Niyazi Berkes' vievs on the relationship between religion and state

Based on the views of Niyazi Berkes, this research aimed to reveal the effect of the relationship between religion and state on both the social structure and the modernization process in the Ottoman Empire. Berkes, influenced by the world of thought of the period in which he lived, adopted Kemalism as an ideology; He made sociological studies for the Kemalist revolutions to be adopted and modernized by the people. Examined the relationship between religion and society, religions; He said that he could not make changes in the social structure and even dogmatized traditional values and prevented social change. He defined secularism as "freeing from the yoke of the sanctified tradition" and evaluated the process of removing religious and traditional values from the social structure and replacing them by contemporary values as secularism. He examined the relationship between religion and state in the Classical Period of the Ottoman Empire through the institutions of caliphate, sharia and ulema, and stated that the Ottoman Empire was not a theocratic state. He claimed that the basic institution in the Ottoman Empire was the state, and religion played the role of providing legitimacy to the state, and claimed that the relationship between religion and state in the Classical Period of the Ottoman Empire was compatible with secularism. He stated that the Ottoman Empire started its modernization activities after the eighteenth century and that the aim of modernization after the Tanzimat Period was to become westernized. He claimed that religiousization in the Ottoman Empire emerged with the modernization process because conservative intellectuals and people disguised their traditional values against Westernization as religious dogma. Berkes' claims were compared with the findings of historians and sociologists. Other researchers, on the basis of the fact that religion provided legitimacy by the state in practice, could not provide a basis for secularism, and that the Ottoman Empire was established as an Islamic state; They stated that the family, education, economy, law and judicial institutions in the Ottoman Empire were based on religion. Religiousization in the Ottoman Empire was not the result of modernization; They found that modernization and secularization activities continued in the Ottoman Empire even during the periods when Berkes claimed that religiousization increased.