Opposing trajectories of public Islam in Turkey: a comparative study between the Justice and Labor Platform and Furkan Foundation

This study investigates how and when Islam as a public religion promotes or undermines the public sphere. To that end, it compares two dissident Islamic civil society organizations, Labor and Justice Platform and Furkan Foundation, in terms of their different ways of engagement with Islam in the public sphere, using Habermas's theory of communicative action. My findings suggest that the ultimate impact of Islam as a public religion is contingent upon the adoption of two characteristics by the Islamic group in question: rational-critical debate ethos and deliberative tolerance towards the "other". While these Habermasian insights have been addressed in recent scholarship, I found also that the failures of an inclusive project in political society can turn into invaluable lessons when this project is transferred to civil society: the abortive HAS Party experience predisposed the EAP to become a contributing civil actor to an interconnected public sphere.