Religious literature and the transformation of religious identity in Turkey: A study of pious women writers

In this work the concept of identity is examined through the framework of identity construction and the concepts of differentiation, individualism, and tenuousness, and the presence of Islamic identity is shown in the novels of contemporary pious women writers. In the work, the various ideas present in Islamism are explained and the contributions of pious women writers who are members of this movement and the concrete results of Islamic identity construction are demonstrated. This work is an interdisciplinary study which examines the works of Islamist intellectuals and literary works to identity the specific formations, groups, or actors by menas of which an identity must be formed.This study examines the novels published by pious women writers to consider the social and political problems facing pious and Islamist individuals from the 1970s on; character analyses and content analyses are presented on the basis of evidence taken from the novels. The thoughts and behavior of characters in the novels is analyzed through the framework of specific themes.The authors of the novels under consideration present a series of characteristics for the protagonists which they desire or believe to be found in Islamist agents and through this they are making an effort to present the reader with a concrete Islamist identity. Writers such as Yıldız Ramazanoğlu, Cihan Aktaş, Fatma Karabıyık Barbarosoğlu, and Sibel Eraslan, who were all born between 1958 and 1967, are university graduates and professionals. This study limits itself to the novels published by the aforementioned writers during the period 1997?2007.This work shows that Islamist thought is not a monolith: the women writers who are trying to overcome this fragmentation by transforming religious identity into an individual identity through the framework of political liberalism are striving at the same time for social justice, equality for themselves and for the women whom they represent with men and with laicists, or that they can work together towards common goals even if they do not share the same political values.