Abstract:

Referring the Turks that migrated Europe’s several countries as “temporary workers” in 1960, it is obvious that neither Turkey nor receiving countries had no policy about migration with the thought that they would “come back”. Since late 1970s, the receiving countries’ point of view has changed in the way that Turks wouldn’t be temporary but permanent. So they developed some strategies and policies such as social security laws, repentance law for illegal or tourist-worker, family reunification law, foreigner laws etc. The purpose of these new laws was to take the immigration wave under control and supporting immigrant integration in Europe. Turkey as an emigration country, during those days, started to take some serious steps about preventing its own citizens from assimilation and helping them to integrate successfully. During the migration process, from the early 1960s to the middle of 1980s, there was no official religious services for Turkish immigrants living in Europe. For 20 years or about, those people had been destined to be on their own in that period of time. Within that period also religious services had been carried out mostly with the hand of some religious groups, communities and movements in Turkey. In this paper, Turkey-connected religious groups and communities’ influence on the European Turkish immigrants’ daily religious life will be evaluated with a macro-sociological point of view.

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