How successful were Ataturk and his regime in removing the influence of Islam with the

creation of the Turkish republic?

to women in the United States becoming permanent participants of the labollr force?

The years 1940 to 1950 will be the focus of this investigation, to allow for an analysis of

women’s employment during the war, as well as its evolution in the post-war period.

Source: The Emergence of Modern Turkey by Bernard Lewis

The book is written by Bernard Lewis a well known American-British historian whose
main subject Islam and the Middle East. He has written many books on the Middle East and
Islam like What Went Wrong?, The Crisis of Islam, and The Arabs in History. H He has won
multiple awards for his work like the Irving Kristol Award and Harvey Prize in Literature. He is
British, so his books are not a primary source of what occurred in the Middle East, but he is
highly reputable. He is also not Muslim and has said that Islam sometimes stirs hatred and
violence in its followers, but also a sense of comfort.

The book was written in 1961, around two decades after the regime of Ataturk ended, so
it gives a good account of the effects secularization in Turkey, but not enough information about
the long term effects like the rise of the Pro-Islam party in Turkey in the 2000s. The book
appears to be written in order to explain how modern-day Turkey came to existence, and what
makes up the cultural identity of the Turks. His audience is people interested in the History of
Turkey and how it came about. He is a secondary source.

The book encompasses the reforms that Ataturk put in place to modernize Turkey and
describes Turkey after his death. However, there is the bias of a British historian which could put
the reemergence of Islam in a bad light, but there is also the value of getting an outsider
perspective on the effects of secularization.
Source: Turkey in My Time By Ahmed Emin Yalman

The origin of the book comes from a prominent Turkish reporter Ahmed Yalman. His

book describes Turkey's transformation from the Ottomon Empire to the Turkish Republic from

the time period of the 1880s to the 1950s. The source is valuable since it is a primary source

since it acts as an autobiography for Yalman as well as a historical documentation of Turkey’s

change. Another value of the source is that it comes from a Turk who had a personal connection

with Ataturk and Yalman also describes the mentality behind Ataturk’s reforms like taking down

the sultanate.

The purpose of the book is to describe Yalman’s life during Turkey’s rebirth, and his

primary audience is the general public. There is also the purpose of showing Turkey in a positive

light as Yalman describes how Turkey became a democracy and libreal. There are limitations of

the source. The primary one is that Yalman is heavily biased towards putting Turkey in a positive

light for the west. He wants Turkey to not be a Islamic state; furthermore, Yalman never saw the

Islamic revival in modern day Turkey. Yalman’s book is a great source to explain why Ataturk

wanted Islam separate from the government, and the direct aftermath of those reforms.
Investigation

The Ottoman Empire went onto a decline in the 1700s-1800s losing land holdings in

Europe and Asia. Their collapse finally came in 1920 with the Treaty of Sevres. The Sultanate

had signed the Treaty of Sevres which had harsh terms for the Ottomon Empire such as losing

Istanbul, western Anatolia, all of their Arab and African holdings, Armenia, and Kurdistan (247

Lewis). The loss of all that land meant the end of the Ottomon Empire and Turkish influence in

Europe and Asia. However, a Turkish nationalist movement opposed the Sultanate and the

signing of the Treaty of Sevres. Led by Mustafa Kemal, the rebel Turkish Nationalist movement

was successful in defeating the Caliphate Army, Greeks, and Italians in a war for independence;

they eventually signed the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 which created the Turkish Republic.

Mustafa Kemal was a general in Ottomon Empire during World War I, and his rise to

popularity came from his victory at Gallipoli. He used his popularity and military experience to

start the Turkish nationalist movement to create the Turkish Republic. Kemal’s main goal for the

Turkish republic was to move past the antiquated ways of the Ottomon empire, so Kemal created

a philosophy called Kemalism upon the creation of the Turkish republic which would guide

Turkey towards modernization. The philosophy had six main ideologies that Kemal hoped would

lead to a new Turkey: Nationalism, Republicanism, Populism, Laicism, Statism, and Reformism.

Kemalism became the center ideology of Republican People’s Party (RPP) the political party that

Ataturk founded and ruled Turkey for 30 years. However, there was a major road block between

Kemal and his goal: Islam and the Caliphate. In the mind of Kemal, he could not create a unified

Turkey with the Sultan and Islam still in power as stated in one Kemal’s speeches, “In his
domestic establishment and more especially in his public appearances, the Caliph seems to be

following the path of his ancestors the Sultans. We cannot sacrifice the Republic of Turkey for

the sake of courtesy or sophistry” (263 Lewis). Furthermore, Islam in Turkey was unique

because it created a sense of haughtiness in its citizens. They beleived that Islam was supieror to

Western ideals due to the Golden Age of Islam and resisted Western change. Islam also lead to

many non-muslims having jobs in industry and trade, as Muslims would not work in those

industry due to certain beliefs in Islam. Lastly, Kemal believed that Turkey needs to stop blindly

believing in authority and instead believe in reason (Yalman 137).

In order to decrease the the influence of Islam, Kemal implemented a series of reforms in

a short period of time. Each of them addressing a different part of how Islam affects the

government and way of life, a antithesis to Islamic influence in Turkey. Kemal first abolished the

sultanate and the caliphate in 1922 and 1924 respectively, effectively, making him the only voice

of authority in Turkey. Sharia Law also governed Turkey during that time, so Kemal eliminated

religious courts, ecclestiatical courts for non-muslims, and the office of Islam that oversaw

Islamic Law.

Then came more intimate changes to the population most notably the elimination of the

fez and veil, and the changing of the Turkish language. The fez had stood as a symbol of being

Ottoman and thereby a Muslim. The Sultan, Mahmud II, in 1829 mandated that all subjects

should wear the fez as a symbol of equality among the Ottomans. It was an integral part about

being Turkish. However, Ataturk saw it as a symbol of inferiority, so in the hopes of being

treated as equal to the Europeans he outlawed the fez and mandated that all men should wear
European hats. Similarly, he condemned the use of veils for women in Turkey demonstrating to

the West that Turkey treats its men and women equally, and he adopted the Swiss Civil Code

which gave equal rights to men and women.

Another glaring issue in Turkey was its 10% literacy rate which was a huge issue if

Ataturk wanted an educated population. The cause of this illiteracy rate could be due to lack of

poor infrastructure, elitism, or the difficult Arabic script. Ataturk went after the Arabic script

which had signficant value in Islam. Islam said that the writing was another function of god so

the alphabet was another holy ideal. However, the Arabic script was never meant for the Turkish

language so there was great difficulty in teaching Turkish. Therefore, Ataturk in 1928 created a

Latin alphabet system for the Turkish language and spread it across Turkey with an army of

teachers. Surprisingly, the literacy rate at the end of his reign increased to 32% (Columbia).

The most important nail in the coffin for Turkey and Islam came in 1928 when Kemal

removed a line in the constitution which stated that Islam was the religion of Turkey (223 Schick

and Tonak). Instead, Turkey officially and legally became a secular republic. Mustafa’s goal in

secularizing Turkey was in response to his belief’s that Islam is what caused Turkey to be behind

the West, and by secularizing Turkey he would be able to gain the respect of the West and

modernize his country.

Politically, Mustafa had done everything in his power to rid the influence of Islam from

the governement and the citizens except for outright banning Islam, but I would argue that his

efforts were in vain. A lot of historians agree with this position such as Bernard Lewis and

Ertugrul Ahmet Tonak both of who are well established in Islamic influence in Turkey. It is
important to understand how ingrained Islam was in the culture of the Turks. The Turks had been

practicing Islam for nearly a millinia and furthermore the Sultan of the Ottomon Empire in

modern day Turkey had been the head of Islam for 600 years. Therefore, trying to westernize

through secularization meant the removal of a way of life.

In my opinion, Mustafa wanted to recreate the Enlightenment in Turkey evidenced by his

quote, “It(Secularization) means crossing from the Middle Ages to modern life, from authority to

reason” (Yalman 137). During the Enlightenment the main driving force to accept reason over

authority or religion was led by intellectuals like Locke and Hobbes who convinced the people

first, and started a movement from the ground up. However, Kemal with his best intent tried to

start a revolution from the government down which failed. Evidence that supports this claim

varies from daily life to the political landscape.

In daily life, especially in rural areas, many of Ataturk’s did not have success. Polygomy

continued in these villages and the women continued to wear the veil. Mosques also began to

gain more power in the 30s and 40s after his death. Attendance to mosques began to grow and so

did pilgrimages to Mecca. The revival of Islam is even more apparent in the government in 1950.

The first truly democratice election occurred in Turkey during 1950 where the vast majority of

the RPP was voted out of office in favor of the Democratic Party. The Democratic Party won

408 seats compared to the RPP which won 69 seats (312 Lewis). The RPP had been in full

control of Turkey since 1923 and had been the party that instigated all of these reforms of

religion to the country. The replacement of the party could be seen as a rebellion against the

RPP's authorization reform and regime. In the same year, he reversed an Kemal reform and made
religious education compulsory in Turkish schools. The government also became more leniant to

Muslim brotherhoods called terikats. Finally, the beret became popular in Turkey because it

could be seen as a replacement to the fez.

This synthesis of Islam and seculrization led to a post-Kemal Turkey that used democracy

to try and implment Islam into the government. Even a century later, this synthesis exists in the

modern day government of Turkey with Erodan’s Islamic party. In 2002, the AKP started

reversing some of the reforms that Ataturk had put in place. For example, in 2013 Erodgen

banned the sale of alcohol advertising, and lifted the ban on the headscarf (Wagner 31). In the

education system, Islamic schools saw a rise in attendance from 60,000 to 1 million during

Erdogen rule (Wagner 32). Unlike the previous revivals of Islam, these are taking place in urban

areas and there is legislation to support Islam.

However, there are perspectives that one could take which would say that Ataturks’s

reforms were successful. First piece of evidence was that there was never any major rebellion

against the reforms of Ataturk. Kemal had successfully used the newspapers in his favor to make

it garner support for Islamic reform. Secondly, Turkey’s economy increased five-fold in

Ataturks’ time and Turkey gained more respect from the West and Soviet Russia (Columbia).

Also Islamic revival mainly existed in the rural areas of Turkey (Lewis 317). A rural area being

more religious than their urban counterparts isn't unique, and this pattern exists in secular

countries around the world like America which had a religious revival in the 70s in its rural

populous (Dillion 2). Furthermore, the timescale also affects how historians view the success of

Ataturk’s Islamic reforms since laws that roll-back Ataturk’s policy only started to occur in the
2000s. Turkish historian and news reporter Yalman said in 1956 that Turkey is, “a country sure to

occupy an outstanding place among the progressive, liberal, peace-loving nations of the world”

(Yalman 280).

Reflection

As a historian researching this topic I had trouble finding primary sources from Islamic

Turkish citizens durings Ataturk’s time. I would like a perspective from the day to day citizen

during Kemal’s rule and the current rule at this moment. This is an issue that I assume many

historians would have faced because of the fact that literacy rates were low for the daily citizens

of many countries for the majority of human history. A second issue with the topic I was

researching was finding the relation between a countries religion and how modern a country is

without seeming bigoted. I wanted to know that relation in order to see if seperating islam from

the state was a necessary step in order to modernize Turkey. Lastly, the biggest limitation I found

while researching this topic was the different timeframes of the sources. Intrestingly, Islam has

been having a greater influence in Turkey in the 21st century than the 20th century. Therefore,

some historians have different perspectives based on when they wrote the novel. The final issue

that I faced was finding a way to define “influence of Islam” in my paper. Objectively, Islam

does not have as much control over the Turkish goverment as it used to do, but influence of

Islam also extends to the populace. There is a lot of personal bias that comes into judging how

successful something is, and during the investigation I tried to frame my perspective of success

from what Ataturk would have seen. His main goal was just removing Islam from the

government, but another way to view success would have been through a common citizen.
Through the investigation I learned about the different problems and challenges that historians

have to go through to answer their question in the least biased way possible.
 Work Cited

Lewis, Bernard. The Emergence of Modern Turkey. Oxford University Press, 1968.

“Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.” Columbia University in the City of New York, 1994,

www.columbia.edu/~sss31/Turkiye/ata/hayati.html.

Schick İrvin Cemil., and Tonak Ertuğrul Ahmet. Turkey in Transition. Oxford Univ. Press, 1987.

Yalman, Ahmet Emin. Turkey in My Time. Univ. of Oklahoma Press, 1957.

Wagner, Magdalen M., "The Decline of Women’s Rights in Turkey: Is it Political Islam...or

Tayyip?" (2016). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 1069.

Dillon, Michele, and Sarah Savage. “Values and Religion in Rural America: Attitudes toward

Abortion and Same-Sex Relations.” Carsey Institute, no. 1, 2006,

doi:10.34051/p/2020.13.