Lale’s un/veiling trajectory: shifting contours of pious citizenship in contemporary Turkey

ABSTRACT

Based on long-term fieldwork among members of the formerly influential Sunni Muslim Hizmet community in Istanbul in 2015, this contribution traces the ‘un/veiling trajectory’ of a woman called Lale, referring to her shifting engagement with the headscarf over a period of almost three decades. Rather than exemplifying a fragmented religiosity, these shifts are understood as articulations of Lale’s aspiration to align her Islamic commitment with the secular boundary for public religiosity, which is defined – and frequently redefined – by the Turkish state. Drawing on the notion of ‘pious citizenship’, Lale’s un/veiling trajectory constitutes the ethnographic ground for unravelling how, in Turkey, the secular boundary for public religiosity has reshaped Islamic ethical practice in three different ways: through state-imposed restrictions, as citizenly self-discipline, and by animating contestation between different religious Muslim groups. The contribution thus argues that Lale’s shifting engagement with the headscarf articulates a mode of Islamic commitment that is intimately, yet uneasily, intertwined with secular discourses, aesthetics, and sensitivities. In so doing, it brings forth an interplay between Islam and secularism that is much more intricate than the image of a binary opposition allows.

KEYWORDS:

• Islam
• citizenship
• secularism
• un/veiling
• Turkey
• Hizmet

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. In this contribution, all biographical details have been altered to ensure full anonymity of interlocutors without distorting scholarly meaning. Due to the political sensitivity of the topic, written informed consent was not obtained. All interlocutors have given verbal informed consent, according to the ethics requirements at Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen, at the time of research. The contribution’s main protagonist, ‘Lale’, read and commented on an earlier draft of the contribution. The contribution is based on fieldwork carried out in both Turkish and English.

2. Hizmet is also often referred to as the Gülen movement in English-language literature.

3. In Turkey, this secular state power is forcefully represented by the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığı, Diyanet), a state institution vested with the authority to define where and how Turkish citizens ought to practice Islam (Gözaydın 2008).

4. For other single-person ethnographies, see Crapanzano 1980; Biehl 2005.

5. Sayyid Qutb helped form the Muslim brotherhood in Egypt and Abul A’la Maududi was the founder of the Jamaat-e-Islami in India, two of the largest and most influential Islamic revivalist movements.

6. In the late 1990s the Turkish military was subjected to extensive purges to cleanse the institution from people with Islamist sympathies.

7. Over the years, Lale and I have maintained an ongoing conversation about our respective research engagements and I appreciate her not only as an interlocutor, but also, and perhaps first and foremost, as an intellectual peer and a colleague. Throughout my PhD fieldwork and the subsequent writing process, Lale commented generously on my project. I believe Lale’s inputs have only been of benefit to my work, not least because, although Lale was a Hizmet activist, her academic habitus left her with a firm insistence that, in the end, the analysis was mine to make.

Additional information

Funding

This contribution is based on research generously funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark.

Notes on contributors

Ida Hartmann

Ida Hartmann is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Anthropology, University of Copenhagen. Her research focuses on Islamic commitment, citizenly engagement, and political contestation in contemporary Turkey and among Turkish migrant communities in Europe.