Title: From Islamic Radicalism to Islamic Capitalism: The Promises and Predicaments of Turkish-Islamic Entrepreneurship in a Capitalist System (The Case of İGİAD)
Abstract: AbstractThe rise of Turkish Islamic capitalism, and with it an Islamic bourgeoisie and the accompanying lifestyle has profound implications for the Muslim world, since the Turkish Muslims have been backed by a relatively successful democratic and liberal system that has allowed them to integrate more easily into the global system. Focusing mainly on the members of the Islamic-oriented Association of Economic Entrepreneurship and Business Ethics (İGİAD), the aim of this article is to demonstrate the inherent (in)compatibility and contradictions between Islam and capitalism in contemporary Turkey, and by extension in the Muslim world. From the start, for the Turkish Muslim bourgeoisie, the burning questions were 'how to earn' and, more importantly, 'how to consume' within a capitalist system while still not transgressing Islamic boundaries. In order to overcome these challenges, the article argues that, rather than creating an 'alternative Islamic economic system', Islamic actors have reduced – in some cases, even eliminated – this discursive and ideological tension between Islam and capitalism by (a) trying to introduce Islamic morality into capitalism and (b) redefining both Islam and capitalism. Through these mechanisms they have also broadened and deepened Turkish modernity. Notes1. Interview with Sükrü Alkan, 15 June 2010.2. A. Hanieh, Capitalism and Class in the Gulf Arab States (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011).3. For some examples see M. Heper and Ş. Toktaş, 'Islam, Modernity and Democracy in Contemporary Turkey: The Case of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan', The Muslim World, Vol.93, No.2 (April 2003), pp.157–85; E. Özbudun and W. Hale, Islamism, Democracy and Liberalism in Turkey: The Case of the AKP (London: Routledge, 2009); İ. Dağı, 'Turkey's AKP in Power', Journal of Democracy, Vol.19, No.3 (July 2008), pp.25–30; N. Göle and A. Ludwig, Islam in Public (Istanbul: İstanbul Bilgi Üniversitesi, 2006); J. White, Islamist Mobilization in Turkey: A Study in Vernacular Politics (Washington, DC: University of Washington Press, 2002); H. Yavuz, Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2010); H. Yavuz, Islamic Political Identity in Turkey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); T. Kuran, The Long Divergence: How Islamic Law Held Back the Middle East (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011); Z. Öniş, The Emergence of a New Turkey: Democracy and the AK Party (Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press, 2006). For a general discussion on Islam and Capitalism, see C. Tripp, Islam and the Moral Economy: The Challenge to Capitalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), and M. Çizakça, Islamic Capitalism and Finance: Origins, Evolution and the Future (Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2011).4. As Hakan Yavuz defines 'opportunity spaces' as mechanisms that include independent newspapers, periodicals, radio stations, TV channels along with financial institutions, private education facilities, Islamic tesettur hotels as well as consumption, social interactions shared meanings and associational life. See his Islamic Activism: A Social Movement Theory Approach, p.272.5. D. Bilefsky, 'A Fashion Magazine Un-shy About Baring a Bit of Piety', New York Times, 29 March 2012.6. For a successful implementation of the moderation theory in the Middle Eastern context, see G. Murat Tezcür, Muslim Reformers in Iran and Turkey: The Paradox of Moderation (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2010).7. Interview with Erol Yarar, 20 July 2009.8. V. Nasr, Forces of Fortune: The Rise of the New Muslim Middle Class and What It Will Mean for our World (New York: Free Press, 2009).9. A. Ökten, 'Post-Fordist Work, Political Islam and Women in Turkey', Middle East Economics, No.4 (2001), pp.269–88.10. A. Buğra, State and Business in Modern Turkey: A Comparative Study (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1994), p.25.11. A. Buğra, 'Class, Culture, and State: An Analysis of Interest Representation by Two Turkish Business Associations', International Journal of Middle East Studies, Vol.30, No.4 (1998), pp.521–39.12. See the MÜSİAD website: http://www.musiad.org.tr/detayArYay.aspx?id = 157 (accessed 26 March 2012).13. Ş. Özdemir, MÜSİAD: Anadolu Sermayesinin Dönüşümü ve Türk Modernleşmesinin Derinleşmesi (Ankara: Vadi Yayinlari, 2006), pp.243–55.14. Interview with Orhan Sağlam, 24 Aug. 2010.15. AGU Report (Istanbul: İGİAD Publications, 2008).16. The organization is keen on preparing the next generation for the business world. N. Erdogmus, Aile Işletmeleri: Yönetim Devri ve İkinci KuşağınYetiştirilmesi (Istanbul: İGİAD, 2008).17. According to a well-established Islamic tradition, if a country is considered 'daru'l-harb', this country is an un-Islamic one, and a Muslim is not supposed to go the Friday prayers, until the country becomes Islamic.18. Interview with Sema Geçimli, 4 Jan. 2011.19. Interview with Alkan.20. Although there are some debates about the authenticity of this Prophetic tradition, or hadith, those debates are beyond the scope of this chapter. What is important is the fact that the hadith is widely known and quoted by many Muslims – including wealthy ones.21. A. Rauf, Economics of an Islamic Economy (Leiden: Boston, 2010).22. Interview with Alkan,23. Interview with Sağlam.24. See İGİAD website, http://www.igiad.com/?lang = tr&s = 329&ss = 332.25. Z. Güler, 40 Hadiste İş ve Ticaret Ahlakı (Istanbul: İGİAD, 2010), p.134.26. An interview with Mustafa Dereci, 10 July 2010.27. Since having a High Fatwa Board is prohibited by law in Turkey, many Islamic financial and business institutions and organizations have formed 'advisory boards' to ask for fatwas in economic matters.28. H. Karaman, 'Enflasyon ve Faiz' [Inflation and Interest], Yeni Şafak, 10 Sept. 2010.29. See his lectures on economic issues such as riba, banking, and credit loans on his own website, http://www.mustafaislamoglu.com/651_Faiz.html (accessed on 1 April 2012).30. Interview with Alkan.31. Intereview with Nihat A., who is a MÜSİAD member, 20 Dec. 2010.32. For example, when he is explaining the model for the MÜSİAD Fair (held 6–10 Oct. 2010), the General Manager of MÜSİAD, Ömer Cihad Vardan, stated that the Fair was modelled after the Medina Market.33. B. Gokarisel and A. Secor, 'New Transnational Geographies of Islamism, Capitalism and Subjectivity: The Veiling Fashion Industry in Turkey', in J. Pink (ed.), Muslim Societies in the Age of Consumption (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009), pp.23–53.34. U. Chapra, Islam and Economic Challenge (Leicester: Islamic Foundation, 1992).35. Interview with Osman A., who is a MÜSİAD member, 2 Jan. 2011.36. Interview with Hüseyin D., 30 Dec. 2010.37. Interview with Mustafa Y., 7 Jan. 2011.38. Interview with Ali G., 5 Jan. 2011.39. Thorstein Veblen uses the term to depict the behavioural characteristic of the nouveau riche, a class emerging in the nineteenth century as a result of the accumulation of wealth during the Second Industrial Revolution. See T. Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class (London: Penguin Books, 1994).40. The Quran contains several verses about the israf. For instance: 'Children of Adam take your adornment at every place of prayer. Eat and drink, and do not waste. He does not love the wasteful'; 'We have destroyed the wasteful' (Enbiya 9). Still however, the definition of israf differs from scholar to scholar.41. S. Zaim, Ekonomik Hayatta Müslüman Insanin Tutum ve Davranışları (Istanbul: MÜSİAD Yayinlari, 1994), p.106.42. Interview with Ömer O., 21 May 2010.43. Interview with Hüseyin A., 17 Dec. 2010.44. Interview with Alkan.45. Interview with Mehmet Y., 26 Dec. 2010.46. Interview with Mehmet C., 20 July 2010.47. Gokarisel and Secor, 'New Transnational Geographies of Islamism, Capitalism and Subjectivity', pp. 23–53.48. Bilefsky, 'A Fashion Magazine Unshy About Baring a Bit of Piety'.49. Cihan Tugal cites the story of Yasin as a sample case to show the transformation from 'Milli Görüş' ideas of anti-westernism and anti-capitalism to new politics. See his, Passive Revolution: Absorbing the Islamic Challenge to Capitalism (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009), p.72.50. Özdemir, MÜSİAD, p.76.51. Interview with Davud Şanver, 12 Aug. 2010.52. Hamit Y., 22 Dec. 2010.53. Interview with Alkan.54. Interview with Yarar.55. Interview with Şanver.56. Interview with Halim Ö., 27 Dec. 2010.57. Interview with Mehmet K., 3 Jan. 2011.58. Interview with Şanver.59. Özdemir, MÜSİAD, Introduction.60. Interview with Şanver.61. Interview with Orhan Sağlam, 24 Aug. 2010.