Pulpit, Mosque and Nation

Elisabeth Özdalga is a retired senior researcher, and before that director, of the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul. She was professor of sociology at the Middle East University in Ankara 1994-2009 and visiting chair of the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University in Ankara 2011-13. She is the editor of several anthologies, among others Late Ottoman Society (RoutledgeCurzon, 2005), Novel and Nation in the Muslim World (with Daniella Kuzmanovic) (Palgrave 2015), Muslim Preaching in the Middle East and Beyond (with Simon Stjernholm) (Edinburgh University Press, 2020), and author of ‘Islamism and Nationalism as Sister Ideologies: Reflections on the Politicization of Islam in a Longue Durée Perspective,’ Middle Eastern Studies, Vol. 45, No. 3, pp. 407-23, May 2009.

• Introduction: Pulpit under Red BannerThe Hutbe in Historical PerspectiveEarly Authorized Hutbe Collections: A Homiletic Tradition under Secular State ControlThe Significance of Ritual: Liturgical Turkification Contested Preaching Brotherhood to an Unruly NationDiyanet in Search of AutonomyWriting and Listening: Voices from Inside Pulpit Under Islamist BannerConclusions: The Secular Order Unhinged? Appendix I: Excerpts in original Turkish from Ahmet Hamdi Akseki’s 1927/28 hutbe collectionAppendix II: Hutbe topics in Turkish and English from Ahmet Hamdi Akseki’s 1936/37 hutbe collectionAppendix III: Turkish originals of hutbes selected from Diyanet Gazetesi 1971-79Appendix IV: Economic indicators and Diyanet statistics in tables.Bibliography

Through a meticulous examination of the Friday sermons, Elisabeth Özdalga analyses the public role of religion in Turkey – from containment by the secular state to instrumentalisation by the Islamist government. This is a most valuable contribution to our understanding of state-religion configurations in modern Turkey.