• How Secular was Turkish Secularism? Religious Symbolism and Discourse in the Early 1920s

Turkish secularism has usually been understood to be an assertive, ‘hard’ version of secularism following the French laicism of the late-19^th and early 20^th centuries. However, the French model does not fully explain certain aspects of Turkish secularization experienced during much of the Ottoman-Turkish modernization beginning from the late-18^th century. In the early 1920s, too, secularization in Turkey was based more on the accommodation of religion and (secular) politics than a direct confrontation between the two, implying a different path to modernity. This paper tries to demonstrate this argument in the case of the abolition of the Caliphate, which is one of the most significant reforms in Turkish modernization. The paper locates it within the context of a fierce political struggle between Islamists and secularists analyzing the speeches and writings of their leading figures, particularly those of the latter group, such as Kemal Atatürk, Seyyid Bey, and Ziya Gökalp. It thus aims to demonstrate, and to discuss the main reasons for, the significance of religious symbolism and discourse even for the secularist elites, who tried to transform Turkey into a modern, secular nation-state by dominating religion during the early 1920s.