Sociology of religion in literary works: The case of Rasim Özdenören

Our research is aimed at investigating the relationship between society and religion in the works of Rasim Özdenören, who contributed to Turkish-Islamic thought in the literary field. In the last century, Rasim Özdenören, the thinker who does not accept views incompatible with Islamic belief and emphasizes the necessity of mental purification on Muslim thinking and living against the conciliatory and selective understanding in addition to presenting critical, original, tolerant arguments, has been the subject of the study. At the theoretical level, Özdenoren's views on the act of thinking and living as a Muslim were examined on the foreign concepts and his approach to Islamic thought in the essays of Özdenören. At the practical level, the interviews with Özdenören and people who knew him were examined within the framework of the science of Sociology of religion. In the introduction part, the theoretical foundations of the research are presented. In the first part, the life of Rasim Özdenören, the formation of his intellectual stance and his works are included. In the second part, the concepts that are the subject of Özdenören's thoughts and essays on the letter revolution are included. In the third chapter, Özdenören's perception of history, the relationship between city and religion, his views on Muslim thinking and life, and his intellectual relationship with the Russian intellectual Dostoyevski are analyzed. As a result, this research is aimed at investigating the impact of concepts and institutions belonging to foreign cultures on the intellectual and vital realization of the beliefs of Muslims, the acceptability of Islamic faith as the only source for Muslims from the point of view of Özdenören. Keywords: Sociology Of Religion, Dostoyevski, Rasim Özdenören, Laicism.