Contemporary rationalist Islam in Turkey: The religious opposition to Sunni Revival

Dikici, Erdem

Abstract

Contemporary Rationalist Islam in Turkey is an important academic contribution, providing significant insights into the scale and depth of scholarship on critical Islamic thought in contemporary Turkey, which is often overlooked by global scholarship. Gökhan Bacık demonstrates that a group of religious scholars in Turkey have been proactively calling for ‘a new interpretation of Islam based on the primacy and supremacy of reason in any approach to Islamic texts, including Quran’ (2). He calls these scholars rationalists. The rationalists, he argues, do not simply confront traditional Islamic interpretations but also offer an alternative methodology for re-interpreting Islamic law, theology and history by incorporating social science methodology. In doing so, they offer a powerful criticism of Turkey’s official Islam (i.e. Sunnism).

• Journal Article Type: Book Review
• Acceptance Date: Jun 21, 2024
• Online Publication Date: Nov 4, 2024
• Publication Date: 2024
• Deposit Date: Jun 24, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: May 5, 2026
• Journal: Islam and Christian–Muslim Relations
• Print ISSN: 0959-6410
• Electronic ISSN: 1469-9311
• Publisher: Taylor & Francis (Routledge)
• Peer Reviewed: Not Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 35
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 309-311
• Item Discussed: Contemporary Rationalist Islam in Turkey: The Religious Opposition to Sunni Revival, by Gökhan Bacık, London, I.B. Tauris, 2023, 240 pp., £28.99 (paperback), ISBN 978-0-7556-3678-5
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/09596410.2024.2421123
• Keywords: islam in Turkey, rationalist Islam, critical islamic thinking
• Public URL: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/12081519