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The Transformation of Islamic Movement in Turkey: Case of Nak ibendî and Nurculuk 

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Turkish government was seeking to counterbalance the political Islam of the 

Welfare Party, G len never hesitated to ally himself with the statist forces. 

G len represents pluralisation and moderation of the Turkish Islamic 

movements. G len’s community implicitly argues that Islam is the religion of 

the nation and should not be reduced to being the identity of one party.”

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The main religious actors of Turkey, regarding their key characteristics, can be 

placed within the theoretical framework that was developed by Daniel Brumberg. He 

classifies Islamist movements in three broad ideal types: “radical or militant funda-

mentalism,” “reformist or moderate fundamentalism” and “strategic modernism or Is-

lamic liberalism.”

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 By “radical or militant fundamentalism” he means a movement 

that rejects peaceful means (elections) and demands the establishment of an Islamic 

state (a state that is based on Islamic laws “Shari’a”) by means of coercive action. The 

second type of Islamist movement, reformist or moderate fundamentalism, in terms of 

its ultimate goal, is similar to the first type. They both demand the creation of an Isla-

mist state, although they use different means to achieve this goal. Unlike the radical or 

militant fundamentalism, reformist fundamentalism is moderate in its tactic; instead of 

coercive action, it uses peaceful means (i.e. elections for achieving their goal to estab-

lish an Islamic state. We could say, in other words, that reformist or moderate funda-

mentalism uses democratic means (elections) in order to subvert and replace incum-

bents. By the third category, strategic modernism or Islamic liberalism, Brumberg 

means an Islamist movement that can be regarded as democratic, and similar to the 

Christian Democratic parties of Western Europe. This type of movement is similar to the 

second type of Islamist movement, reformist or moderate fundamentalism, in terms of 

using peaceful means (elections) to achieve their ultimate goal. But unlike reformist or 

moderate fundamentalism, this goal does not demand the creation of an Islamic state, but 

instead demands co-existence in the existing secular and pluralistic order.

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Actors in Turkey vary from illiberal, radical fundamentalists (the Nak ibendî 

order), and moderate fundamentalists  (the Nurcus, National Order Party, National 

Salvation Party, Welfare Party, Virtue Party, and Felicity Party), to liberal, 

democratic strategic modernists, (the Nak ibendîs, Neo-nurcus, and Justice and 

Development Party). (See figure) 

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 M. Hakan Yavuz, “Search for a New Social Contract in Turkey: Fethullah G len, the 

Virtue Party and the Kurds,” SAIS Review, A Journal of International Affairs, Winter-

Spring 1999, Volume XIX, Number one, pp. 126-129. 

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 Ibid.   

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 Ibid.. 

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David Abesadze 

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Figure. Classification of the main Religious actors of Turkey. 

         Strategic Modernism 

         Moderate Fundamentalism 

              Radical                                                                                                                                                                                  

              Fundam.    

                      1920       1930     1940    1950    1960    1970     1980   1990    2000    2013      

                                                                 Years 

Conclusion 

By considering these main religious actors from a historical, chronological 

perspective, one inevitably will see a natural two-step transformation process 

from “radical fundamentalism” to “moderate fundamentalism”, and from 

“moderate fundamentalism” to “strategic modernism”, encompassing the period 

from the 1920s to the beginning of the 21st century.  

As my research has shown, the very state of the situation in Turkey

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 left no 

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 Firstly, as we know, in Turkey the owners of the religious issue, religious orders, 

unlike their European counterparts, were creators of religious political parties. Taking 

into account the very nature of the creator-creation relationship, the creator is more 

entitled and most probably has a better chance to subordinate its creation, as compared 

to someone who has not created it. Thus, it was more difficult in the Turkish case for 

the religious party to detach from the actor that was its creator. In other words, here, 

detachment from the religious issue was not a proper means of gaining independence 

from the religious orders. Secondly, the very nature of the religious order resembles a 

typical mass organisation giving it opportunity for more control of the party, as 

compared to the Catholic Church. The reasons for this are manifold: a) The lay 

Nak ibendî

Nurculuk          Neo-Nurcus 

Nak ibendî

NOP

NSP

WP

VP

Neo-Nurcus

Nak î

FP

JDP

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The Transformation of Islamic Movement in Turkey: Case of Nak ibendî and Nurculuk 

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room for religious parties to act as independent actors. Instead, religious parties 

were actors dependent on religious orders, that even had their members in these 

parties. Thus, considering the dependent nature of the Turkish religious parties, 

the only hope the parties’ had for transformation was through the religious orders, 

whose interest would play an instrumental role in this process. I argue that they 

acquired such interest as a result of the long learning process that started in the 

1920s and lasted until the beginning of 2000. Their character was transformed 

from radical fundamentalism to liberal modernism. The learning process was not 

linear and various factors played various roles at different periods of time.      

For example, the Nak ibendî order was forced by the secular state 

establishment to transform from “radical fundamentalism” to “moderate 

fundamentalism”. Several factors played a decisive role in the transformation of 

the Nak ibendî and Nurcu religious groups from “moderate fundamentalists” to 

“strategic modernists”:  

Firstly, the deliberate strategy of secularisation in terms of education 

reform had an important impact on the transformation of religious orders. Here, 

one decisive factor was the abolition of important religious learning centers 

(medreses) by the secular state in 1924.

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 Due to those circumstances, the 

number of competent Islamic scholars gradually decreased. 

Secondly, in addition to the above-mentioned, the economic liberalisation 

program that was imposed at the beginning of the 1980s had a decisive impact 

character of the mass organisation gives it more freedom in comparison to the Catholic 

Church, whose spiritual nature restricts its involvement in politics, which is regarded 

as one of the lay domains; b) The mass organisation, just like a broadly understood 

political party, consists of lay people. In terms of personal relationships, barriers 

between them are much less significant than in the case of the relationship between the 

Catholic Church and a political party. This latter case is due to barriers between the 

clergy-lay people relationship. Hence it gives rise to misunderstanding that provokes 

conflict and desire for detachment. The possibility of such a scenario is much lower 

when the relationship is between the mass organisation and a political party because of 

their similar nature; c) detachment was not even desirable because often the borders 

between religious orders and religious parties in Turkey were obscure and 

interpenetrated; here we can recall the case of the leader of the Welfare Party, 

Erbakan, who was a member of Nak ibendî order. Thirdly, considering that about 

four-fifths of the population of Turkey are Sunni Muslims, and the state establishment 

always had a negative attitude towards religious issues, Issue of Islam has never lost its 

importance in Turkey. Dissimilarly, in Western Europe, religious parties were 

expected to dismiss the religious issue.  

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 Binnaz Toprak, “The Religious Right,” in Turkey in Transition: New Perspectives, ed. 

Irvinc Schick and Ertu rul Ahmet Tonak, New York, Oxford, Oxford University 

Press, 1987, p. 223. 

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