Salafi Thought in Turkish Public Discourse since 1980

Turkey has been absent from the growing literature on the phenomenon of transnational Salafism.
A tendency among Middle East specialists to focus on Arab regions and in Turkey on the Islamist
movement and its long struggle with the Kemalist establishment has perpetuated the notion of
Turkey as a category apart. This article argues that, on the contrary, Salafism is a fringe strand of
Turkish Islam that began to evolve in the context of the state’s effort in the 1980s to recalibrate
religion as a complement to nationalism. Salafism became a topic of discussion in media and
scholarly writing in Turkish religious studies faculties, while self-styled Salafi preachers trained in
Saudi Arabia found a niche through publishing houses. These publishers facilitated the translation
into Turkish of Arabic texts by important Saudi religious scholars in an effort to change the
discursive landscape of Islam in Turkey. I show that contra assumptions of a rich Sufi tradition
acting as a block against modern Salafi ideas, Salafism managed to gain a foothold in Turkey,
facilitated in part by the republic’s experience of secular materialism.