In what case do you like reading so much? What about the type of the the muqaddimah an introduction to history book? The needs to read? Well, everybody has their own reason why should read some books. Mostly, it will relate to their necessity to get knowledge from the book and want to read just to get entertainment. Novels, story book, and other entertaining books become so popular this day. Besides, the scientific books will also be the best reason to choose, especially for the students, teachers, doctors, businessman, and other professions who are fond of reading.

The Muqaddimah: An Introduction to History

Veiling-fashion, with its array of brands and ever-changing styles, has been on the rise in Turkey in the past decade. Although the producers of these styles present them as the perfect melding of fashion and piety, our analysis of focus groups with consumers in Istanbul and Konya in 2009 shows that veiling-fashion is, in practice, rife with ambivalence. Veiling is undertaken in relation to the moral code of of Islam, but fashion, as consumption, works as part of an ever-shifting economy of taste and distinction. In Baudrillard's terms, veiling-fashion is morally ambivalent, caught between its function as modest covering according to Islam and its social signification. In their negotiation of this ambivalence, consumers of these styles turn veiling-fashion into an ethical practice, into part of how they form themselves in relation both to a moral code (Islam) and to the aesthetics, politics, and pleasures of their sociospatial environments. The ethical practice of veiling-fashion thus engages a complex sp...

“Even I Was Tempted”: The Moral Ambivalence and Ethical Practice of Veiling-Fashion in Turkey

What makes a commodity ‘Islamic’? By focusing on the question of ‘Islamic-ness’ as it traverses both material and symbolic production, this paper aims to contribute to recent research in geography on the lives of commodities. Our study demonstrates the instability of Islamic-ness in the veiling-fashion industry in Turkey and draws out the implications of this finding for our understanding of the socio-spatial work of the commodity. The veiling-fashion (or tesettur) sector has become a conspicuous part of the Turkish apparel industry in the past 30 years. Firms producing veiling-fashion engage in the design, production, marketing and sale of distinctive commodities stylised to signify Islamic-ness. We begin by situating veiling-fashion within the broader contours of the Turkish apparel industry, economic restructuring and the rise of an Islamic habitus in Turkey. Based on our 2008 survey of 174 veiling-fashion firms in Turkey and our case studies of three such firms, we seek to understand how and to what extent the commodity is inscribed as an Islamic commodity in the course of its life, from financing to marketing. We use survey data to explore the role of Islamic banking practices, Islamic trading practices and Islamic workplace ethics in the itinerary of veiling-fashion. Drawing on our case studies of three veiling-fashion firms (Tekbir, Boutique Dayi and Armine), we show how these companies represent their ambivalent relationships to Islamic-ness, both as a set of values and as a particular milieu in Turkey. Through this analysis, we find that the Islamic-ness of the commodity cannot in fact be located or fixed; it is instead best understood as a mode of insertion into socio-spatial networks. Veiling-fashion as a commodity thus enters into and becomes constitutive of the wider material and symbolic networks that enact Islamic-ness in Turkey today.

Islamic-ness in the life of a commodity: veiling-fashion in Turkey

The argument of this paper is that the new foreign policy orientation of Turkey under the AKP (Justice and Development Party) government is a constitutive component of a new nationalist project, constructed and carried out by the AKP over the last decade. The article expounds the ways in which the AKP has reformulated the notions of nation, national history, homeland and national interest and demonstrates the role foreign policy has played in this reformulation. Our point of departure will be the patterns we have observed in the statements and political practices of the AKP government and its officials, particularly the incumbent minister of foreign affairs Ahmet Davutoglu, whose book, Strategic Depth, presents a more systematic explanation of the major principles and assertions of AKP nationalism and foreign policy. We will also argue that after the Gezi protests in June 2013 this new conception of nation and nationalism has faced with a deep crisis, which has also exacerbated the problem of pursuing an ...

/pdf/nationalism-and-foreign-policy-discourse-in-turkey-under-the-387i0po2sd.pdf

Nationalism and Foreign Policy Discourse in Turkey Under the AKP Rule: Geography, History and National Identity

This article aims at analyzing Turkey's economic relations with the Middle East during the 2000s. It argues that intensification of Turkey's economic relations with the region is due to the changes in the Turkish economy and the coming to power of the Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi (AKP). It looks at the relationship between the AKP and the business communities and foreign trade in general and elaborates on the trade figures and relations with individual countries. It looks at the economic cooperation projects and the vision presented by the Turkish policy-makers. The article also looks at the drawbacks and possible future developments in the economic relations.

Economic Relations with the Middle East Under the AKP—Trade, Business Community and Reintegration with Neighboring Zones

The "political" has been absent from Turkish foreign policy because the main difficulties facing the country were considered almost constitutive elements of Turkish national existence, so that they are kept incurable. This essay includes a brief history of the absence of the political in Turkish foreign policy. Some conservative and dogmatic considerations of limits in political life have been typical obstacles to change. When politicians address the obstacles, they threaten many economic and political interests. A radically different, recent approach in Turkey promotes political action to achieve "zero problems with the neighbors." While we could previously see the removal of the political from foreign policy in Turkey, now we also can see the clear return of the political.

Politics at Home, Politics in the World: The Return of the Political in Turkish Foreign Policy

Les AA. examinent le developpement de l'education religieuse superieure dans la Turquie moderne pendant ses 75 annees d'existence. Ils exposent les differentes etapes de la creation de la nouvelle Faculte de Ilahiyat a Ankara a partir de 1949. En 1959, un Institut Islamique Superieur fut ouvert a Istanbul. D'autres suivirent, mais tous furent transferes aux Facultes de Ilahiyat par les reformes de 1982. Diverses initiatives ameliorent et elargissent regulierement l'enseignement dans ces facultes, et l'on parle de la tradition du modernisme islamique.

75 years of higher religious education in modern turkey

In his famous Introduction to the historical sciences, Muqaddimah, Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) provided observations and analyses of issues in urban sociology during the late fourteenth century.1 From ...

Civil Society and its Cultural Origins in a Turkish City: Konya

Eğitimde Küresel İmkânlar Küreselleşen Dünyada Eğitimde Fırsat Eşitliği ve Özgürleşim Fırsatları Üzerine

The idea of the existence of a model once and for all for human-being is the product of the imagination of modern utopias. This kind of imagination has mobilized all political philosophies to the quest for eventually establishing this model. Modern ideologies have tried to mobilize the masses for the efforts of restoring back this model. However, as much as people have thought to have approached the fulfillment of this model, they have been disappointed for they indeed have realized the fact that this closeness is just an illusion. The attempts to restore a historical experience assumed as once and for all are typified as Zionism. The strive of the Jews for restoring their motherland on the base of being “promised” has caused much pains for humanity, and a melancholia filled of tension on themselves. In fact, however, it is impossible to catch back that imagined model. Islamic philosophy of history is assumed to take hijrah as its existential base and by so doing it proposes more realistic and touchable experience. Thus, it is argued in this article that Islam does not sacrifice the real for the sake of an imagined Zion, a promised golden age or ideal experience so that it put the political against the melancholia.

/pdf/islamcilik-ve-bir-modern-melankoli-eve-don-eme-mek-1qo8qc0zdk.pdf

Yasin Aktay

Papers

Politics at Home, Politics in the World: The Return of the Political in Turkish Foreign Policy

75 years of higher religious education in modern turkey

Civil Society and its Cultural Origins in a Turkish City: Konya

Eğitimde Küresel İmkânlar Küreselleşen Dünyada Eğitimde Fırsat Eşitliği ve Özgürleşim Fırsatları Üzerine

İslamcılık ve Bir Modern Melankoli: Eve Dön(eme)mek