Pro-violence Islamist Populism: Militarism, Glorification of Martyrdom and Jihadism

Abstract

This chapter discusses the profanation of Islam’s most sublime values through Diyanet sermons, namely by the directorate’s constant glorification of martyrdom and jihadism. Diyanet, as the leading religious legitimizer of the AKP government, has made every political and social issue available a security and existential problem, especially against Islam and ummah. Thus, the chapter evaluates its sermons’ approaches to the notion of martyrdom within the framework of the apparent pro-violence attitude of the AKP. This is in tune with AKP’s understanding of the state, which became increasingly militarized after the mysterious July 15 coup d’état attempt. The AKP constructed security the number one issue in Turkey when they cancelled the Kurdish opening and turned Kurdish majority regions into war zones. Diyanet’s job, during this period, was to convince the public that a new war of liberation is being waged, this time against Turkey’s Kurdish enemies. As Turkey’s military presence and activities in different regions and countries (including Iraq, Syria, Qatar, Cyprus, Somalia, Sudan, Azerbaijan, and Libya) increase, Diyanet introduces the AKP’s military adventures as a matter of survival, not only for the Turkish nation but also for the entire ummah. For example, when Erdoğan stated that the martyrs’ hill should not be left empty, Diyanet responded by weaving his necropholic notion into sermons. This chapter analyzes also the sermon Ali Erbaş, the current president of the Diyanet, gave in the Hagia Sophia, when it was reconverted into a mosque. Erbaş held a sword aloft while giving a sermon, as if he were a religious figure during the Golden Age of the Ottoman Empire. The chapter describes the ‘new Turkey’ being constructed by the AKP and assisted by Diyanet, in which martyrdom becomes a key virtue. The most striking point in the sermons which promote the AKP’s concept of martyrdom is associated with the traditional ‘sherbet’ (sweet drink), and presents all kinds of deaths (mining accident, terrorist attack, July 15 coup, Northern Syria operations,) as a form of martyrdom. Diyanet, by sending khatms to the martyrs, reciting the Surah Fath at the beginning of the military operation in Northern Syria, and by celebrating the 15th of July every year with many religious and national rituals, associates all kinds of domestic activities or developments (even economic crises) with religious terminologies like jihad, martyrdom and veteranism (gazilik). In doing so, it obliterates all differences between these sacred concepts and blind violence.