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Is Turkey Headed for Sharia Rule?

Mustafa Akyol argues that even if Turkey's Islamists have a "hidden agenda" of imposing sharia or Islamic law, they don't have much chance because of societal trends.
Seagulls fly over Golden Horn as the sun sets over the Ottoman-era Suleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul November 26, 2012. Tayyip Erdogan has described his third term as Turkish prime minister as that of a "master", borrowing from the celebrated Ottoman architect Sinan and the last stage of his storied career after apprenticeship and graduation. Now, entering a second decade at the helm of a country revelling in its regional might, Erdogan wants to leave his own mark on the cityscape with what will be Turkey's bi

One of the most toxic words in Turkey’s never-ending political wars is “sharia.” The word, which stands for “Islamic law,” has been a constant fear factor in the secularist narrative. Accordingly, the country’s “Islamists,” such as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the incumbent AKP (Justice and Development Party), are determined to introduce sharia to a Turkey whose laws have been resolutely secular since the 1920s. They will, sooner or later, make Turkey “another Iran.”

In return, both the AKP and other “Islamists” parties in Turkey — including even the marginal Felicity Party, which uses a more explicitly Islamist rhetoric than the AKP — have always denied this accusation. They have, in fact, often taken great pains to explain that they do not oppose the secular state, but only ask for a more religion-friendly secularism, which will, for example, tolerate Islamic headscarves in public spaces. Most secularists, however, refuse to believe in these reassurances. They argue instead that the "Islamists” are doing nothing but taqiyyah, an Islamic concept which implies a strategic denial of a hidden agenda.

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