The portrait of an Alla Franca Shaykh: sufism, modernity, and class in Turkey
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Date
2024-09-12
Authors
Burak-Adli, Feyza
Version
OA Version
Citation
Burak-Adli F. The Portrait of an Alla Franca Shaykh: Sufism, Modernity, and Class in Turkey. International Journal of Middle East Studies. Published online 2024:1-20. doi:10.1017/S0020743824000631
Abstract
This paper illustrates the heterogeneity of Islamic publics in early 20th-century Turkey by examining the life and thought of Ken'an Rifai, a Sufi shaykh and high-ranking bureaucrat in the Ottoman Ministry of Education. It argues that Shaykh Rifai endorsed state secularization reforms on religious grounds and shows how he reformulated Sufi Islam by imbricating Sufi ethics with other social imaginaries of the time through the lens of an upper-class bureaucrat. This paper contributes to Turkish studies by highlighting the previously overlooked role of elite Islamic groups who collaborated with the early republic. It also challenges the dominant paradigm of a binary opposition between the secular ruling elite and pious masses. Additionally, this paper offers insight into broader anthropological and historical Islamic studies by demonstrating the diverse ways Sufi traditions adapted to modern governance.
Description
License
© The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited. This article has been published under a Read & Publish Transformative Open Access (OA) Agreement with CUP.