Religious education and politics in Turkey (Discussions about religious education in the proceedings of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey 1920-1990)

In this study, we examined the opinions and discussions about legal and political bases of the organic and prevalent religious edication, and their relevant constitutional articles publis hed in the periodicals of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, the Assembly of Represen tatives, and the Assembly of Information, From all these, we tried to interpret the historical development of the relationship between the religious education and politics in Turkey in 1920-1990, and to find out the reasons caused the religious education to become a political problem. It became clear that the articles of the Constitution and the relevant discussions on the code of laws proved the fast that the organic and prevalent systems of religious education in Turkey had no stable legal and political bases, again, the science of religious education and the demands of religious education by people were not effective in the establishment of the re ligious institutions, and in the determination of their duties and aims, and in the function of these institutions. According to the results of this study, the demandas of religios education, as a constitutio nal right, could not be fulfilled by administrative means. The policy of ideological secularism that was put into practice by the regime of One Party is the main cause of this problem.