In his English article "Obedience or Resistance: The Perception of Muslim Time as a Response to Authoritarian Turkish Modernization", İsmail Çağlar overturns the common belief that the ulema and Sufi groups remained silent and passive in the face of the modernization experience and argues that these groups, on the contrary, developed a non-modern opposition. Religion, as one of the areas in which the transformative capacity of modernity has been most involved in Turkey, is reopened to discussion through the agency of ulema and Sufi groups against the modernizing reforms of the single-party period.
Görem Bora Zencirkıran, in her article titled "The Transformation of the Concept of Property in the West", examines the concept of property, which intersects with the fields of politics, law, and morality, through the philosophical texts in which the concept is used in the transition from feudalism to capitalism. The article argues that the concept of property is not a complete break from the old understanding, but a continuity, thanks to the methodology of conceptual history studies that allows the construction of a narrative about the concept itself through the contexts in which it is used. At the same time, the article also questions the role of the transformation of the concept of property in the transition from virtue to the paradigm of rights and freedom.
In his article "Foundation Issues in the Late Ottoman Period through the Eyes of Elmalılı Muhammed Hamdi Yazır", Hamdi Çilingir examines the criticisms of the foundation institution, which has shown a serious loss of prestige and power since the 19th century, in line with the analysis of one of the most important scholars of the period, Elmalılı Hamdi Yazır. The study, which evaluates the weakening of foundations in line with moral-economic criticisms and criticisms of the gradual gathering of foundations under a single roof (Nezâreti Evkâf-ı Hümâyun) under the control of the state, also allows us to make current inferences about foundations today due to the experience it is based on.
Another article in English is titled "The Reality and Fiction of Rukiye Hanım in the Context of Turkish-Malay Relations (1864-1904)" by Mehmet Özay and Ekrem Saltık. The article, which draws attention to how a historical reality about Turkey-Malaysia relations is constructed through the perception created around the identity of Ms. Rukiye, not only sheds light on the mystery of Ms. Rukiye through its theoretical framework based on Anderson's concept of "invented memory" and primary sources as well as interviews with the living relatives of Ms. Rukiye and comparative reading of documents on the subject in different languages but also offers a rich and detailed research on the subject.
In his article "Nusayris/Arab Alevis Between Change and Taqiyya", Özcan Güngör focuses on Nusayrism, which has been marginalized in the shadow of political divisions and sectarian differentiation. It is an important historical, theological, and anthropological text that will set an example by trying to evaluate the Nusayris, who are referred to and defined by different identity groups for some conjunctural, political, ideological, or theo-strategic reasons, with their unique religious, ethnic, social and cultural existence.
The last article of the journal is Edip Asaf Bekaroğlu's "Post-Laic Turkey: AK Party Governments and the Revised Secularism Contract" by Edip Asaf Bekaroğlu. Bekaroğlu argues that the pragmatic contract of secularism, which lasted until 2002, was updated with the AK Party rule, and therefore, contrary to expectations, contrary to what was expected in this period, there was continuity in religion-state relations. It is argued that secularism was relaxed in terms of the headscarf and binding amendments on İmam Hatip High Schools, but relations with the Presidency of Religious Affairs, Alevis, and non-Muslims were maintained similarly to the previous period. In the article, you will find the details of the claim that with the AK Party government, there has been a transition from authoritarian exclusionary secularism to a more neutral and passive post-secular era.
In addition to original articles in the field, the Journal of Humanities and Society also includes articles and book reviews to enable academic exchange, cumulative knowledge accumulation and a common academic environment that speaks to each other. For this purpose, the 9th issue of the journal includes 12 book reviews from the social sciences, humanities and religious sciences.
