Özet:

In this article, the functional role of modern territorial borders which emerges as a nation state phenomenon in the project of nation-building is discussed from a sociological approach. From the first quarter of twentieth century, with the emergence of nation-states in Islamic World, especially in the Middle East, the national-“territorial identities” have substituted with the concept of “ummah “which has a religious social imagination and a sense of belonging, and, these identities were consolidated via borders. In this process, the borders, both as hard and impassable barriers and as discourse and symbols, have become the functional instrument for nation-states. So, they have undertaken the role in concretising the ethnic and secular communities. However, with the weakening of the nation-state system in our days, it can be argued that the borders function mostly as bridges. Thus, it is also possible to say that this flexibility in the structure of the borders enables the emergence of a transnational Muslim identity.

Anahtar Kelimeler: