Abstract
This chapter contains a description and analysis of religious education in Turkey in historical perspective. It covers the first modernizing reforms of the nineteenth century, which form the background to the more deep-going educational reforms of the republican period. As a result of a secularization program initiated from above with highly authoritarian means, religious education almost came to a stop during the inter-war period. The reaction to this hostile attitude toward religion on part of the Kemalist leadership made itself heard in the first free elections in 1950, which brought the more liberal Democratic Party to power.
Religious education has continued to be a very sensitive issue in contemporary Turkish politics. It was on the question of the rising interest in Imam Hatip schools that the government led by the pro-Islamic leader Necmettin Erbakan was forced from power in 1997. These and other issues (e.g., Qur’ān courses, obligatory religious education in primary and secondary schools) are analyzed in the light of various recent statistical data.
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Özdalga, E. (2017). Islamic Education in Turkey. In: Daun, H., Arjmand, R. (eds) Handbook of Islamic Education. International Handbooks of Religion and Education, vol 7. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53620-0_44-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53620-0_44-1
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