The Secular Republic
The Secular Republic
This chapter addresses Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's secularism. If popular expectations were any guide, two paths to global leadership lay wide open to Mustafa Kemal in 1922: he could either capitalize on Ottoman possession of the caliphate in order to seize the mantle of pan-Islamic leadership, or he could set himself up as an anti-imperialist model for Asian and African socialists. However, it was at this juncture that Mustafa Kemal's Turkist, scientistic, and pro-Western leanings became manifest, leading him and the Turkish nation down an uncharted path that combined intense nationalism with an extreme commitment to Western secularism. The popular philosophy of scientism, serving as a deus ex machina, provided the overall framework of this new secularism and shaped Mustafa Kemal's views of Islam.
Keywords: Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, secularism, pan-Islamic leadership, nationalism, scientism, Islam
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