Social change and religion in thought of Kemal H. Karpat

As is known, social changes have their own internal dynamics and it is evaluated taking into account factors such as the spirit and conditions of the time, cultural codes, historical identity, foreign policy, economic structure, social inheritance etc. Religion, one of the most powerful dynamics ensuring cultural continuity, is one of the important concepts in the understanding and proper evaluation of social changes. Accordingly, studies on the role of religion in social changes have been increasing recently. While explaining the historical and social changes of Turkey in the last two centuries, there has been a problem of being trapped in certain ideological patterns and theories. Instead of tackling the historical or social events holistically, explaining them by appealing to single factor or reason is like rebuilding them with your own point of view and away them from understanding its own reality. While studying the last period of the Ottoman Empire, Kemal Karpat pointed out the problems that are the result of this point of view. Based on the fact that societies cannot be separated from their historical identities; Karpat, in contrast to historical theses that explain the changes experienced by the state and society around concepts such as Modernization, Westernization, Enlightenment, developed a different interpretation by examining the dynamics of the Ottoman state and social structure in the light of multiple factors such as political structure, identity, faith, population, migration and stratification. Proceeding from this, despite the political changes, he emphasized the historical and cultural continuity and put forward the thesis "The Republic is the continuation of the Ottoman Empire". It is impossible to think about Karpat's idea without this continuity and flow related to Turkey's modernization adventure. In this study, the role of social change in the last period of the Ottoman Empire and the factor of religion in this change will be discussed based on the works of Kemal Karpat.