Constructing a High-Society Mosque: The Controversy and Significance of the Sakirin Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey

Abstract

3 Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Vol. XL, No.2, WINTER 2017 Constructing a High-Society Mosque: The Controversy and Significance of the Sakirin Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey Yücel Demirer* This article addresses the unique construction process of the Şakirin Mosque, located near Karacaahmet Cemetery in theAnatolian section of Istanbul, Turkey, and the controversies associated with its construction. Looking beyond form and function, which are known as the principal characteristics of architectural design, this article analyzes the representation of contemporary religious standpoints in Turkey through the Şakirin Mosque’s design and construction process. The mosque was funded by the children of a prominent philanthropist couple and designed by the team of a prominent mosque architects and a female interior designer who has won awards for her work including bars and restaurants. This striking and spacious structure has sparked controversy in Turkey and became known to journalists as “the high society mosque.” Closely reviewing the architectural characteristics of the mosque and discussing the interior designer’s extensive exercise of freedom in her choice of forms and motifs, this essay intends to elaborate the ways in which the design negotiates issues of national and religious identity. In the process of this analysis, the major controversies that influence religious discourses in Turkey come to light. * Yücel Demirer received his Ph.D. from Ohio State University and is a member of Kocaeli Academy for Solidarity in Turkey. His research centers on the intersection of culture and politics. He has published articles and books on political culture, symbolic politics and political aspects of religion. An earlier version of this paper was presented in theAnnual Meeting of theAmericanAcademy of Religion, San Francisco, CA, on November 19th 2011. The author would like to thank Nicole Wilkinson Duran for her helpful and constructive comments that significantly contributed to improving final version of the paper. Email: yuceldemirer@gmail.com 4 . . . Lindsay Jones, prominent architectural historian of worship places, reminds us that a building’s meaning can be categorized as “situational, provisional and non-definitive,” and that, like other artistic works, buildings convey a plurality of meanings.1 However, Jones also assures us that “[a]rchitecture is definitely the most visible and arguably the most powerful means both for expressing and for stimulating religious sensibilities.”2 The varieties of architecture and decoration in places of worship and the side-by-side analysis of objects and styles has occupied a significant position in scholarly research. Scholars interested in the interplay between religion and social change have examined the material and cultural aspect of worship places for a long time. In keeping with this research, the present essay focuses on the case of the Şakirin Mosque from the perspective of material culture and architecture. The mosque forms a noteworthy site for this kind of study for two reasons. First, we will see that the mosque’s design functions to display the social transformation and negotiation between the main social and political divisions in Turkey. Second, by bringing artists, architects, and various other practitioners together, the Şakirin project has functioned as a material bridge in a highly divided context. The Şakirin Mosque symbolizes the negotiations between religious traditions and the laicist sphere in a highly compartmentalized social setting. It further serves as a venue for the invention of a new tradition that would combine conflicting stances together.While bridging different lifestyles throughout the construction process, this project represents tolerance and mutual understanding. The theme of bridging and negotiation is the focal point of analysis. Manifold interactions among various bitterly divided actors and social groups occur within Şakirin’s architecture and decoration. In contrast to some divisive mosque projects in Turkey,3 Şakirin will be discussed as a harmonizing project that may stand as an answer to the growing controversy over mosques in Turkey and as a pragmatic solution in negotiations among opposing social positions. With its religious, aesthetic, and historic importance, this project also paved the way for the purpose-built mosques which correlate the issue of meaning at the personal level. While this study is very much interested in the display of multi-layered meanings of Şakirin for different parties, informal 1 Lindsay Jones, The Hermeneutics of...