The effects of religious society's life: Emet sample (1923 -1999)

In this study, a qualitative approach was introduced in order to identify the role played by clerics educated in Madrasahs and the clerics who were educated unofficially with local opportunities in society, to determine their effects on society life. In order to achieve this purpose, 12 people who were effective in the religious and social life of Emet district in Kütahya between 1923 and 1999, were examined. In the first part, in order to understand the social resources that enable these people to grow up, the function of the clerics in the Ottoman society was examined and socioeconomic infrastructure was tried to be revealed. A reading on the position of the clerics was made in the structure of the Ottoman society. In the second part, the history of the Emet district and the structure of the mosques and Quran Courses -as educational institutions- which nourish the geographical, social and religious life, were generally given. In the third part, the interviews were made with the relatives and students of the clerics who were the subjects of our study; verbal information was compared to the official documents. In the last part, the functions of these people -who were influential on religious and social life between 1923 and 1999- and the Ottoman clerics on the society with their adaptions to the modernization was interpreted. Keywords: Ulama, Madrasah, Emet, Practices of Daily Life, Religious Life.