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The resurgence of religion worldwide proved that secularization is not a de facto reality of modernity and the initial chaos that came along with the birth of postmodernity evolved into uniquely developing combinations that recognized cosmopolitan, multicultural, and hybrid (i.e., fluid and hyphenated) identities. Universal values became more instrumental than ever to connect members of hyper diverse societies while ethnocentric, nativist and exclusivist patriotism expired (and only recently starting to attract far right and white supremacist groups alone). Most Islamic revivalist movements emerging from this context have had minimal interactions with non-Muslims and influence on mainstream societies. Being in search of a solution to respond to the overwhelming effects of the West on Muslim societies, these revivalist movements could not change (and maybe contributed to) the binary positioning of Islam and the West. On the contrary, the Hizmet movement, inspired by Muhammed Fethullah Gülen and his predecessor Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, appeared in the global arena as an Islamic revivalist movement whose discourse resonated with the commonly shared universal values of every culture, ethnicity, and religion. The Hizmet movement did not position itself as an antithesis to Westernization, secularism, and modernity; the movement adopted a universalist and all-inclusive attitude, which re-introduced to the world that Islam is universal religion with the capacity to accommodate people of diversity and meet the needs of every age. This paper explores the Hizmet movement's historical, theological, and social roots as a transnational Islamic revivalist movement. It analyzes the movement's outreach across multicultural societies and its capability to adapt to a changing world through its educational and interfaith and intercultural activities across the globe. While unpacking thirty years of the Hizmet movement's activities and the contribution to the literature, the paper also addresses some of the criticisms that have emerged regarding the movement and its activities, particularly in the wake of the 2016 failed coup attempt in Turkey. It should be noted that much criticism toward the movement emerged in recent years, and the movement did not face much backlash in its early years of development. With this in mind, this paper explores the development of the Hizmet movement and how much of its initiatives rapidly left a positive mark on diverse societies around the world. The paper is thus structured chronologically, tracing the birth, growth, stagnation, and transition (or according to some collapse) of the movement. The paper, by extension, too, positions the Hizmet movement within the phenomenon of contemporary Islamic revivalism as this movement is born out of similar conditions as are other Islamic revivalist movements but taking a slightly different direction, which is that it challenges the prevailing binary 'us and them' discourses produced mostly in ethno-centric political discourses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper discusses the attempts by the rulers of the Ottoman empire to modernize the society--by modernizing the bureaucracy to implement reforms needs as: promotion of Ottomanism as a counter ideology to nationalism, reform of provincial administration, and an Ottoman constitution. The reformers were so strongly committed to Ottoman values, that they could not become committed to the radical social and political changes required for modernization. As a result, the changes made in the bureaucracy only increased the ascriptive orientation of the society, and continued the authoritarian rule. Commitment to fundamental social and political change would seem to be among the conditions for bureaucrats to help effect modernization in underdeveloped countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to question recent increasing femicides in Turkey through the examination of their reasons and dynamics. Therefore, it starts with analyzing current terms such as "honor killing", "töre killing" and "crimes of passion". The article claims that the recent description of the murder of women in Turkey as "honor killings" is misleading. Turkey must employ finer distinctions among types of femicide so as to prevent murderers and the larger society from justifying such actions through claims of honor. This paper thus asserts that the analysis of femicide in Turkey, as a Muslim country, should go far beyond the context of honor killing and argues that such examination must consider new social and economic changes as well as the new status of women in modern Turkish society. Thus, the article raises a new argument by suggesting a new term, "revolt killing", for conceptualizing femicide in Turkey in tandem with recent social change and the increasing status of women. It argues that revolt killing is the concept of conflict between tradition and modernity, and it claims that recent increasing femicides in Turkey are closely related with the changing status of women towards modernity in contrast to the stability of men's status in tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of herbs has very long history in a variety of cultures, including Turkish culture, for various purposes such as the practices in herbal medicine, cosmetics, witchery or religious rituals. However the practices involving the use of herbs necessitate profound knowledge about herbs. This need has been traditionally fulfilled by the herbalists who are called as aktars in Turkish culture. It is recently observed that there is an increase in consultation to aktars and the use of herbs in Turkey. This can be considered as a reflection of current worldwide resurgence of herbal culture which is mostly related to use of herbs for health and cosmetics. Along with this worldwide trend, economic reasons, preference for the natural over the processed, seeking remedies for ailments give rise to an extensive growth in use of aktar products. In this paper Giddens' "Modernity Theory" will form the theoretical framework so as to analyze the motives of popularization of aktars and herbal culture through a field research conducted in Izmir. This paper is an outcome of a motivation to develop an understanding the social and cultural reasons of resurgence of herbal culture in Turkish society through analyzing the information gathered from aktars and their potential customers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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The end of the Cold War meant the end of the 'buffer state' identity of Turkish foreign policy - an identity which was based mainly on the geopolitical position of Turkey in world politics. Since the 1990s, Turkey has been in search of a new identity, which has required a much more active and constructive foreign policy behavior. Furthermore, as the world has become more globalized, more interdependent, and more risky, having "strategic depth," this new foreign policy identity entailed the employment of not only geopolitics but also identity and economy. Thus, geopolitics, modernity and democracy have become the constitutive dimensions of Turkish foreign policy today. This development in Turkey's foreign policy identity and behavior has been perceived in global academic and public discourse as Turkey becoming a "key and pivotal actor of world politics." This paper explores the ways in which Turkish foreign policy would become effective and achieves its main aim, that is, to contribute to the creation of a fair, better, and democratic global governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There was a time when Turkey was foreign even to its own population: it had a new constitution, a new head of state, a new capital, a new place of religious worship, a new alphabet, new social laws, a new penal code, new dress codes, a new education system, new names, a new calendar, a new weekly holiday, all as a result of the top-down modernization process enforced by the Kemalist regime. Much like tourists travelling abroad, the citizens of the new Turkish republic were in need of guidance: what to do, how to act, what to wear and how to speak. Yedigün not only provided its readers with the necessary social coordinates to find their bearings in the new landscape of modern Turkey, but also positioned Turkey as a modern country on the European map. Transcending “mere” translation, Yedigün domesticated modernity into the Turkish household, through appropriation and conversion. Passing on the Ottoman intellectual legacy of liberalism and internationalism, editor Simavi and his journalists challenged not only the West’s monopoly on modernity, but also its Kemalist interpretation. As a challenge from within the modernizing elite, it could not be written off as either behind the times or reactionary. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The work of Turkish poet Nâzim Hikmet revealed the bifurcated world inside the famous national modernization project of Mustafa Kemal. Hikmet's poetic vision in "Human Landscapes from My Country" was offered in response to the modernity-as-project that dominated the nationalist political landscape. A gap lay between the promise of modernity and its realization; as a modernist of development, Nâzim Hikmet set out to represent that disjuncture in its full complexity. Hikmet demonstrated through his poetic work that modernity has been a mode of transformation compatible with different ideological commitments and various cultural identities. A close examination of his literary representation of the railway enables us to rethink the role played by modernism within a global context of development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Focuses on the analytic categories of tradition and modernity in respect to the study of religion and society in Turkey. Definition of modernity; Recognition of modernity in the Ottoman Empire; Details of the transformation of the issue of labeling.

This note attempts to discuss certain salient points that emerged from the controversies on the so-called crisis of modernity in recent times, pointing to their relevance in the case of developing countries, particularly with respect to the spheres of state, civil society, and religion. The theoretical insights from past sociological, historical, and philosophical literature are deployed in coming to grips with the challenging questions posed by the current dynamics of the above-mentioned spheres in the developing world. The case of the Ottoman Empire and the theoretical-ideological tendencies within modern Turkish historiography that have been used to approach this historical phenomenon are provided as particular examples to support the argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The performance of women in their traditional family-centered roles is suggested as an appropriate site for assessing the impact of social change on the status of women in Muslim countries. When differences in modernism of attitudes and behavior of 803 Turkish wives were examined, the type of community background, amount of education, age at marriage, and exposure to mass communications media could be formed into an orderly system of influence which determined how modern or traditional a woman would be as a wife. In predicting the carry-over of modernism into other areas of behavior, the importance of the situational context of behavior was underlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]