Islam in Modern Turkey: Religion, Politics and Literature in a Secular State

by Richard Tapper (Editor)

When the Turkish republic was founded in 1923, secularism was adopted as one of the key principles of the new state, and religious expression was brought under strict government supervision. Republican ideology and its associated institutions came to dominate much of everyday life. Only after 1950, when the centre-right Democrat party was elected, did this repressive attitude to religion cease. The growth in popular religious sentiment became particularly evident in the 1980s with the proliferation of religious newspapers and literature.

314 pages, Hardcover

First published December 1, 1991

About the author

Richard Lionel Tapper is a professor emeritus of the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London. He is a social anthropologist who did ethnographic field research in Iran, Afghanistan and Turkey. His publications have focussed on pastoral nomadism, relations between ethnic and tribal minorities and the state, the anthropological study of Islam, the anthropology of food, Iranian cinema, and Iranian religious politics.