Kızılkaya / Fıkıh Usulünde Sahabe Fetvasının Kaynaklık Değeri Cilt / Volume: • Sayı /Issue: • 2012

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İnsan ve Toplum
Every week millions of people perform the Friday prayer in Turkey (Acar, 2003). As a 
means of public communication, the Friday khutbahs, which is an essential duty (fard) 
of Friday prayer itself” (Baktır, 1998, p. 425; Çakan, 1975, p. 26-27) have a sociological, 
communicational, pedagogical (Döner, 2004; Suna, 1996) and political importance. 
Every week, it has ability to reach a great portion of population that most the cutting 
age communicational technologies cannot achieve. Thus, it is asserted that Friday 
sermons cannot only be considered to be a part of worship, but they must also be 
understood in terms of politics, ideology, and philosophy. Sermons represent one of 
the most common and concrete example of the metaphysic of present by depending 
the presence of the sermon giver in order to warrant the veracity of what is talking 
about. The sanctity of Logos or spoken words, which comes from a Logo-centric tradi-
tion, is the hidden cause of concern and confidence in sermons.
Apart from this philosophical base, Friday sermons have always played a political role 
in Islamic tradition (Baktır 1998, p. 425). Political authorities have used it as a means 
of legitimization and the Muslim public has obeyed the power of to those whose 
names are made reference in the sermons (Baktır, p. 426). After the fall of the Ottoman 
Empire, the secular Turkish Republic has impinged on the deliverance of sermons and 
has used them for its own purposes. Several different issues targeted by the mod-
ern Republic include: militarism (Akseki, 1937, p. 200; Usta, 2005, p. 225), economic 
development (İstanbul Müftülüğü, 2004d), and patriotism (Akseki, p. 307, Diyanet 
İşleri Başkanlığı, 1981, p. 497; Vahid, 1928, p. 29, İstanbul Müftülüğü, 2003b) along 
with the foundational ideals of the Republic such as the importance of scientific and 
technological advancements (Vahid, p. 138) and technological development (Akseki, 
p. 7) or the value of the regime (İstanbul Müftülüğü, 2004c). As it can be seen sermons 
that generally handle apolitical issues, but sometimes become a directly articulated 
political discourse. 
Looking to Environment from the Perspective of Pulpit: 
Presentation of the Issue of Environment in Friday Sermons
Metin Demir*
Extended Abstract
*  M. A. Student, Istanbul Sehir University, Department of Cultural Studies
  Correspondence: [e-mail]

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Demir / Looking to Environment from the Perspective of Pulpit Presentation of the Issue of Environment in 
Friday Sermons
This paper focuses on a seemingly apolitical matter, i.e. the presentation of the issue 
of environment in sermon topics. The issue is seen as inessential at first glance, but 
it is claimed that ideological operations especially appear in these supposedly trivial 
issues. As mentioned, the use of political issues such as, militarism, and patriotism 
is obvious; what this paper seeks to explore is the ideological operation at work in 
sermons through the issue of environment and by doing so it is aimed to develop a 
degree of insight toward the relationship between the state- religion and ecology. It 
is asked how the state and religion interact with each other and violate one another’s 
sphere of jurisdiction by means of environmental crises. To explore this issue, a certain 
definition of ideology is necessary. Since there are dozens of versions that may be used 
(Eagleton, 1996), Althusser’s concept of ideology and ideological state apparatuses is 
espoused here. This preference is simply an operational manner. Thus, the question 
is whether Friday sermons may be evaluated as being ideological apparatuses in 
Althusserian understanding?
The Althusserian theory of ideology is a variant of Marxism (Muck, 2003, p. 183). Its 
difference stems from its taking the texts by young Marx text based on Spinoza, as its 
foundation rather than Hegel (Tura, 1990, p. 27). Althusser objects to historicism and 
humanism in the Marxist tradition for the reason that the concept of subject used by 
Marx does not refers to the abstract consciousness and alienation but rather it is con-
stituted by the very practices of relations of production (Muck, p. 133). Turning away 
from Feuerbach’s notion of alienation and from the Hegelian Notion of humanity that 
resembles a universal geist, Marx later focused on structural explanation of notions in 
terms of relation and power of production, economical determinism, superstructure 
and the state. Althusser calls this changing as “epistemological rapture,” that is, Marx 
passes from ideology to science (Tura, p. 32). 
For Althusser, ideology has certain basic features. First, ideology has no history, because 
it is retained in every social and historical structure (Althusser, 2010, p. 197). Second, it 
is an indispensible social formation for every society (Lock, 1996, p. 75). Third, ideology 
represents the imaginary relationship of individuals with their real conditions of exist-
ence. Although it is in an imaginary form, it is concerned with materiality, and ideology 
has a material existence. An ideology always exists in an apparatus and its practice, or 
practices. This existence is material (Althusser, pp. 92-93), where only a single subject 
(such and such an individual) is concerned, the existence of the ideas of his belief is ma-
terial in that his ideas are his material actions inserted into material practices governed by 
material rituals which are themselves defined by the material ideological apparatus from 
which derive the ideas of that subject (p. 98). Then, Althusser made his heady thesis that 
ideology interpellates the individuals as a subject (p. 99). There is no ideology except for 
concrete subjects, and this destination for ideology is only made possible by the subject: 
the category of the subject is only constitutive of all ideology insofar as all ideology has the 

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