A Turkish Muslim Between Islamism and Turkish Nationalism: Seyyid Ahmet Arvasi [1932–88

Abstract

Notwithstanding his enormous influence on the grassroots of the Turkish nationalist movement in its Islamic turn in the 1970s, Seyyid Ahmet Arvasi, a staunch nationalist and a pious Muslim at the same time, has remained an understudied intellectual. His oeuvre is left largely unexplored. He is either too simply associated with Türk-İslam Sentezi [Turkish-Islamic Synthesis] or treated as if the sole outcome of his intellectual labor was his three-volume Türk-İslam Ülküsü [Turkish-Islamic Ideal]. This article seeks to remedy this situation by studying critically his views on the particular issue of Turkish nationalism and Islam nexus based on his writings in their entirety.