Manifestations of Islam in Turkey's Foreign Policy

Abstract

This chapter has examined what Turkey does with Islam in foreign policy, and has unfolded two distinct yet contradictory, and at the same time overlapping, manifestations and expressions of Islam in Turkey’s foreign policy. Through refraining from attributing pejorative meanings to Islam’s playing a constitutive role in foreign policy, this research has demonstrated that Turkey confidently and constitutively deploys religious causes and discourses in foreign policy. In a similar way, it is seen that Turkey’s use of Islam in foreign policy is not in the scope of theo-politics. The relationship is rather in line with Turkey’s Turkish Islamic exceptionalism that suggests that Turkey’s Islamic experience is an authentic practice and existentially suitable to modern life, and that the imperial role Ottomans and the preceding ‘Turkish’ states played in the building and sustaining of Islamic civilization endows Turkey with a responsibility towards fellow Muslims worldwide. In this respect, in Turkey’s foreign policy, Islam manifests itself both as an internationalist appeal for Muslim solidarity and an international competition with radical teachings and practices.

Full text

CHAPTER SEVEN
MANIFESTATIONS OF ISLAM IN TURKEY’S
FOREIGN POLICY
HÜSREV TABAK
Turkey’s “Islamic” Foreign Policy?
For many, Turkey is believed to be pursuing an “Islamic” foreign policy
under Justice and Development Party (JDP) rule, while many others reject
this. The former group raises a critique of an alleged shift of axis towards
the East in Turkey’s foreign policy. The latter faction disassociates
Turkey’s approach from Islam and rather argues that Turkey makes use of
cultural notions, including Islam but not limited to it, to increase its say in
regional and global politics.
Those who accuse Turkey of possessing an Islamic foreign policy hold
that “Islamic concerns constitute the basic nature of the AK Party [JDP]’s
understanding of foreign policy” (Özcan and Usul 2011: 169). The
common narrative of such a policy is that the JDP has brought “a troubled
foreign policy legacy of support for jihadists, isolation from west … [and]
go[ing] back in time to an order based on Islamic unity” (INN 2014).
Former Prime Minister Davutoğlu, in this perspective, is described as “a
pan-Islamist who uses Islam to achieve his foreign policy goals” (ibid.).
This attributed intention is not limited to foreign policy and it has long
been similarly argued that the JDP also Islamizes domestic politics. To
those who take this position, the JDP has increased the religiosity in the
country, challenged and shattered the secular building blocks, and even
“Arabized” the country (Criss 2010: 46; Yesilada and Rubin 2010: 3;
Yesilada and Noordjik 2010: 24–25). Bringing both approaches together,
the view that Turkey is following an Islamic foreign policy has found a
broader international audience. Fareed Zakaria of CNN, for example, in an
interview with Erdoğan, asked the following:

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A lot of people will listen to you and will see your actions particularly in
the United States, and they say that this is part of a new Islamic foreign
policy that Turkey has, that you are embracing a kind of foreign policy
that is very different from what Turkey has pursued since the time of
Atatürk. And it is an effort to bring a kind of Islamic ideology to Turkey’s
foreign policy … Are you taking [Turkey] on a foreign policy that will be
not pro-western anymore, that is not/does not see its historical destiny with
the west, that is more Islamic? (Zakaria 2011)
Ahmet Davutoğlu was faced with an exactly similar question in an
interview in 2009. Here is his response to the “accusation”:
Whenever Turkish foreign policy is active, this question comes up. In the
US some circles are saying that you are very clever, that you have an
Islamic foreign policy, but you are using “zero problems”, such good
terminology, as a cover. And to mask Turkey’s pulling away from the
West. Those who say this don’t understand geography. Turkey has 12
indirect countries, and only four neighbors are Muslim: Iraq, Syria, Iran
and Azerbaijan. The rest are non-Muslim, Georgia, Armenia, Russia,
Romania, Ukraine, Bulgaria and Greece. Check whether our relations with
Syria and Iran are improving and our relationship with Greece and
Georgia are going down, then you may have a point. But if we implement
this principle, consistently, with all of our neighbors, regardless of
religious and ethnic origin then nobody can criticize us. And this is our
choice. Why choice? This is the necessity of geography. We live in the
most risky geographical environment. (Davutoğlu 2009: 9)
Davutoğlu’s answer constitutes the counter-narrative to the Islamic foreign
policy claims and the rationale behind disassociating Turkey’s foreign
policy from Islam. Such a counter-narrative has long been confirmed and
defended, including in scholarly analyses and independent research.
Accordingly, Turkey’s relations with Muslim-populated countries is
argued to be informed by US and European interests and values, thus
Turkey is considered to be sharing the civilizing mission of the West in the
Middle East (Migdalovitz 2008: 3; Independent Commission on Turkey
2009: 27). Islam, in this sense, is argued to be used by Turkey to increase
its say on regional and global politics (Tuğal, 2007). Turkey is accordingly
depicted as following its economic and political benefits and national
interest in its relations with Muslim countries and communities (Aydın
2003; Tuğal 2007; Ayoob 2012; Duran 2013). In the case of conflict of
interest, Turkey is argued to be ready to abandon Muslim communities and
countries, as seen, for instance, in Turkey’s backing Georgia against the
Muslim Abkhazians in the South Ossetia conflict of 2008 (Güner 2012).

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The debate, therefore, is grouped around arguments on accusation and
disassociation. This has been the case in both academic and semi-
academic and media discussions. Some have accused Turkey of having an
Islamic foreign policy; others have presented proofs of the disassociation
of foreign policy from Islam. Whether or not Turkey’s foreign policy is
“Islamic,” both approaches have intrinsically associated Islam’s having a
determinative role in foreign policy with pejorative connotations and
meanings. I refrain from taking a position on this biased reasoning, yet
admit that Islam has a constitutive role in both the formation and conduct
of certain of Turkey’s foreign policy practices, which has so far brought
about positive outcomes in humanitarian terms or in the protection of
Ottoman religio-cultural heritage abroad. At this juncture, I suggest that in
order to better understand Islam’s role in Turkey’s foreign policy, the
focus should be shifted from perceiving Islam as a foreign-policy-
determining ideology embraced or abstained from by the JDP government,
to seeing Islam as a vernacular practice with confident, multiple, yet
contradictory representations and manifestations in foreign policy.
Accordingly, I argue that Turkey does confident things with Islam in
foreign policy, yet such acts do not have a uniform manifestation. There
are two forms of distinct, but partly overlapping, yet sometimes conflicting
practices and expression of Islam in the context of Turkey’s foreign
policy, namely an Islamic internationalist posture and a Turkish Islamic
stance. While the former refers to Turkey’s self-attained responsibility
towards Muslim communities on the basis of the ummah, the latter refers
to promoting the performance of Ottoman and Turkish Islamic religio-
cultural practices abroad against the expansion of extremist religious
streams. Islamic internationalism surfaces in the form of solidarity with
the deprived and conflicting Muslim countries and communities. Turkish
Islam, on the other hand, is based on the presumption that the Islam
practiced in Turkey is superior to, for instance, Saudi Arabian Islam,1 thus
suggesting competition with it in, for instance, the Balkans, Central Asia,
or even Africa. In the first instance, Turkey is blamed for supporting
religious extremists, but in the second instance, Turkey runs a so-called
fight against religious extremism. Obviously, the use of “Islamic foreign
policy” to jointly describe these two distinct policies is not helpful: it
1 In conventional understandings, yet with a negative connotation, this practice is
called mostly Wahhabism or Salafism. The adherents of it however do not call
themselves Wahhabi, they rather use the name Muwahhidun (the Unitarians) to
identify themselves.

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rather blurs the reality. In light of this, below is an analysis of what Turkey
does with Islam in its foreign policy.
Islamic Internationalism
Restoring the bonds between Muslim countries and communities, broken
by the Kemalist regime immediately after the Turkish nation-state was
established, has long been a prime goal of political Islamists in Turkey.
This aim has, most of the time, been articulated in relation to Turkey’s
perceived responsibility towards Muslim countries and communities
outside its borders, called the ummah. It has been uttered as a critique of
the Kemalist regime’s having changed the religiously thinking and acting
communities of Anatolia into a nationally thinking and acting nation, as a
result of which, in the long run, the idea of the unity of the ummah lost its
practicality in peoples’ minds. The national borders have therefore not
only broken relations, but also changed peoples’ feeling of belonging from
the ummah to a bounded nation. Until Necmettin Erbakan and his Milli
Görüş (National View) organization became the flag-bearers of political
religious concerns, including the relationships with the ummah in the
1970s and onward, concerns regarding the ummah had been politically
abandoned (see Toprak 1984: 127; Dilligil 1994). Some relations with
Middle Eastern countries, such as the Baghdad and Sadabad Pacts, were
accomplished through secular causes, such as economic cooperation or
overcoming oil crises. Likewise, the ummah concern was absent in
building relations with Israel, a country where the call for reifying the
ummah was mostly invoked in order to act against it. Israel had long been
considered as the only country in the Middle East with which Turkey
could have reliable and stable relations (Kanat 2010: 209).
The ummah concern was attached to the foreign policy agenda only in the
1990s, particularly when Erbakan became Prime Minister of the Kemalist
Republic in 1995. During his prime ministry, the ummah concern was very
evident, as he, for instance, bilaterally developed relations with countries
such as Iran, Nigeria, Libya, and Qatar, and multilaterally advocated
building an Islamic United Nations, Islamic NATO, Islamic UNESCO,
Islamic Common Market, and a common Islamic currency. Although none
of these multilateral institutions could ever have been established, except
the Developing-8 (D-8),2 such institutions were suggested as a cure for the
2 Member states are Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Malaysia, Nigeria,
Pakistan, and Turkey.

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needs of the ummah, suffering from instability, war, and economic and
social destruction. The ethnic cleansing of the Bosnian Muslims, for
instance, was the drive behind the desire to build a NATO-like joint
Islamic military organization capable of intervening in such incidents in a
more timely way. The establishment of the D-8 and efforts to increase the
Islamic Development Bank’s area of involvement were to encourage
economic and multilateral cooperation (ibid.: 94).
Apparently, while the initial ummah focus of foreign policy was initiated
by Erbakan, his approach was confined to state-level engagement. Civil
society had a minor and uncalled-for role in the reification of such a bond.
When it came to Justice and Development Party governments from 2002
onwards, dealing with Muslim communities abroad commenced to be
handled with a different governing idea in mind.
In the first instance, the hitherto politically confined relations with Muslim
countries and communities were extended to societal and cultural domains
(Dağı 2005: 30; Kösebalaban 2005: 31). Such relations, however, required
utilization of Islamic civilization and Ottomanist discourses and unity
calls, which reminded the outer audience that Turkey is a proud member
of the Islamic community. Turkey’s holding of the presidency of the
Organization of the Islamic Conference for the first time between 2004
and 2014 facilitated such remembering. The claims of “safeguarding the
ummah’s interests,” “ownership of the Palestinian cause,” or involvement
in Muslim affairs in countries from Somalia to Myanmar “as part of its
civilizational duty,” all reified Turkey’s identity as part of the ummah or
even as a candidate to lead the ummah (Duran 2013: 94; Warning and
Kardaş 2011: 128). This identity claim has indeed been well received and
Turkey has often been called the “leader of the Islamic world” or
positioned at “the heart of the ummah after … more than a century of
treading history’s margins” (Duran 2013: 94).
Secondly, this extension, however, required some tools in order to engage
with the communities on the ground. It is in this scope that the Turkish
Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) and the Presidency for
Religious Affairs (Diyanet)’s geography of involvement has been
expanded and new institutions, such as Yunus Emre Institute or
Presidency for Turks Abroad and Relative Communities (YTB), have been
established with missions of cherishing relations with Muslim kin
communities abroad. Through these public-diplomacy institutions, Turkey
has gained the required tools to get directly in touch with the Muslim
communities on the ground. Such an interrelationship was well illustrated

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by Turkey’s activist policies towards Myanmar, Indonesia, Malaysia,
Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, Sudan,
Somalia, Ethiopia, Chad, Niger, Kosovo, Albania, Macedonia, and Bosnia
and Herzegovina (the list could be extended).
Thirdly, throughout these regions, Turkey did not merely rely on
intergovernmental relations; its policies have been heavily backed by
nongovernmental and humanitarian initiatives. This is indeed the
distinguishing character of JDP’s Islamic internationalism, as in its
reification both religious groups and humanitarian aid organizations have
acted as stakeholders along with the government institutions. Today, as a
result of this involvement, along with diplomatic and official aid institutions,
Turkey’s nongovernmental humanitarian aid organizations operate in over
100 countries worldwide. Therefore, the Erbakan-era ummah-focus has been
extended beyond state-centrism and interstate relations.
Fourthly, since most Muslim countries and communities are underdeveloped
and are in need of assistance of all kinds, most of the time it has been the
humanitarian or developmental aid that paved the way for Turkey’s
building of relations with other Muslim communities. In relation to this,
the ummah-focus has turned to a broader humanitarian Islamic
internationalism with stronger state and civil society involvement, and a
robust and confident Muslim identity. The idea of ummah has, in this
sense, been replaced by an Islamic internationalism that suggests having
cross-border humanitarian engagement as a holder of Islamic religious
identity, yet without having a focus exclusively on Muslims (Tabak 2014).
In this scope, the virtue of providing aid has even shifted from to-the-
cause-of-ummah to for-and-beyond-the-ummah (ibid.). Therefore, by the
JDP era, not only was state-centrism replaced by nongovernmental and
humanitarian diplomacy, but the addressee of the humanitarianism has
also expanded. Previously, Muslim communities were almost the sole
beneficiaries of humanitarian assistance, but, in the JDP era, deprived
communities of all beliefs (Muslims and non-Muslims) in zones of
conflict, war, and poverty have been extended a helping hand, yet with a
confident Muslim identity. It is in this scope that Turkey has gradually
become one of the most generous donor states (Global Humanitarian
Assistance 2013: 6).3 This ground, in return, led the JDP to confidently
declare worldwide “solidarity with fellow Muslims” or call for “empathy
with Muslims” in foreign policy (Çağaptay 2012).
3 In 2012 Turkey was the fourth-largest donor state.

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All this became possible through the de-securitization of religion itself.
The Kemalist state had always been cautious about using religion as a
basis for mobilization in the country, and was always oppressive towards
religious groups. Erbakan’s accession to the prime ministry caused a fierce
anxiety within the Kemalist establishment, which ended up with Erbakan’s
toppling by a coup in February 28, 1997, and with unprecedented
measures taken against everything connected to religion. The coup was
accordingly followed by further securitization of religion, as irtica
(religious reactionism) became the principal national security threat:
religious clothing was banned in public spaces, which covers all public
buildings including schools and courts; financial sanctions were imposed
on Islamic capital groups; many Quranic schools were closed; and
religious groups were put under surveillance. With the JDP’s coming to
power, all these pressures were removed, and religion and religious
mobilization were de-securitized. Religious groups, including faith-based
humanitarian organizations, now act freely, run schools, and do charitable
works both at home and abroad with more confidence than ever.
Moreover, their financial conditions and operational capabilities have
expanded, hence religiously motivated cross-border engagements have
peaked (Tabak 2015). Accordingly, while previously only a handful of
groups were capable of running international missions, now, through the
JDP, almost all religious groups have overseas missions.4 They thus joined
and claimed a part in Turkey’s international humanitarian activism, and
confidently and willingly acted within the constraints of Turkey’s Muslim
state identity (Gurowitz 2006: 311). The Humanitarian Relief Foundation
(IHH), for instance, in line with Turkey’s hosting of 1.6 million Syrian
refugees, has performed humanitarian works including sheltering, medical,
and educational assistance for internally displaced people in several camps
within Syria in such places as Damascus, Aleppo, Hama, Humus, and
Idlib, where clashes still continue (Sönmez 2015). Similar emergency
assistance and even more have also been provided by the Deniz Feneri,
Cansuyu, Kimse Yok Mu?, and Mahmut Hüdai associations in Libya,
Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen (Center on Public Diplomacy 2013).
This entire interrelationship has meant that the Islamic internationalist
humanitarian organizations even guide the foreign policy agenda of
Turkey. The Mavi Marmara initiative of the IHH, an attempt to break
Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip in Palestine in 2010 that resulted in the
4 These groups include, but are not limited to, the Gülen Movement, Milli Görüş,
Süleymancıs, İsmailağa, Aziz Mahmut Hüdai, İskender Paşa, Sheihk Nazimi, and
Yeni Asyacılar groups.

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killing of ten civilians by Israeli commandos in their raid on the civilian
flotilla in international waters, is a prime example of this. As a
consequence of Israel’s harsh and violent response to IHH’s humanitarian
action, Turkey’s diplomatic relations with Israel were almost cut off.
Turkey’s government took the raid personally, thus considering the raid as
an attack on Turkey, and, for instance, the president at the time, Abdullah
Gül, stated that Israel “will suffer the consequences for its mistake against
Turkey” (Haaretz 2010). Although the lawsuit still continues in
international courts, Turkey’s insistence on the case led Israel to publish
an official apology and pay compensation in 2013 (The Guardian 2013).
The second example of this kind is the mediatory role IHH has so far
played. A primary example of this was IHH’s taking part in the
organization and running of the peace talks between the Philippines
government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) to end the
decades-long war, which ended successfully with the signing of a peace
treaty between the parties in late March 2014. IHH’s contribution to such a
delicate process and its ability to conclusively use humanitarian diplomacy
have been very much appreciated, and it is as a result considered to be “an
important model for other NGOs in the Muslim World” (Turkey Agenda
2014a). Yet IHH was not alone in this mission. Turkey backed the talks by
appointing a diplomat with a mediator role to monitor and assist the
disarmament of the MILF in line with the peace plan.5 Turkey, moreover,
closely monitored the talks and supported the active participation of states,
regional organizations, and international nongovernmental organizations
in the mediation process (Daily Sabah 2014b). In this process, Turkey has
worked closely with IHH (Turkey Agenda 2014b). A similar mediatory
role was assumed by IHH in 2013 to bring about an end to the conflict in
Yemen (Center on Public Diplomacy 2013).
This joint internationalist concern was generated by a motivation to be a
cure for the problems of Muslims worldwide and to keep the ummah self-
sufficient. Such an idea led President Erdoğan to argue, during an address
to the Standing Committee for Economic and Commercial Cooperation of
the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (COMCEC) in Istanbul, that
5 In an interview with the head of the humanitarian diplomacy division, I was told
that Turkey`s role in the process is exaggerated and it was IHH which informed the
official diplomatic missions regarding the developments (Personal communication,
May 13, 2015).

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[o]nly we can solve our problems … The only condition to overcome the
crisis in the Islamic world is unity, solidarity and alliance. Believe me, we
can resolve every problem as long as we are united. Islamic countries,
which have developed economically, recently, have been experiencing the
biggest humanitarian and political crisis in their history simultaneously …
If we act together, we will end the loneliness of Palestine which has
continued for nearly one century … It is possible to end the bloodshed in
Iraq and killing of Syrian children if we unite. (Hurriyet Daily 2014)
The speech may sound similar to Erbakan-era ummah-focused promises,
yet the tools employed, the actors involved, and the vocabulary by which
the achievement of such unity is sought are all different. JDP’s Islamic
internationalism is based more on humanitarian diplomacy and tools,
heavily backed and guided by nongovernmental initiatives, and focused
more on societal- and cultural-level engagement along with state-level
intense relations with the Muslim countries.
Turkish Islam
The second context where Islam has played an imperative role is in
Turkey’s favoritism towards and promotion of Turkish/Ottoman religio-
cultural practices abroad. Despite the Kemalist restructuring, the way
Islam is practiced in Turkey has always been considered authentic by both
religious and secular circles (see Mardin 2005). For religiously devoted
people, such authenticity has been claimed through the sustaining of the
religious heritage of the Ottoman Empire, despite the caliphate being
abolished by the Turkish Parliament in 1924. The Sheikh Nazim branch of
Naqshbandi tariqah, for instance, confidently acts as the sole successor of
the Ottoman religious tradition, and claims to maintain “the lifestyle,
discipline, and arts that are the heritage of the Caliphate of the Ottoman
(Osmanlı) Empire.”6 With a similar motive in mind, political Islamists
have long been nostalgic about Ottoman Islamic civilization and have
considered embracing and sustaining Ottoman religious practices as a
return to the self. In a similar fashion, Diyanet has occasionally acted as
the official authority that has taken over the Ottoman Sheikh ul-Islam’s
mission of running and determining the religious affairs of the people in
the Ottoman hinterland.7
6 See naksibendi.org; also see ottoman.us and saltanat.org.
7 For instance, for the first time in its history, in 1953, Diyanet published a fetwa
upon the dispute in Cyprus within the Turkish-speaking Muslim community
regarding whether the Quran might be written in Latinized Turkish letters. In its

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The authenticity of Turkish Islam, for religious groups, therefore, is rooted
in its being a continuation of Ottoman religio-cultural practices. For the
Kemalist secularists, on the other hand, the authenticity is rooted in
Turkish Islam’s being a secular practice, emancipated from bigots and
fanatics, thanks to Atatürk’s restructuring religious affairs in the country.
The official closure of the tekkes, the ban on tariqahs, and the
establishment of the Diyanet, a centralized and absolute religious authority
under the watch of the Kemalist establishment, secured such ground. Yet,
it is also argued that what makes Turkish Islam authentic is that, long
before the establishment of the Kemalist Republic, the Ottoman
intellectual elite promoted a synthesis between Islam and modernity, hence
interpenetrating secularism and Islam (Mardin 2005: 148). This character
makes Turkish Islam retrospectively apt for a secular order and a modern
world.
Despite the differences in justification, both Ottoman religious atavists and
Kemalists agree that Turkish Islam is the most appropriate practice, and
superior to other cultural practices of Islam. Jenny White, a social
anthropologist, confirms this and observes that “Turks of every political
persuasion with almost one voice proclaim Turkish Islam different from
and superior to other forms of Islam, particularly that practiced in the Arab
world” (White 2013: 188). The underlying logic behind this is that while
Turkish Islam is imagined as moderate, tolerant, and modern, for instance
the Saudi Arabian Islamic experience (mostly called Wahhabi Islam)
represents radicalism, fanaticism, extremism, and intolerance (White 2013:
101; Özdalga 2006: 552; Aras and Caha 2000: 32; Tepe 2000: 59; Çitak
2010: 620).
This comprehension led, for instance, former PM Tansu Çiller to articulate
in Sarajevo in 1995 that “[i]n the Islamic World, there is the Turkey model
and the radical Islam model. The Islamic world and the Balkans should
adopt the Turkey model” (quoted in Solberg 2007: 429). See also, for
fetwa, Diyanet held that the Quran could not be written in Turkish scripts but
should remain in Arabic (Özdemir 1999: 198). By the same token, from the 1980s,
Diyanet commenced sending temporary and permanent imams to the Outside
Turks communities residing in the former Ottoman hinterland to provide Ottoman-
remnant Muslim communities with religious services (Nevzat and Hatay 2009:
922–3). In tandem with this, Diyanet works as an arbitrator body for the countries
in the Balkans, between Muslim minorities and the state. Accordingly, it is
legislatively accepted by some countries, for instance Montenegro, that when a
domestic Islamic authority falls unable to offer a solution on religious issues,
Diyanet’s solution will be embraced (Unal 2012: 25).

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example, former President of Diyanet Mehmet Nuri Yılmaz’s statements
that “there are some streams, some movements mass propagating such as
Bahaism, Kadiyanism, Ahmedijja, Moonism, Wahhabism … we have to
take measures about this,” and “today it is impossible to implement the
Badawi Arab lifestyle-based economic ideas Ahmet bin Hanbel put forth a
thousand years ago to the Anatolian people or to the people of any place
on earth” (Eurasian Islamic Meeting Report 1995). In the Eurasian Islamic
Meetings in 1998 and 2000, the same idea was again in mind (Eurasian
Islamic Meeting Report 1998; 2000).
The same comprehension similarly led the Sheikh Nazimi group and the
Milli Görüş movement to argue that radical streams contaminate the image
of Islam in the West and fuel Islamophobia. For the Sheikh Nazimi group,
“Wahhabis constitute the ‘internal’ enemy of Islam.” This is because “they
are showing Islam as a cruel religion” and thus are responsible for the
worldwide decay of Muslim communities (Atay 1994: 244–5). The Milli
Görüş movement similarly feels discomfort with the “Wahhabi”
interpretation of Islam and condemns it as an extreme and poor reading
that manifests itself as fanaticism, radicalism, and terror (Yeneroğlu
2013a; 2013b).8 Headquartered in Turkey, these two organizations have
widespread operations in Europe, while the Sheikh Nazimi group is very
active in the UK. Milli Görüş has extensive religio-political services
throughout continental Europe. Both groups have experienced and
suffered from the Islamophobia inflamed by radical Islamic groups.
This interrelationship has made Islamophobia and extreme groups the
principal agenda topic for Turkey in its relations with Muslim
communities in Europe. The imprints of this are very well reflected in the
activities of the YTB, as it has waged a fierce fight against Islamophobia,
and the radical streams which feed intolerant and anti-Islam stances among
the people in Europe (see Altınok 2012: 4; Daily Sabah 2014a). The JDP
government absolutely backs such a policy, as seen recently in Turkey’s
responses to the Charlie Hebdo raid by radical Islamic groups in Paris in
2015, which resulted in the killing of 12 people. Former President
Abdullah Gül declared immediately after the raid that “[t]he perpetrators
of this barbaric act not only betrayed and tainted Islamic values and
8 It should be noted that Mustafa Yeneroğlu, the secretary general of the Islamic
Community Milli Görüş (IGMG), also argues that radicalization of Muslims in
Europe is also fuelled by the securitization policies of the European states towards
Islam; “Wahhabi” streams therefore are not the sole cause of such a process
(Yeneroğlu, 2013b :8).

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principles, but also targeted millions of European Muslims who have
nowhere else to live other than Europe” and invited “the Islamic world and
all Muslims” to “clearly denounce this inhuman attack and demonstrate
solidarity with the people of France against religious extremism” (Hurriyet
Daily 2015). Ahmet Davutoğlu, while urging the “Muslim Turks” in
Europe to “walk tall against Islamophobia,” admitted that “barbarism,
such as the Parisian murders, led to terrorism and terrorism in turn paved
the way for racism and xenophobia [Islamophobia]” (Anadolu Agency
2015). The fight against radicalism and in relation to it against
Islamophobia is one of the consequences of Turkey’s Turkish Islamic
policy.
For Turkey, however, the adverse effects of the radical streams manifest
themselves also and mostly as an antagonism towards the Ottoman/Turkish
religio-cultural heritage in the former Ottoman hinterland. In this context,
Onur Öymen, a notable Kemalist and vice-president of CHP once stated in
a parliamentary speech that
[Our] cultural heritage in Kosovo was blasted … by the Saudi Wahhabi
Aid Agency … [T]he examinations show that during the restoration
works, the idea of restoring the Ottoman artefacts to their original
condition was left aside, and these historical buildings were re-erected
according to Wahhabi culture, and some Ottoman artefacts were simply
blasted, the graveyards were blasted, the mosques were blasted … [W]e
should not allow a Wahhabi institution of Saudi Arabia … to blast our
cultural heritage in there. (Öymen 2005: 246–8)
This concern has also been articulated by İbrahim Özdoğan of the
Motherland Party in a parliamentary speech in 2007:
[T]he co-national countries surrounding us drifted with the tide of different
streams because we did not provide the relevant religious services on time.
My dear friends the Saudi associations and organizations have held the
religious services in these countries. The Ottoman mosques in these
countries were restored and open to service according to Saudi culture, and
Saudi religious officials were given positions [in these mosques]. This is,
indeed, a sad state of affairs. For this reason, it is very, very necessary for
Diyanet to provide effective religious services abroad; this is very, very
significant for our both nation and state. (Özdoğan 2007: 135)
This is a shared concern and Diyanet, with the backing of TIKA, has long
been engaged in a tacit fight against the perceived ‘Wahhabi’ destruction
abroad, particularly in the Balkans (see Öktem 2012: 43). This takes place
principally through providing more room for the performance of Turkish

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Islam. Turkey receives students from the Balkan countries to be educated
in imam-hatib schools and theology faculties in Turkey. These students
have been functioning as a bridge for channelling Turkish Islamic
practices and discourses to the Balkans today, as seen, for instance, in the
example of Lutfi Balik, the Mufti of Prizren, Kosovo. He, as a Turkey
graduate, has worked very closely with the Diyanet Kosovo office in
fighting against ‘Wahhabi’ influences, in encouraging Turkey graduates to
get positions in as imams in mosques, and in urging people to get religious
education in Turkey.
The second way to promote Turkish Islam internationally and thus to fight
against the radical streams, particularly in the Balkans, has been through
sending temporary and permanent religious officials to countries with
Muslim minority/majority populations. In the meantime, Diyanet has
translated its religious books into almost all Balkan languages and sent
free copies to be used by the Diyanet coordination offices, mosques, and
Quranic schools in introducing the Ottoman/Turkish Islamic practices to
local communities. In 2008 alone, for instance, Diyanet sent more than a
million copies of religious publications abroad (Korkut 2010: 133).
In a similar vein, thirdly, to make the Ottoman/Turkish Islamic history of
the countries in the Balkans more visible, Turkey decided to build the
biggest mosque of Kosovo in Pristina, and the biggest mosque of the
Balkans in Tirana, Albania (Kosovo Port 2014; Sabah 2014). This is part
of the project announced by Diyanet in 1995 of building Ottoman
architectural-style mosques throughout the former Ottoman hinterland and
Muslim Turkic world (Eurasian Islamic Meeting Report 1995: 54). In
addition to building mosques, Turkey, or more precisely TIKA, restores
and rebuilds historical Ottoman mosques throughout such regions, which
helps to save the historical heritage, and makes the Ottoman Islamic
character of the countries more discernible.
In this fashion, Diyanet’s Turkish Islamic activities extend far beyond
Turkey’s immediate surroundings. Similar to Turkey’s and Diyanet’s
concomitant opening to Central Asia from the 1990s onwards, Diyanet has
intensified its activities in the Africa, complementary to Turkey’s
diplomatic opening to the continent. For instance, it commenced
organizing the Religious Leaders Meeting of African Continent Muslim
Countries and Societies, and hosted the first two in Istanbul in 2006 and
2011 (Özkan 2013: 48). The final declarations of both meetings invited
Turkey to have a greater role in religious affairs in Africa through, for
instance, offering “opportunities to meet the urgent need for well raised

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and educated human resources, particularly in the area of religion, in
Africa countries” (Hurriyet Daily 2011). At this juncture, Turkish Islam
was presented to and approached by the African religious authorities as “a
test case for a synthesis of Islam and democracy … [and] a model for the
Islamic world” (Dere 2008: 299). Turkish Islam, accordingly, has stood as
an alternative to and a way out from the radical streams which create more
misery and instability in the region.
Conclusion
This chapter has examined what Turkey does with Islam in foreign policy,
and has unfolded two distinct yet contradictory, and at the same time
overlapping, manifestations and expressions of Islam in Turkey’s foreign
policy. Through refraining from attributing pejorative meanings to Islam’s
playing a constitutive role in foreign policy, this research has
demonstrated that Turkey confidently and constitutively deploys religious
causes and discourses in foreign policy. In a similar way, it is seen that
Turkey’s use of Islam in foreign policy is not in the scope of theo-politics,
confirming Duran and Yilmaz (2013). The relationship is rather in line
with Turkey’s Turkish Islamic exceptionalism (Mardin 2005) that suggests
that Turkey’s Islamic experience is an authentic practice and existentially
suitable to modern life, and that the imperial role Ottomans and the
preceding ‘Turkish’ states played in the building and sustaining of Islamic
civilization endows Turkey with a responsibility towards fellow Muslims
worldwide. In this respect, in Turkey’s foreign policy, Islam manifests
itself both as an internationalist appeal for Muslim solidarity and an
international competition with radical teachings and practices.
Islamic internationalism suggests building and deepening relations with
Muslims worldwide, and keeping the ummah self-sufficient. The level of
relationship extends beyond intergovernmental relations to societal and
cultural domains, yet, again, with strong governmental backing.
Nongovernmental humanitarian organizations and Turkey’s public
diplomacy instruments have well facilitated such a relationship. The more
relations have intensified, the more Turkey is accused of following an
Islamic foreign policy and supporting extremist Islamists. Yet, the JDP
government is not alone in this accusation. The allegations have also been
targeted at nongovernmental humanitarian organizations which have also
been blamed for supporting extremists. Israel, for instance, declared the
IHH an outlawed organization with affiliations with terrorist organizations
after the civilian Gaza flotilla initiative (see The Jerusalem Post 2010).

Manifestations of Islam in Turkey’s Foreign Policy before July 15, 2016
99
Turkish Islam, on the other hand, states that the way Islam is performed in
Turkey is an authentic and a superior practice; thus, it is believed to
represent a synthesis between tradition and modernity, and stands as an
antidote to radicalism and extremism. Through utilizing Turkish Islamic
discourse, for instance, Turkey fights against extreme groups in Europe as
a way to campaign against intolerance towards Islam and Muslims.
Utilization of similar discourse leads to international competition
throughout the former Ottoman hinterland to keep the Ottoman/Turkish
religio-cultural heritage alive and safeguard it from the perceived hostile
attitudes of, particularly, Saudi Arabian Islamic groups. The restored or
newly built (or planned) mosques visibly make the Turkish Islamic and
Ottoman identity more salient, while the religious officials and materials
sent from Turkey make the Turkish Islamic message vocally heard.
Turkish Islam is and will continue to be promoted beyond the Ottoman
hinterland towards Central Asia and Africa, and President Erdoğan’s
declaration of the decision to build a mosque in Cuba as the first place of
worship for the Muslim islanders signals that such internationalism will
not stop soon (see, for an account of Turkey’s mosque-building
diplomacy, Seibert 2015).
Islamic internationalism serves to portray Turkey as the defender of the
Islamic cause worldwide, which facilitates its embarking on justifiable
Turkish Islamic practices. On the other hand, Turkish Islamic practices
provide a way out for deprived Muslim communities and countries from
the rule of extremists, thus offering a way to confidently act as a Muslim,
while being aligned with non-Muslims against Islamic radicals. However,
Turkish Islam’s superiority claims deepen the sectarian division within the
ummah, hence rendering the Islamic internationalist message
dysfunctional in the long run. What Turkey does with Islam coincides with
this interrelationship, with mutually overlapping and contradictory
conclusions.
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