The religious opposition in early republic in Turkey: The comparative research of Nurculuk and Rifâîlik (1923-1950)

Regarding to structural and cultural transformations of society and politics experienced in Turkey through the early republican period, social forces that create the Ottoman İslamic imagination especially by using rural dynamics, have developed various strategies of opposition. These strategies are related closely with the fact that in which manner the religion interpretations created by ehlisünnet schools based around the Anatolian geography, are eligible to supply life, belief and politics with legitimacy. These ways of opposition in which non-violent forms are widely seen, pursued a way in their accord before the neo Turkish State's ideological gaining. This study, while defining the styles of opposition in such way, through the content of non-violent resistence, civil disobedience focused on how such social groups emerging by the perspective of ehlisünnet, expressed a style of opposition in the conditions of Repuplican Turkey. It is touched uppon that the styles created a perspective of faith centered religious opposition different than those of civil disobedience and terrorism. In this line, the Nurcu movement centered by Said Nursi and Rifaîlik movement centered by Kenan Rifaî, taken under the projection. It is defined that these movements are examples of two traditions that of tasavvuf and medrese which has forged the Ottoman İslamic and political imagination. Consequently, It is observed that the Rifai and Nurcu movements, by the light of religious interpretations that each are produced, distinctively defined different opposition strategies. The base that these differences rest upon is the production of the cosmological, ontological and methodological production of two big line of tasavvuf tradition which are the philosophy of vahdet-i şuhut and vahdet-i vücut. In the light of these differences, thesis as a conclusion is defining how rifailik and nurculuk give way to different organizations through their own resistance strategies. Key Words: Social Power, Religious Opposition, Republican Revolutions, Nurculuk, Rifailik, Vahdet-i Şuhut, Vahdet-i Vücut.