A critical analysis of islamism in Turkey: The case of Abdurrahman Arslan

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze Abdurrahman Arslan's critical of views, a self-declared Islamist, on Islamism (İslamcılık). The study is consisted of two chapters. Some of the major themes investigated in the first chapter include, the much-debated concept of Turkish Islamism, the origin, definition, and classification of the term. One important issue made clear in this chapter is that Islamist thought resist any attempt to be defined as a single unitary phenomenon. In doing so, the study this chapter examined the historical and intellectual background against which the term emerged with a view to determining the transformation and changes occurred in the conception of the term Islamism. In this chapter, main areas of interest and debatable themes of Islamism were also determined. In the second chapter, Arslan's views on Islamism were subjected to a sociological analysis, paying special attention to the way in which his criticism levelled against Islamist discourse. One of the objectives of this chapter was to analyze the nature and function of his criticism based upon modernity. In his context, first, Arslan's historical and conceptual understanding of Islamism was investigated; and it is determined that Arslan declares himself to be an Islamist, but differs greatly from other Islamist authors and intellectuals in many respects that he criticizes. Finally, after the specific areas, contents, and themes of contention in the Islamist discourse were determined, the study attempted to examine the ways in which Arslan criticized these issued based upon his own writings.