Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T01:57:14.730Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

RELIGIOUS MILITARISM AND ISLAMIST CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION IN TURKEY

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2015

Pınar Kemerli
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article focuses on Islamist conscientious objectors (COs) in Turkey who have resisted both mandatory conscription and the Turkish state's use of Islamic discourses of jihad and martyrdom to legitimize it. Examining military conscript training and the post-1980 coup national school curriculum, the article first outlines the Turkish state's production of a particular interpretation of Islam and its dissemination of it through nationalist and militarist discourses and practices. The article then pursues an ethnographic analysis of Islamist COs’ resistance to conscription through nonviolent civil disobedience based on antiauthoritarian and antinationalist interpretations of Islam. Weaving together their own interpretations of jihad and martyrdom with transnational theories and ideologies, Islamist COs present a powerful critique of Turkish militarism and its religious claims. A focus on Islamist COs potently highlights the diversity of Islamic groups and sensibilities in contemporary Turkey, and the difficulties faced by nationalist projects to discipline religious imaginaries and put them to the service of the modern state.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 2 , May 2015 , pp. 281 - 301
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

NOTES

Author's note: I thank Susan Buck-Morss, Isaac Kramnick, Jason Frank, Richard Bensel, Matthew Evangelista, Peter Katzenstein, Thomas Pepinsky, Simon Gilhooley, and the anonymous IJMES reviewers for their comments and suggestions.

1 Smith, Anthony D., Chosen Peoples: Sacred Sources of National Identity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 9Google Scholar. For modernist approaches to the study of nationalism, see Kedourie, Elie, Nationalism, 3rd ed. (London: Hutchinson, 1966)Google Scholar; and Gellner, Ernest, Nations and Nationalisms (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983)Google Scholar.

2 Lewis, Bernard, The Emergence of Modern Turkey (London: Oxford University Press, 1961)Google Scholar; Berkes, Niyazi, The Development of Secularism in Turkey (Montreal: McGill University Press, 1964)Google Scholar; Lewis, Geoffrey, Modern Turkey, 4th ed. (New York: Praeger 1974)Google Scholar; Toprak, Binnaz, “Secularism and Islam: The Building of Modern Turkey,” Macalester International 14 (2005): 27–43Google Scholar, accessed 5 February 2014, http://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/macintl/vol15/iss1/9/; Inalcik, Halil, From Empire to Republic: Essays on Ottoman and Turkish Social History (Istanbul: Isis Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

3 See Mardin, Şerif, “Ideology and Religion in the Turkish Revolution,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 2 (1971): 197–211CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Deringil, Selim, “The Ottoman Origins of Kemalist Nationalism: Namık Kemal to Mustafa Kemal,” European History Quarterly 23 (1993): 165–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cagaptay, Soner, Islam, Secularism, and Nationalism in Modern Turkey: Who is a Turk? (London: Routledge, 2006)Google Scholar; Yeğen, Mesut, “Turkish Nationalism and the Kurdish Question,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 30 (2007): 119–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Aktürk, Şener, “Persistence of the Islamic Millet as an Ottoman Legacy: Mono-Religious and Anti-Ethnic Definition of Turkish Nationhood,” Middle Eastern Studies 45 (2009): 893–909CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Ümit Cizre Sakallioglu, “Parameters and Strategies,” 231–51; Davison, Andrew, “Turkey, a ‘Secular’ State? The Challenge of Description,” South Atlantic Quarterly 102 (2003): 333–50CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kaplan, Sam, “Religious Nationalism: A Textbook Case Study from Turkey,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 25 (2005): 665–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Dressler, Markus, “Public/Private Distinctions, the Alevi Question, and the Headscarf: Turkish Secularism Revisited,” in Comparative Secularisms in a Global Age, ed. Hurd, Elizabeth Shakman and Cady, Linell (New York: Palgrave, 2010), 121–42CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5 Cizre Sakallioglu, “Parameters and Strategies,” 231.

6 Şen, Serdar, Cumhuriyet Kültürünün Oluşum Sürecinde Bir İdeolojik Aygıt Olarak Silahlı Kuvvetler ve Modernizm (Istanbul: Sarmal Yayinevi, 1996)Google Scholar; Kaplan, Sam, “Din-u Devlet All Over Again: The Politics of Military Secularism and Religious Militarism in Turkey Following the 1980 Coup,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 34 (2002): 113–27Google Scholar; Gürbey, Sinem, “Islam, Nation-State, and the Military: A Discussion of Secularism in Turkey,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 29 (2009): 371–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

7 Harris, George S., “Islam and the State in Modern Turkey,” Middle East Review 11 (1979): 21–26Google Scholar.

8 Ahmad, Feroz, Turkey: The Quest for Identity (Oxford: Oneworld, 2003)Google Scholar.

9 Toprak, “Secularism and Islam,” 32.

10 Kuru, Ahmet, “Passive and Assertive Secularism: Historical Conditions, Ideological Struggles, and State Policies toward Religion,” World Politics 59 (2007): 571CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Passive secularism, Kuru continues, “requires that the secular state play a ‘passive’ role in avoiding the establishment of any religions,” while allowing for the public visibility of religion. As an example, passive secularism is said to be dominant in the United States.

11 Ibid., 582. The military brought about the downfall of four governments—through coups in 1960 and 1971, and through interventions in 1971 and 1997. See Karpat, Kepal, “Military Interventions: Army-Civilian Relations in Turkey before and after 1980,” in State, Democracy and the Military, ed. Heper, Metin and Evin, Ahmet (Berlin: Walter de Gruter, 1988), 137–55Google Scholar.

12 Kuru, “Passive and Assertive Secularism,” 591. See also Hale, William, Turkish Politics and the Military (London: Routledge, 1994)Google Scholar.

13 Aktürk, “Persistence of the Ottoman Millet,” 894.

14 Also noted in Gürbey, “Islam, Nation-State, and the Military,” 314.

15 Yeğen, “Turkish Nationalism and the Kurdish Question,” 138.

16 Hereafter referred to as the “Directorate.”

17 Davison, “Turkey, a ‘Secular’ State?” 337–38.

18 Mardin, ‘‘Religion in Modern Turkey,’’ International Social Journal 29 (1977): 287.

19 Sakallioglu, “Parameters and Strategies,” 236; Dole, Christopher, Healing Secular Life: Loss and Devotion in Modern Turkey (Philadelphia, Pa.: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 The repression of tarikats occurred after the 1925 Shaykh Sait rebellion (a Kurdish rebellion with religious connotations) and the 1930 Menemen incident (when a reserve officer was beheaded by members of the radical Naksibendi tarikat). On the lifting of the ban on the headscarf, see Sebnem Arsu and Dan Bilefsky, “Turkey Lifts Longtime Ban on Head Scarves in State Offices, New York Times, 8 October 2013, accessed 4 January 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/09/world/europe/turkey-lifts-ban-on-head-scarves-in-state-offices.html?_r=0.

21 Participation in the Ottoman army was the prerogative of the Muslim millet. See Zürcher, Erik-Jan, “The Ottoman Conscription System in Theory and Practice, 1844–1918,” International Review of Social History 43 (1998): 447–49Google Scholar.

22 For instance, nationalists “capitalized on rural Muslims’ feelings of revulsion against the Greeks.” Mardin, Şerif, Religion, Society, and Modernity in Turkey (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2006), 233Google Scholar.

23 See Lerner, Daniel and Robinson, Richard D., “Swords and Ploughshares: The Turkish Army as a Modernizing Force,” World Politics 13 (1960): 19–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Şen, Serdar, Silahli Kuvvetler ve Modernizm (Istanbul: Sarmal Yayinevi, 1996)Google Scholar.

24 Altınay, Ayşe Gül, The Myth of the Military-Nation: Militarism, Gender, and Education in Turkey (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sinclair-Webb, Emma, “‘Our Bülent is now a Commando’: Military Service and Manhood in Turkey,” in Imagined Masculinities: Male Identity and Culture in the Modern Middle East, ed. Ghoussoub, Mai and Sinclair-Webb, Emma (London: Saqi, 2000), 65–92Google Scholar.

25 Akseki, Ahmet Hamdi, Askere Din Kitabı, 3rd ed. (Istanbul: Diyanet İşleri Yayınları, 1977)Google Scholar. The book was prepared upon the request of Chief of General Staff Fevzi Çakmak, and penned by the president of the Directorate at the time, Ahmed Hamdi Akseki.

26 Akseki, Askere, 222.

27 Ibid., 209.

28 The literature on these theoretical dilemmas is vast. See, for instance, Just War and Jihad: Historical and Theoretical Perspectives on War and Peace in Western and Islamic Traditions, ed. John Kelsay and James Turner (New York: Greenwood Press, 1991); and Peters, Ruldolf, Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam: A Reader (Princeton, N.J.: Markus Wiener Press, 1996)Google Scholar.

29 Akseki, Askere, 210.

30 Ibid., 209.

31 Ibid., 300.

32 Ibid., 173.

33 In its response to the insurgency, the state made xenophobic claims, including one that insurgents are non-Muslims—Armenians or Zoroastrians who plot against national unity, and against whom Turkish and Kurdish Muslims are obligated to fight. The current speaker of the Turkish parliament, Cemil Çiçek, commented in 2010 that “there is close collaboration between Armenian terrorism and the terrorism of the PKK. The fact that some terrorists are not circumcized says volumes.” “Bazı PKK’lılar sünnetsiz,” Milliyet, 21 August 2010, accessed 20 January 2014, http://www.milliyet.com.tr/-bazi-pkk-lilar-sunnetsiz-/guncel/haberdetay/21.08.2010/1279153/default.htm. Prime Minister Erdoğan further argued that Kurdish insurgents are Zoroastrians. “Erdoğan: Bu teröristlerin yeri belli, bunlar Zerdüşt,” T24, 20 October 2012, accessed 30 January 2014, http://t24.com.tr/haber/Erdoğan-teroru-kardeslik-ruhuyla-dayanisma-halinde-asacagiz/215650.

34 Cizre Sakallioglu, “Parameters and Strategies,” 246–47.

35 This phrase can also be translated as “Intellectuals’ Hearth.”

36 See Guvenc, Bozkurt et al, Turk-Islam Sentezi (Istanbul: Sarmal Yayınevi, 1991)Google Scholar.

37 See Sam Kaplan, “Religious Nationalism.”

38 Kaplan, “Din-u Devlet,” 120.

39 Ibid., 120.

40 Ibid., 122.

41 Ibid., 121–22.

42 Erbakan is the founder of political Islam in Turkey. He established “three Islamic parties that attempted to keep abreast of dissolution by court decrees, the National Order (est. 1970), National Salvation (est. 1972) and the Welfare (Refah) Party (1983–98).” The goal of these parties was “capturing the state and using it to bring about changes in society by adopting the centralism of the Republic. The subsequently formed ‘Islamic’ parties, Virtue (1997–2001), Felicity (2001–) and AKP, have abandoned this stance and adopted a position much more synchronized with the world economy and liberalism—a change which has often been stated to have proceeded since the 1990s.” Mardin, Serif, “Turkish Islamic Exceptionalism Yesterday and Today: Continuity, Rupture and Reconstruction in Operational Codes,” Turkish Studies 6 (2005): 158–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 Almost all of the Ergenekon suspects were released in March 2014. See “Ergenekon Suspects Released Amid Chaos over Legal Authority between Courts,” Hurriyet Daily News, 10 March 2014, accessed 24 April 2014, http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/ergenekon-suspects-released-amid-chaos-over-legal-authority-between-courts.aspx?PageID=238&NID=63385&NewsCatID=338.

44 See Gareth H. Jenkins, “Between Fact and Fantasy: Turkey's Ergenekon Investigation,” Silk Road Paper, August 2009, accessed 15 March 2014, http://www.silkroadstudies.org/new/docs/silkroadpapers/0908Ergenekon.pdf. For a focus on the consequences of the trials for Turkish democracy, see Yaprak Gürsoy, “Turkish Public Attitudes Toward the Military and Ergenekon: Consequences for the Consolidation of Democracy,” Working Paper No. 5 EU/5/2012, İstanbul Bilgi Üniversity, accessed 31 January 2014, http://eu.bilgi.edu.tr/images/pictures/working_paper_5.pdf.

45 The brutal police attack in Gezi Park on a small group of nonviolent activists who were protesting the plan to demolish the park led to nationwide antigovernment protests. Throughout the summer, the police used excessive violence against protestors. Five people were killed and thousands were injured. See Aslı Iğsız, “Brand Turkey and the Gezi Protests: Authoritarianism, Law, and Neoliberalism,” Jadaliyya, 12 July 2013, accessed 31 January 2014, http://www.jadaliyya.com/pages/index/12907/brand-turkey-and-the-gezi-protests_authoritarianis; and Amnesty International Report, “Turkey Accused of Gross Human Rights Violations in Gezi Park Protests,” 2 October 2013, accessed 30 January 2014, http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/turkey-accused-gross-human-rights-violations-gezi-park-protests-2013-10-02.

46 The first countries to recognize conscientious objection after World War I were Protestant countries in Northern Europe: Norway, Denmark, Sweden, The Netherlands, and Finland. The number grew significantly after World War II, expanding to Western Europe and North America. The UN recognized conscientious objection as a human right in 1983. Today, among the forty-seven members of the Council of Europe, Turkey is the only country, along with Azerbaijan, not to recognize conscientious objection. However, within the Middle East, Turkey is far from unique. Neither the Muslim-majority countries nor Israel recognize conscientious objection. See Brock, Peter, Freedom from Violence: Sectarian Nonresistance from the Middle Ages to the Great War (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991)Google Scholar; War Resisters’ International Reports, “General Panorama of Conscientious Objection in the World”; and War Resisters’ International, 1 July 2006, accessed 7 February 2014, http://wri-irg.org/news/2006/bogota06-worldco-en.htm.

47 “Başbakan Erdoğan’dan vicdani ret açıklaması,” Hurriyet, 22 November 2011, accessed 30 January 2014, http://www.hurriyet.com.tr/gundem/19303120.asp.

48 However, the AKP's discourse with respect to the peace process launched in 2013 seems to diverge from this trend. In its talks with the PKK, the government has deployed notions of religious unity and Muslim brotherhood. Although it remains to be seen what the final outcome of these talks will be and whether the government will continue to use such discourse, this development is still important.

49 In a recent study conducted by İstanbul Bilgi Üniversity, Bilkent University, and KONDA Research and Consultancy, 81.8 percent of participants supported conscription. Two out of every three opposed paid military service. “Bilmedikleri ‘vicdani ret’e karşılar,” Radikal, 25 November 2011, accessed 30 January 2013, http://www.ntvmsnbc.com/id/25300286. See also Sarigil, Zeki, “Deconstructing the Turkish Military's Popularity,” Armed Forces & Society 35 (2008): 709–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

50 This contrasts with the CO movements in Europe and North America. With their origins in Christian pacifism, these movements evolved to include ethical and political refusals of the draft after World War I. Charles C. Moskos and John W. Chambers II emphasize that although religious conscientious objection continues to exist in Europe and North America, it has declined in proportion to the dynamic growth of secular conscientious objection, a phenomenon they call “the secularization of conscience.” Moskos, Charles C. and Chambers II, John Whiteclay, eds., The New Conscientious Objection: From Sacred to Secular Resistance (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993)Google Scholar. In Turkey, by contrast, conscientious objection emerged as a secular anarchist movement, and only recently came to include religious groups. A similar case is Israel, another Middle Eastern country with a strong military tradition. Israel's CO movement also emerged out of the left, opposing the obligation to serve in the Occupied Territories after the 1982 Lebanon war. However, following the recent ban on exemptions from military service for yeshiva students, ultra-orthodox Jews have begun to demand the recognition of conscientious objection. Moreover, a new class of religious COs has emerged supporting the occupation and refusing to comply with military orders such as the evacuation of illegal Jewish settlements. See Helman, Sara, “Negotiating Obligations, Creating Rights: Conscientious Objection and the Redefinition of Citizenship in Israel,” Citizenship Studies 3 (1999): 45–70Google Scholar; and Eyal Press, “Israel's Holy Warriors,” The New York Review of Books, 31 March 2010, accessed 4 February 2014, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/apr/29/israels-holy-warriors/?pagination=false.

51 Başkent, Vicdani Ret, 13. Vedat Zencir declared his conscientious objection in a joint declaration with Tayfun Gönül, who passed away in 2012.

52 Under the initiative of antimilitarist activists including the late Tayfun Gönül, Vedat Zencir, and Osman Murat Ülke, Turkey's first War Resisters’ Association (Savaş Karşıtları Derneği; SDK) was founded in Izmir in 1992. When SDK was closed down in 1993 by the governor's office, a new organization, Izmir War Resisters’ Association (Izmir Savaş Karşıtları Derneğ; ISKD) replaced it. ISKD headed the movement throughout the 1990s, although a branch split off in Istanbul under the name War Resisters’ Association. In 2000, both organizations were shut down. In response, a web-based discussion group and an antimilitarist website (Savaskarsitlari Yahoo Group and http://www.savaskarsitlari.org, respectively) were established. The center of antimilitarist activism later became the Platform of Conscientious Objection for Peace, which recently formed the Conscientious Objection Association in Istanbul. See Çınar, Özgür Heval and Üsterci, Coşkun, eds., Conscientious Objection: Resisting Militarized Society (New York: Zed Books, 2009)Google Scholar.

53 Kurdish COs formed an independent platform in 2010 called the Kürt Vicdanî Ret İnisiyatifi (Kurdish Conscientious Objection Initiative). The Initiative organizes periodic collective CO declarations. The antimilitarist website www.savaskarsitlari.org reports the current number of Kurdish COs as approximately 257. The identity of all Kurdish COs is not known, for significant numbers of them choose to remain anonymous. In such cases, a representative of the Initiative announces the number of new Kurdish COs and makes a single declaration on their behalf. The Initiative is not an antimilitarist organization and it supports the PKK's use of violence in its national independence struggle. This support distinguishes the Initiative and its Kurdish CO members from Kurdish citizens who have declared their conscientious objection but oppose both Turkish and Kurdish militarism, such as the prominent Kurdish CO and peace activist Halil Savda. As Savda has suggested, this disagreement precludes the formation of a coalition between the Initiative and the broader CO movement represented by the Conscientious Objection Association. Author's interviews and conversations with Halil Savda, December 2012 and summer 2013. For more on the political stance of the Initiative, see the interview with its spokesperson, Ahmet Demirsoy: Atalay Gocek, “Muazzam Bir Gelisme,” Biamag, 14 May 2011, accessed 1 February 2014, http://www.bianet.org/biamag/ifade-ozgurlugu/129978-muazzam-bir-gelisme.

54 See Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

55 There has recently been an important development in this regard. In February 2012, a Jehovah's Witness by the name of Barış Görmez, who had spent four years in prison for his conscientious objection stance, was acquitted by a Turkish military court on account of the European Court of Human Rights’ (ECtHR) use of Article 9 in its 2011 Bayatyan v Armenia ruling. The court thus accepted Görmez's right to conscientious objection based on his pacifist religious beliefs. Interestingly, another Turkish court, ruling on the Islamist conscientious objection of Muhammed Serdar Delice in March 2012, denied the applicability of Article 9 to the case by claiming that Islam is not compatible with pacifist acts. Despite a sympathetic ruling from an individual court, there has been no legislation concerning CO rights. See Ekin Karaca, “Yehova Sahidine Vicdani Ret Hakki,” Bianet, 13 March 2012, accessed 31 January 2014, http://www.bianet.org/bianet/bianet/136899-yehova-sahidi-ne-vicdani-ret-hakki; and Mine Yildirim, “TURKEY: Selective progress on conscientious objection,” Forum 18 News Service, 1 May 2012, accessed 30 January 2014, http://www.forum18.org/archive.php?article_id=1696.

56 War Resisters’ International, “The Current Situation In Turkey,” accessed 3 April 2013, http://www.wri-irg.org/node/20810.

57 Council of Europe, “Report by Thomas Hammarberg, Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe, Following His Visit to Turkey, from 27 to 29 April 2011: Freedom of Expression and Media Freedom in Turkey,” accessed 20 March 1913, https://wcd.coe.int/ViewDoc.jsp?id=1814085.

58 Amnesty International, “Turkey: Conscientious Objector at Risk of Imprisonment,” accessed 10 January 2013, http://www.amnesty.org/en/for-media/press-releases/turkey-conscientious-objector-risk-imprisonment-20071003.

59 Before Aydemir, other COs, including Halil Savda and Mehmet Bal, were given similar medical reports, rendering their opposition pathological. See Amnesty International, “Turkey: Conscientious Objection is a Human Right Not a Personality Disorder,” accessed 10 March 2013, http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/EUR44/013/2010.

60 War Resisters’ International, “Human Rights Committee Highlights Conscientious Objection in Turkey,” accessed 28 March 2013, http://www.wri-irg.org/node/20816.

61 The ECHR has characterized the “clandestine” lifestyle imposed on them as “civil death.” War Resisters’ International, “European Court of Human Rights Rules in Case of Turkish Conscientious Objector,” accessed 2 February 2014, http://wri-irg.org/node/806/.

62 For military regulations concerning the conscription of gays, see Alp Biricik, “Rotten Report and Reconstructing Hegemonic Masculinity in Turkey,” in Conscientious Objection, ed. Çınar and Üsterci, 112–21.

63 Enver Aydemir, author's interview, 3 July 2011. All translations into English are mine.

64 “Enver Aydemir’in Mahkemedeki Savunması (Aydemir's Written Defense),” Enver Aydemir Vicdanımızdır, accessed 29 March 2013, http://enveraydemirinisiyatifi.blogspot.com/2010/06/enver-aydemirin-mahkemedeki-savunmasi.html.

65 For an analysis of Turkish radical Islam, see Çakır, Ruşen, Ayet ve Slogan (Istanbul: Metis Yayincilik, 2002)Google Scholar; and Derin Hizbullah (Istanbul: Metis Yayinlari, 2001).

66 Enver Aydemir, author's interview, 3 July 2011.

67 There may, of course, be “hidden” draft evaders who are radical Islamists. The strategies available for hidden evaders include postponing recruitment by enrolling in institutions of higher education or obtaining medical reports indicating ineligibility for military service.

68 Also known as Cemaat (Community) and Hizmet (Service), the Gülen movement was founded by the Turkish Muslim scholar Fethullah Gülen, who currently resides in the United States. With its mass network of schools in Turkey and the Balkans, Central Asia, Europe, and North America, Gülen has become one of the most influential Islamic transnational movements in recent decades. Gülen's followers have established newspapers such as Zaman, television stations such as Samanyolu TV, and magazines and academic journals. They are known to be strong within the police force and the judiciary. Until recently, the movement had close relations with the AKP. In fact, its “penetration of the police and the judiciary allowed Erdoğan to confront the military and other key obstacles to the enlargement of his power” (Claire Berlinski, “Anatomy of a Power Struggle,” American Foreign Policy Council, accessed 1 February 2014, http://www.afpc.org/publication_listings/viewArticle/1792). Relations began to falter when prosecutors affiliated with the movement went after Hakan Fidan, the head of Turkish intelligence, due to his criticisms of Israel and of peace negotiations with the Kurdish movement. Erdoğan responded by threatening to close Gülen's after-school education network (dershane). The controversy culminated in a massive corruption investigation launched on 17 December 2013 implicating government officials, including the sons of three ministers and hundreds of businessmen and others close to the government. Erdoğan blamed Gülen and its followers in the judiciary for operating as a “parallel state” and attempting to stage a coup against him. He got rid of thousands within the police force suspected of being Gülenist and reassigned new prosecutors to the investigation in order to block it. Gülen denies the accusations, but he sharply criticized the government. For the corruption scandal, see Tim Arango, “Corruption Scandal Is Edging Near Turkish Premier,” New York Times, 26 December 2013, accessed 1 February 2014, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/26/world/europe/turkish-cabinet-members-resign.html.

69 Ali Bulac, “Bedelliye ve Vicdani Red’de Red,” Zaman, 21 November 2011, accessed 31 December 2014, http://www.zaman.com.tr/yazar.do;jsessionid=D6F0595A67A41F7E6DA39483EA23B540?yazino=1204427.

70 Hayrettin Karaman, “Reddedilen Askerlik mi Vicdan Mı?,” Yeni Safak, 8 December 2011, http://yenisafak.com.tr/Yazarlar/?i=30097&y=HayrettinKaraman.; Hayrettin Karaman, “Red Vicdandan mı?” Yeni Safak, 9 December 2011, accessed 31 December 2013, http://yenisafak.com.tr/Yazarlar/?t=09.12.2011&y=HayrettinKaraman.

71 Abdullah Kibritci, “Vicdani Ret Sapikligi, Vicdansiz Elit Aktivistler ve Devlet Hakkinda,” Populist Kultur, 6 January 2012, accessed 15 May 2013, http://www.populistkultur.com/vicdani-ret-vicdansiz-elit-aktivist-devlet/.

72 İhsan Eliaçık, author's interview, 10 January 2012. Eliaçık's books include Adalet Devleti (Istanbul: Insa Yayinlari, 2011) and Sosyal Islam (Istanbul: Insa Yayinlari, 2011).

73 Among Middle Eastern and Muslim-majority countries, Turkey was the first to have an Islamist conscientious objection movement. In the Middle East, COs emerged in Egypt only in 2012 when two Egyptians grounded their refusal to serve in the army on secular political convictions. See “Egypt: New Conscientious Objectors,” War Resisters’ International, 1 May 2012, accessed 7 February 2014, http://www.wri-irg.org/node/15116.

74 Enver Aydemir, author's interview, 3 July 2011.

75 Muhammed Serdar Delice, author's interview, 2 July 2011. Delice did not cite a specific source for this interpretation of jihad. For a description of the distinctions between the two forms of jihad, see The Message of the Qurʾan, trans. Muhammad Asad (Gibraltar: Dar al-Andalus, 1980). All further references to and quotations from the Qurʾan are from Muhammad Asad's translation. Each of the 114 sections of the Qurʾan is called a sura. Each sura has a different number of ayas, or verses. In quotations, the number of the sura is followed by the number of the ayas, as in 1:14.

76 Similar to the Kurdish CO Initiative, Islamist COs oppose pacifism, which would indicate a refusal of the Islamic obligation of “minor jihad.”

77 Muhammed Serdar Delice, author's interview, 2 July 2011.

78 Yusuf A., author's interview, 5 January 2012.

79 Nilay Vardar, “Muhammed’i Serbest Bırakın,” Bianet, 12 September 2011, accessed 20 January 2014, http://bianet.org/bianet/ifade-ozgurlugu/132655-muhammed-i-serbest-birakin.

80 Saatçioğlu, author's interview, December 2013.

81 Ibid.

82 Mehmet Lütfü Özdemir, author's interview, 27 December 2011.

83 Enver Aydemir, author's interview, 3 July 2011.

84 Mehmet Lütfü Özdemir, author's interview, 27 December 2011.

85 Muhammed Serdar Delice, author's interview, 2 July 2011.

86 Inan Mayis Aru, author's interview, 5 July 2011.

87 The reference is to the Battle of Karbala, which took place on the 10th of the first month of the Islamic calendar, Moharram, in the year 61 hijra (10 October 680). The Battle took place in Karbala, located in present-day Iraq. Muhammad's grandson Husayn ibn Ali was martyred in the Battle.

88 Inan Mayis Aru, author's interview, 5 July 2011.

89 Arı, author's interviews, June 2012 and July 2013. While there are currently only four women Islamist COs, there are approximately fifty women COs within the broader CO movement.

90 Inan Mayis Aru, author's interview, 5 July 2011.

91 Shirk means the ascription of divine qualities to others beside God. Asad, The Message, 113.

92 Mehmet Lütfü Özdemir, author's interview, 27 December 2011.

93 For this approach to secularism, see Asad, Talal, “Trying to Understand French Secularism,” in Political Theologies: Public Religions in a Post-Secular World, ed. de Vries, Hent and Sullivan, Lawrence E. (New York: Fordham University Press, 2006), 494–526CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Agrama, Hussein A., “Secularism, Sovereignty, Indeterminacy: Is Egypt a Secular or a Religious State?” Comparative Studies in Society and History 52 (2010): 495–523CrossRefGoogle Scholar.