the

United States. This is due to Turkey’s outstanding moral traditions and because of

Turkish people’s Muslim faith. Although he admits that it is possible for the social

situation to change for the worse, he has seen a lot of progress in Turkey in the last 15-20

years and he expects this progress to improve with the AKP government, which will

fulfill Ataturk’s dreams. He feels that in the last 15-20 years there has been more

equality in society because the government has made it easier for everyone to receive

healthcare and education. Delikan's attitude towards social problems is similar to Ağca’s

in that they both deny the existence of serious problems owing to the sharing and helping

spirit of Turkish society. He also echoes the theme that equality is a matter of

opportunity rather than living standard.

Akdemir says that being conservative means following Turkish tradition and abiding

by the rules of Islam. He and the other members of MUSIAD are conservative but he

admits that he must sell alcohol, which is forbidden in Islam, because it is necessary for

his business. This is reminiscent of Ağca’s discussion of the unregistered economy and

the unfortunate reality that MUSIAD is unable to monitor its members to see that they are

fully registered with the state as mandated by law. Here, Akdemir is faced with an

unfortunate reality that causes him to break Islamic law rather than Turkish law. Both

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Ağca and Akdemir suggest that for the sake of business these infractions are acceptable.

He also repeats the theme that the government should assist business by lowering taxes

and controlling utilities so that business can grow and unemployment can be alleviated.

Like Adamoğlu, he rejects individualism, which he sees as synonymous with selfishness

and lack of responsibility towards the community and the state, which would grow strong

with a dynamic economy based on competition.

Yegen agrees with Burhan that individualism is good because when you do the best

for yourself, others benefit by default. However, he is very clear that he did not enter her

business to help people. He argues, like Adamoğlu, that people should be taught to help

themselves. He sees the education system as a big problem because students are not

taught about Turkish tradition in school. Instead, students are taught to imitate the West,

and they choose to live like Westerners. He adds that it was a mistake for Ataturk to

change the alphabet from Arabic to Latin because it severed the connection of

contemporary Turkish people to their Ottoman past. His ideas resemble Şen’s very

closely because they both emphasize education as the way to maintain tradition because

rightly educated people would choose to live according to tradition.

Berk says that MUSIAD includes religion and it is easy for him to connect with

MUSIAD because it is a friendly organization but he feels that things like religion and

ethnicity are used politically to divide people. Therefore, although he feels that religion

is important, it should not affect business relations or social organization. He does not

speak of a Muslim community. Instead, he is concerned with and feels responsible for

the Turkish nation. He states very clearly that his reason for being in MUSIAD is that it

educates its members in the ways of business, provides useful connections with other

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businessmen, and it represents his interests to the government. He claims that by

contributing to the Turkish economy he is fulfilling his duty to make Turkey strong,

which is necessary because Turkey is surrounded by enemies. His ideas are similar to

Ağca’s idea of the Muslim community that includes all of Turkey. He wants the people

of Turkey to be united like they were in the time of Ataturk, but the education system has

failed the people and they do not know what democracy is. He claims that if everyone

does what Ataturk said to do, Turkey could be richer and have peace.

Avcı states that MUSIAD cannot be labeled as Islamic because some of its members

go to the cinema or to swimming pools. He says that although Islam affects his life, the

economy is governed by global economic rules. He supports globalization, but the

unfortunate reality is that competition affects the poor negatively. However, he agrees

with Ağca that there is not a social problem between the rich and the poor. People do not

need to have equal living standards for there to be justice. The biggest obstacle to justice

in Turkey is the legal system which has adopted laws from “outside” Turkey, specifically

Switzerland and Italy. This apparent rejection of the “outside” does not coincide with his

belief that Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, mirroring Ataturk, will make everything right in

Turkey by entering the European Union.

Tanç, like Burhan, believes that individualism is important for the economy. He does

not believe that people are equal or that they should have equal living standards, but he

thinks everyone should have equal access to education and social services. He feels that

in developing the economy it is possible to be capitalist and maintain traditional values.

People should work and be productive to develop themselves and the community.

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 Çevik's ideas closely resemble Adamoğlu’s. He states that Islam affects the

economy. He says that in Islam there is capitalism and communism at the same time. In

other words, there is a market economy but one must pay his workers well. He equates

individualism with selfishness. He argues that most people cannot earn a good living

because they have no education. Education should include both religion and technology

so that Turkey can continue to improve. If everyone paid zakat and taxes the country

would improve.

Kavlak thanks Turgut Ozal for opening up Turkey for international trade. However,

he says that when the economy started getting better, people started caring less about

tradition. When people get rich, they forget about ethics. This corresponds to Şen’s idea

that people choose different and harmful lifestyles after they become rich. He does not

agree that the Muslim community is divided because in MUSIAD some people are very

rich and others are just normal but they all work together. People can only be equal

before the law; otherwise, there would be communism, which is an impossibility.

Özer repeats the theme of Turkey’s obvious moral superiority to the West with regard

to the family. He also points out that countries like America have a strict system of rules

but Islamic countries are more friendly. For example, “When people get stopped by

police- they break the law but the police make deals with the drivers. Lawyers and

judges cannot deny traditions.” This idea of working together extends to workers and

business owners, who are responsible for each other’s benefit as described by Burhan.

Özer also makes the confused argument that if the government lowers taxes, more people

will be able to receive social services like healthcare.

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 Being Muslim and Capitalist

The brunt of this project lies in defining the various aspects of the Muslim community

and capitalism from the perspective of the Islamic bourgeoisie, as represented by

members of the business association MUSIAD. I will begin with a look at what has been

said about the Muslim community and I will highlight points of disagreement in order to

show the significance of this disagreement for a dominant imaginary. Next, I will re-

examine the impression of capitalism created by the people I interviewed and I will

consider areas in which concepts conflict. Finally, I will explain how these notions of the

Muslim community and capitalism mesh.

As a group these members are in agreement with mainstream Islamic economists, who

favor a market economy with limited government regulation. They emphasize moral

values but they also prioritize survival and efficiency in a way that may conflict with

certain Islamic injunctions. For example, one man must sell alcohol for his business. In

keeping with mainstream Islamic economic thought, everyone suggests that he is doing

God’s will by showing concern for others. In addition, one can see the idea that God is

the ultimate owner of all things. Şen states this explicitly and even Burhan, who revels in

his personal wealth, hints at this when he claims that his capital does not only belong to

him. This group sees hard work as a moral virtue, and its attitude towards employees is

that workers must be treated fairly in a spirit of cooperation.

The biggest area of disagreement concerning the Muslim community is over the

definition of what it means to be a Muslim at all. There are three key ideas on this

subject. The first is the most liberal. It states that a Muslim is anyone who accepts the

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basic tenets of Islam as written in the holy texts. This does not require rigid adherence to

specific rules for behavior and allows for a great deal of interpretation. The second idea

scales the value of one’s Muslimness on three basic levels. One can be a good Muslim, a

bad Muslim, or a so-so Muslim depending on how closely he abides by the rules and

spirit of the religion. The third idea divides people along clear cut lines of Muslim and

non-Muslim. This idea holds that one must follow the rules and practices of Islam or he

is only a Muslim in name. This idea demands a high level of religiosity and it shows the

least amount of tolerance. The difference between these conceptions of what it means to

be Muslim is important because this could expand or limit the number and kind of people

that one would desire and be willing to associate with in social, economic, and political

contexts.

Despite the fact that some members claim that Islam does not affect business or that

they exist in separate spheres, the group as a whole agrees that “conservative” people are

more trustworthy and friendlier than non-conservative people. Also, they show more

concern for others. These qualities provide grounds for entering into partnerships and for

justifying employee-employer relations. In other words religion plays a significant part

in their attitudes toward business relations in terms of how they define themselves and

others not only as good Muslims but also as good businessmen.

The idea of what constitutes community is also important. Again, there are three ways

in which this is conceptualized. The first is the most intimate and therefore the most

difficult to maintain in an industrial society. This is the idea that community takes the

form of familial relations. The core element is the family itself but this extends to

include neighbors and townsmen, who are all to be treated as family. The next way that

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this is seen is as an extension into market relations. Entering into business relations as

business owners, partners, or workers constitutes the basis for community because

everyone involved can see the shared values and goals of the others they are in contact

with. The third way is an even more abstract extension of this. This concept of

community is based on the interaction of Muslims in any sense or context. This shows a

depersonalized understanding of community in which the burden of expectation on

intimate relations is dramatically reduced because one is allowed to distance himself from

such relations. The difference is important here because the kind of interaction that goes

to make up the community also determines who can be in the community and which

spaces are included in its make up.

In the academic literature one important idea that stands out is that Islamic identity

groups have formed as a reaction to certain people with religious lifestyles or living in

rural areas being excluded from the Kemalist development project. The interview group

is mixed in this regard. Some members, like Şen, Delikan, and Akdemir, refer to their

rural roots. Others, like Burhan and Yegen, refer to prejudices against religious people.

However, as a group these people do not present themselves as reacting to exclusion. On

the contrary, they thank God for their natural abilities and they claim that people have

equality of opportunity to obtain wealth. Although, they compare themselves with

TUSIAD and ITO (the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce) to show that MUSIAD members

are “small” and “independent,” several members, like Burhan, Akdemir, and Adamoğlu

have considered becoming or are currently members of one of these other organizations.

When discussing capitalism the largest area of disagreement concerns whether or not

individualism is good or bad with regard to both economics and social values. When one

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looks closely at these opinions he can see that the definitions that the members employ in

their judgment of individualism are quite different. It must be stated that the members

interviewed claim that liberalism is necessary and good from this and other statements

made by the members, even those who claim to be opposed to individualism believe that

the individual has inalienable rights that must not be violated through social pressure or

state action. In other words, although a member can say that he is opposed to

individualism, his belief in the freedom of individual choice and responsibility shows that

he actually holds individualism in high regard. One member may claim quite candidly

that whatever he does professionally, he does primarily for his own benefit whereas

another member states that as he works he considers the effect of his actions on others;

however, individualism need not be equated with selfishness. The member primarily

concerned with his own earnings does not consider himself to be selfish because he

imagines that his endeavors tend toward the general productivity and development of

society by generating wealth, new jobs, and technological improvement. The member

who denies individualism also imagines that he provides for himself more fully by

entering into partnerships with others. He also is not selfish because he pools his

resources although he does so with a specific kind of partner who he feels he shares

certain individual qualities with. In addition, he claims that forming partnerships, which

have higher overall profits and less risk for the individuals involved than working alone

has, improves the nation through degrees, not directly. This difference in semantics

suggests that there is a conceptual dilemma in the notion that one can satisfy the ethical

priority he has in taking care of himself first without being selfish.

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 The challenge for these businessmen is to improve the economy of the nation of

Turkey and to strengthen and maintain a religious value system at the same time. There

are two equally extreme ideas present in this study. The first claims that if the economy

boomed, social problems, including the erosion of tradition, would disappear. The

second claims that if people were better Muslims, there would be no social or economic

problems. These ideas are met with another claim that there are no problems between

rich and poor because the traditional values of giving, family, and neighborly concern

hold Turkish society together even as the distance between rich and poor grows

financially. All of these things suggest that with the right combination of money and

faith any problem can be solved. It is difficult to classify these members as moral

capitalists or alternative capitalists because morality and economic growth have equal

importance in the language that these members use. Being hard-working is a moral

virtue that results in financial gain, and financial development results in better

educational and employment opportunities through which people can exercise their moral

virtue. The significance of the differences in the way that these things are measured is

that one must always compensate for the other in a way that tends toward a practical

conservatism in thought. One must work hard and carry the faith, and if everyone does

this, everything will be ok.

Outlying the Community

Two of the people I interviewed stand out from the rest because their statements

contrast greatly with the community oriented social concern expressed by the others.

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Akkaş told me that he joined MUSIAD to make more money. He stated, “I don’t care if

rich people help poor people and things like that. I am a businessman.” Erkan takes a

fatalistic approach to the discussion of capitalism and community values. He says that

capitalism is bad for poor people and communities but one must either compete or fall

behind.

MUSIAD has a screening process for new members that requires one to have several

letters of reference that describe the person as having good moral standing. Ağca says

that if it comes to the attention that a member of MUSIAD is behaving too unethically his

membership can be withdrawn, and this has happened in the past. The problem here is

that these statements do not necessarily mean that these men are engaged in bad dealings.

They may be running legitimate, ethically sound operations. However, their attitudes do

not match the others. The former rejects the notion of community, and the later rejects

the idea that capitalism is good for Turkey. Both of these men are involved with

MUSIAD so they can benefit from the advantages of belonging to an organization that

educates its members in the ways of business and connects them to other businessmen.

Furthermore, they may be deeply religious in their own ways. One way that these men

are important for this study is that they emphasize something that should already be clear

from the preceding discussion; MUSIAD members are not united in their thoughts and

attitudes. More significantly, this shows the cynicism that has made its way into an

organization that prides itself on its commitment to the community and the nation, which

means upholding notions of both tradition and modernity. There may be little in the way

of inspirational images that these men can contribute to a social imaginary to guide

liberalized Muslims, but they speak from the heart of capitalist logic, whose key concept

95
is survival. In this way, these two men relate very closely to the others in this study, for

their concern is for the survival of a way of life that they hold dear.

Conservatism at Work in Society

In conclusion, the members of MUSIAD that I interviewed in Istanbul are united

under the banner of survival. To varying degrees this struggle for survival centers around

three elements: the individual, the nation, and the values that inform them. After

combining the ideas presented previously, one can see the existence of a possible social

imaginary. This imaginary is built on the concepts of work and responsibility. Everyone

must work hard for his own benefit and the benefit of Turkey. Now there are problems

with education, training, and government bureaucracy that prevent many people from

doing their best. The government must invest more money in education. This includes

assisting actors in the private sphere who would open their own educational institutions.

The government must lower taxes and put a check on the price of utilities. Thus, new

businesses can be opened and there will be trained workers to fill new employment

positions. Although the burden on the state may seem daunting in that it must both lower

taxes and subsidize business, the weight of the social-economic project in this imaginary

rests primarily on the individual. The individual has many freedoms and with those

freedoms comes a wealth of responsibility. He must choose to walk in the path of his

forefathers, but at the same time he must also choose to reshape their world along

capitalist lines. The ability to do both requires flexibility in the way that capitalism and

tradition are imagined. In this case, capitalism is the means for the nation to become

96
strong economically and militarily. Capitalism is also the mode in which a person can

prove his personal worth as an income earner, an ethical citizen, and a good Muslim.

This imaginary holds that these three things are intimately related and if one is a good

Muslim, he would of course be hard working and ethically bound and this would result in

his material success. To be a good Muslim requires that one express concern for his

fellow man, especially other Muslims. This is expressed: through helping the poor, most

commonly in the form of zakat; through familial concern for those around you,

particularly those you work with; through honest and fair dealing, especially with

business partners and employees; and through the avoidance of what is scripturally

forbidden from one’s lifestyle, like drinking alcohol.

The question of what exactly fair is leads us to the open-ended idea of justice that

Ağca gives. It is clear that material equality is undesirable and impractical in this

imaginary, and that everyone has a varying degree of natural ability. Therefore, justice in

this imaginary is the end result of a smoothly running market economy, in which one’s

labor is measured relative to others and “he gets what he deserves.” Unfortunately, what

one deserves may not be adequate for him to satisfy his needs. This is where traditional

community values come in to compensate for low wages or unemployment. In other

words, if one maintains his faith and works hard, he will be justly rewarded in one way or

another, either directly through is labor or with the help of the community. Justice is not

something that can be quantified here, it is a relation between the market and the

community with the individual giving impetus to both.

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 CHAPTER 10

CONCLUSION

This work is built on the theory that the social imaginary transforms and develops as

sign systems and reality diverge, and it is premised on the idea that the Islamic

bourgeoisie is engaged in a struggle over the definition of the Muslim community. This

struggle is carried out through language as words take new shape in the social

imagination. The bourgeoisie has structural advantages in having its brand of ideas

institutionalized due to its access to mass media and government. With the liberalization

of Turkey, the bourgeoisie plays a more significant role in society and politics. The

Islamic bourgeoisie fuses liberalism and religious conservatism in a way that forces a

rethinking or re-imagining of business and Islam in Turkish society. Vague universal

notions such as justice are dependent on the imaginary that results from the interaction of

liberal logic and religiously inspired moralization.

One idea that stands out in the discourse of several of those interviewed is that there

are no problems between the rich and the poor in Turkish society because of the

continuing tradition of sharing and helping the poor. There is a serious contradiction

between this idea and the reality that one can see in the city of Istanbul, which is heavily

segregated along economic lines. The painful differences between rich and poor are

more obvious when one compares the eastern and western regions of Turkey. One way

that this contradiction between language and reality could be remedied is by re-imagining

the concept of equality. If one accepts the view that equal living standards are

98
undesirable and even unjust, as Burhan suggests, one is left with the conservative social-

economic idea that equality means being equal before the law. The fact that everyone has

the same legal rights to pursue wealth translates into the unsupported belief that people

have equal opportunities. In addition to this, the Islamic bourgeoisie excuses itself and

the rest of society for not paying taxes which might go toward improving services for the

poor because the tax burden is too high. In other words, in the same way that the

bourgeoisie helps society by efficiently pursuing its own profit, they imagine that people

would “help” by paying taxes if the government were not an obstacle to their good will.

This points to another contradiction that needs some re-imagining to peacefully enter

the consciousness of society. The fact that some children cannot attend school because

they must work to help support their families or the fact that some children cannot go to

school because there is no school for them to attend is definite proof that people do not

have equal opportunities. Although many of the interviewees see the Turkish education

system as a big problem, they overlook other structural differences that limit the

opportunities of the poor. A good education does not afford anyone the capital to start

his own business. The imaginary presented here proposes that individuals live in

communities of mutual support, in which one’s relatives and neighbors share each other’s

costs. People can form partnerships that help them overcome burdens such as poverty.

However, there may also be a contradiction between language and reality over the

idea that everyone in Turkish society can benefit from the strong family network that

continues to exist as the bedrock of Turkish tradition. Several members point to the

problem of the disintegrating family structure and they imagine its solution as a return to

tradition. More interestingly, another way of solving this contradiction is by enlarging

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one’s definition of family and transplanting the family from the home to the workplace.

In this case, one’s business partners, employees, managers, and coworkers become

brothers. They celebrate holidays together and attend each other’s weddings and

funerals. Thus, the tradition of family support remains even if the nature of the family is

radically different.

The religious approach that interviewees take in business and social concerns conflicts

with Kemalist ideology, which sees secularism and progress as closely related. They

solve this problem by redefining Ataturk. The re-imagined Ataturk was a religious

visionary whose ideas have yet to be realized. The Islamic bourgeoisie is carrying on his

mission of uniting the nation under the banner of progress and democracy. Ataturk

himself is still infallible but the ways that his initiatives have been carried through are

flawed and reflect a corrupt bureaucracy and a misguided populace. If any of Ataturk’s

measures were too radical, they were necessary for Turkey to catch up industrially and

economically with the rest of the developed world. Now that Turkey has nearly caught

up, the Islamic bourgeoisie argues that it is time to focus on liberalizing and

democratizing with a focus on religious freedom as Ataturk would have wanted.

The terms that the Islamic bourgeoisie uses are not entirely of its own making. The

terms overlap with competing ideologies which are secularist or anti-capitalist. This is

important because it shows that the actors involved although competing are

interdependent and signification is ultimately an unpredictable and never ending process.

In addition, this deepens the understanding of this particular group by linking it with the

origins of the language it employs. These origins may from the outset structure the

bourgeoisie’s disposition toward capitalism, liberalism, and community, placing

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limitations on the ability of social classes, status groups, or occupational groups to

coalesce outside of a rigid system of economic hierarchy.

Suggestions for Future Study

To fully grasp the significance of differences in language and attitudes toward

capitalism in the Muslim community, a detailed study including both the bourgeoisie and

the working class is necessary. Closer comparisons between business associations would

reveal differences in bourgeois attitudes. Examining the working class through Islamic

labor organizations could reveal the extent to which the attitudes and beliefs presented in

this paper have been accepted or rejected. Finally, a survey of the relations that the

Islamic bourgeoisie has with the government and the media would help clarify the extent

of its influence in politics and society.

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 APPENDIX A

INTERVIEWS

Albayrak, Atilla Hakan. Personal interview, Spring 2007.

Albayrak, Orhan. Personal interview, Spring 2007.

Arı, Omer. Personal interview, Spring 2007.

Arpınar, Cemil Turhan. Personal interview, Spring 2007.

Arslan, Ali Riza. Personal interview, Spring 2007.

Baykal, Tarık. Personal interview, Spring 2007.

Bursalı, Ahmet. Personal interview, Spring 2007.

Çağlar, Hüseyin. Personal interview, Spring 2007.

Çavuşoğlu, Ali. Personal interview, Spring 2007.

Efe, Fatma. Personal interview, Spring 2007.

Hocaoğlu, Fazlı. Personal interview, Spring 2007.

Kaya, Selim Sırı. Personal interview, Spring 2007.

Manzak, Kamil. Personal interview, Spring 2007.

Sudaş, Alim. Personal interview, Spring 2007.

Topaloğlu, Coşkun. Personal interview, Spring 2007.

Utku, Melikşah. Personal interview, Spring 2007.

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 APPENDIX B

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

Why did you become a member of MUSIAD?

How is MUSIAD different from other business associations in Turkey?

In what ways do member companies of MUSIAD operate differently from other

businesses in Turkey?

What do you feel like you share in common with other MUSIAD members personally
and professionally that you do not share in common with others?

Hakan Yavuz has stated that some religiously motivated entrepreneurs and intellectuals
in Turkey shun the term Islamic. Are you opposed to this term? Why?

The famous Islamic economist M.A. Mannan writes that in Islamic economics, economic
actors operate according to the dictates and guidance of the Koran and Sunnah. In what
way does Islam guide your business activity?

In what ways has your organization been misinterpreted by others?

What does it mean to be a member of the Muslim community in Turkey?

What role should entrepreneurs play in the development of the Muslim community and
the republic of Turkey?

What do you contribute or hope to contribute to society?

Liberal thought maintains that individualism is a necessary component of a dynamic

economy. Do you agree or disagree with this idea? Why?

At what point does individualism pose a threat to community?

In what ways could the Muslim community become stronger without economic
prosperity?

What role should the Muslim community play if one of its individuals threatens its unity?

Does the individual ever need to be protected from the will of the community? Why?

Does Islam provide for this kind of protection? How?

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Some writers emphasize a wage based on the overall profitability of the company while
others assert that the wage should be tailored to the needs of the worker. In any case,
Siddiqi and Chapra would agree that the community itself should have the final say.
What do you think?

What responsibility do entrepreneurs have in promoting the well-being of employees?

Cihan Tuğal writes that divisions within the Muslim community are rooted in class.
What is your opinion of this?

Some people have argued that the health of the Muslim community requires an
egalitarian society? What do you think about this?

How is justice possible if people have unequal living standards?

What kind of leadership does the Muslim community need to grow economically and
morally? Can MUSIAD provide that leadership? How? Could others provide that
leadership?

What were some of the most significant achievements of the Turkish revolution?

What would you have done differently if you had led the revolution?

What should the state do to improve the business environment in Turkey?

What effect do you think MUSIAD’s economic success could have on Turkey’s political
life?

How are political conditions for Muslim people in Turkey different now from the past?
How could conditions be better in the future?

What role should economic actors play in modernizing the nation?

M. A. Mannan writes that Islamic economics discusses economics as it should be, unlike
conventional economics, which describes economics as it is. Do you agree? Why?

Some Islamic economists, like M.A. Mannan, criticize countries such as the U.S. for
sacrificing morality in order to achieve economic prosperity. As Turkey’s economy
grows, how could Turkey avoid the moral decay that America has experienced?

Marxists claim that as capitalism develops people become alienated and social
relationships break down. How should capitalism develop in Turkey such that it does not
threaten Turkey’s social cohesion?

If a Muslim entrepreneur’s economic survival is threatened, what support should he

expect from the community?

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