Abstract:

Turkey is a unique country in Muslim world with the practice of laicism it has implemented. However, the practices of laicism institutionalized in Turkey do not seem to be much likely those in Western societies where can be seen as the native land of these practices. The most essential point that makes Turkish laicism an exception is its preference as a goal to eliminate religion from social life entirely, indeed, a mission which does not have to be undertaken by a laic state. While making it, Turkey has been in various contradictory situations. On the one hand, while with the Treaty of Lausanne having defined the identity of country by religion, Turkey experienced a foundation period in which religion is near the determining factor and operated official religious organization that kept the institution of religion under control at the hands of the state, on the other hand the influence of religion among society was tried to be damped with a series of revolutions that had continued up to 1937. In Turkey, in spite of all oppressive practices of laicism of the state, an eclectic practice of laicism has always been effective in which state has had the authority to limit and orient religion without a thought to relinquish over religious issues wholly. In this paper, while it is focused on some principal elements that make Turkish Laicism, in its processes of development, an exception relative to all other examples in the world, it will be attempted to make a deconstruction of Turkish Laicism doctrine.

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