Can Turkey Resist Islamification?
More than a million Turks recently marched to support Ataturk’s secular model for Turkey’s government. Are they enough to resist the widespread support for Islamification within Turkey?
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I hate to break it to anyone who doesn’t know, but Turkey has been “Islamified” for a long time. Just because they have a government that appears secular, and often acts secular, and selectively enforce Sharia Law by proxy, doesn’t mean their overall religious culture isn’t Islamic.
I do, however, applaud them for their patriotism in defending their chosen form of government.
Lawrence on May 22, 2007 at 9:33 AM
More than a million Turks recently marched to support Ataturk’s secular model for Turkey’s government. Are they enough to resist the widespread support for Islamification within Turkey?
Answer: Pass the cranberry sauce….
soulsirkus on May 22, 2007 at 10:32 AM
The problem is with the way Turkey’s parliment is set up. There are tons of secular parties, which break up the secular vote. So you get a situation where even though AKP represents a minority view, they have majority status in government.
The trick is getting a coalition secular party formed to counter AKP.
Iblis on May 22, 2007 at 10:37 AM
I’m all for your message here. Isn’t this method, though, tantamount to saying that Islam as presented in its scriptures is incorrect? Assuming that the Muslim Allah is all-knowing, all-powerful, all-present as the Christian and Jewish God is believed to be, wouldn’t this requirement render the religion ultimately obsolete? After all, we’ve set up here a situation where we’re saying, “Allah is correct, but Allah is wrong here.” As such, I don’t see how the Turkish model is a solution that any seriously believing Muslim can accept long-term.
Modern Christians, my denomination most definitely included, get around “annoying” passages in the Bible by saying that they were meant for another time and are now outdated. Passages of women having to be silent in church, having to have their heads covered, their hair unbraided, etc. come to mind. The homosexual community tries this same argument of outdatedness with much less logical success (it’s God speaking in the Law, not Paul writing a gospel, for instance), but that community has had a surprising amount of practical success changing minds against passages decrying their behavior and gaining mainstream acceptance, too.
Can the Islamic faith really try the same strategy successfully on itself? As intolerance of Islamic submission to others seems a key tenet of the writings, I don’t see how even that tactic that I’ve outlined will work. If anything, I think it would make our already bad problem worse as it would encourage more Islamic fundamentalism. What will work?
flutejpl on May 22, 2007 at 10:54 AM
what is Spencer’s religion? atheist, christian, jewish? just curious
jp on May 22, 2007 at 11:11 AM
The Battle for Turkey!
Drtuddle on May 22, 2007 at 12:15 PM
That was outstanding, Robert. Thank you.
gatewaypundit on May 22, 2007 at 3:31 PM
The modern Turkish women there will never be put back in veils. They’ll fight to the death or leave/escape the country first.
Thank you, Robert.
Webutante
Webutante on May 22, 2007 at 7:59 PM
jp-
here’s where you can find out:
Islam can be “reformed”, but it’ll mean a lot of dead fanatics who now insist that it cannot.
Anything can be done by people with good sense and a strong will.
As the history of Judeo-Christianity demonstrates.
Savonarola was killed.
All of the Muslim versions of this kind of theocratic fanatic need the same treatment.
The Holy Dirt Nap.
profitsbeard on May 22, 2007 at 10:34 PM
Good points.
I think it’s also helpful to understand that there are three types of law in the Old Testament: moral law, ceremonial law, and civil law. The ceremonial and civil law ended with the death and resurrection of Messiah. The moral law still remains.
On issues like a head-covering for a women one must look to the heart intent of that tradition, i.e. a woman is under the protection and spirtitual authority of her father or her husband. The issue is not the covering per se but what it symbolized.
Mojave Mark on May 22, 2007 at 11:47 PM
Robert: Did you catch the connection between an attempt to undermine the secular Turkish military by a pro-Islamist NGO, TESEV (Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation), funded by George Soros? It was in MEMRI October, 2006.
ahem on May 23, 2007 at 12:47 AM
Great Vent Robert Spencer!
I am still at a loss to understand how a state can be Islamic and not be governed by Islamic law. Democracy is inherently incompatable with Islam due to tenants of faith clearly indicated in their texts.
I would really like to hear in depth discussion by Robert Spencer and others dealing with what constitutes a “moderate” Muslim and how anyone who adheres that faith can be compatable with a democracy, or anyone who does not beleive as they do for that matter.
omegaram on May 23, 2007 at 12:51 AM
Is the Caliphate foretold?
Mystery Babylon - Revelation 17
By looking at the Babylon description in Rev 17 and using the OT Book of Daniel as a key, someone determined from nothing other than history, that the Islamic Caliphate must be the Empire from which the Beast Empire comes.
This is that link
http://www.greatbabylon.com/page3.html
The writer is too verbose for my taste, I’ve restated his view in my own words.
Revelation 17 is the key to identifying the End - Time empire… historically thought to be a Revived Roman Empire (btw: I believed it was to be Rome until this year)
The heads are the leaders of Empires, the mountains are Empires and the kings are kings.
The key to figuring this out is that what is being described is not a CONCURENT collection of empires but instead SUCCESSIVE ones. Also remember that Revelation and Daniel go hand in hand.. and in Daniel all the dreams about empires were about successive empires, even if they comprised the same body.
This is the key. 5 of the empires have already fallen when this was written around 100AD. What qualifies something to be an empire is that it occupied Israel. These 5, in order (with capital city), are
Egypt (Memphis),
Assyria (Nineveh),
Babylon (Babylon),
Media-Persia (Babylon),
Greece (Babylon) [Greece was original seated elsewhere but Alexander eventually set his throne in Babylon then he died, the empire split into 4 , since it wasn’t conquered, its still the same empire. According to Daniel, the offshoot that was significant was the Seleucids, which was the South-East region.. the one that contained Jerusalem]
Each of the empires above did two things… occupied Jerusalem and destroyed the Empire that preceded it.
So those were the 5 that were fallen.
The 1 that “is” , the 6th Empire, was referring to the Empire that was there in the first century AD.. Rome of course.
Then notice it says “the next one has not come yet”
This means there will be a 7th Empire that had not existed up to that point yet.
The mantle must pass from Rome to whatever the 7th Empire is by the same methods that worked for the past Empires. Namely, control of Jerusalem is transferred and then the old Empire is destroyed.
Rome (the 6th empire) has one thing in common with Greece (the 5th empire).. both of them had their capital city moved.
The seat of power for Rome moved from Rome to Constantinople. And it was the Eastern Roman Empire that kept control of Jerusalem.. just as with Greece breaking up into 4 groups, Rome sort of broke up into 2 (the Western empire died) however its still considered the same empire and ruled by 1 leader (not 2.. since the Western empire was no longer “Rome”)
So who is the 7th Empire?
The Islamic Caliphate
The Islamic Caliphate (originally Arab but later Turk) seized control of Jerusalem from New Rome, and nearly 800 years later in the 1400s, destroyed the Roman Empire with the sack of Constantinople.
Eventually the Caliphate moved its capital to that city. Where it remained until World War I.
It lost control of Jerusalem but it was not conquered but instead disintegrated from within when the Arabs revolted with the help of the West and the secular Turks ended the Caliphate by decree.
So the 5 past empires that were: Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Greece, Rome
The one that is: Rome
And the one that has not yet arrived: Islamic Caliphate
The 8th and Final Empire is the Beast Empire of the Anti-Christ
So here he’s saying the ID of the 8th Empire can be determined this way
- The 8th Empire comes from one of the previous 7, BUT NOT THE ONE THAT “IS”. Meaning, The Beast Empire will be one of the past empires but not the Roman Empire.. because that is the one that “is”
No one ever took the throne away from the 7th Empire.. In all the previous transitions , the new empire took over from the old.
No empire took over from the 7th… that means the 8th empire is the 7th empire resurgent…
The Beast Empire is a new Islamic Caliphate risen from the ashes of the one that ended in the 1900s
VinceP1974 on May 23, 2007 at 4:19 AM