Turkey’s powerful president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is often seen as the leader of Turkey’s Islamist movement. This is not a misguided view, given the strongly Islamist rhetoric Erdogan uses and the support he receives from a large segment of Turkey’s religious conservatives. The Islamist scene, however, has become a bit more complicated as of late, with “Erdoganism” morphing into an ideology unto itself, disillusioning veterans of Turkey’s Islamist movement.

The term “Islamism” typically refers to political movements or parties that aim to Islamize society through the instruments of the state. In this sense, Islamism is inherently authoritarian, especially when it tries to impose Islamic law (Sharia) on people who are opposed to it. Islamist parties, however, are not necessarily hierarchical in their structure and are often devoid of charismatic “supreme leaders” who dictate terms and conditions to members. For example, according to one report, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt views itself “not as a political party directed by a single chairman, but as a cohesive 'society' that operates on the basis of internal consultation.”

In Turkey, the Justice and Development Party (AKP) was established in 2001 as an organization promising “internal consultation,” and it even envisioned systemic turnover of political elites through a self-imposed parliamentary limit of three terms. Gradually, however, it turned into a “political party directed by a single chairman” — Erdogan. The party’s term limit provision has remained valid and applicable to everyone — that is, everyone except Erdogan. Because Erdogan is now formally a “nonpartisan” president, the AKP’s by-laws conveniently do not apply to him, but he still controls the party.

Moreover, as of late, pro-Erdogan propaganda, to which almost half the Turkish media is now fully devoted, has taken the shape of a cult of personality, which is also not a typical Islamist phenomenon. A recent book, “Recep Tayyip Erdogan: The Sun of the Age,” proudly refers to him as “an idol for our youth,” which would sound bizarre, if not heretical, to the average Islamist. In 2011, an AKP deputy declared, “Even touching Erdogan is a form of worship,” and in 2014 another AKP deputy proclaimed that Erdogan “carries all the attributes of Allah in himself.” Such views, heretical from a traditional Islamic perspective, were criticized and ridiculed by Erdogan’s opponents, but he conspicuously said nothing.