Religious Politics Research Articles

Sufism And Religious Politics In Secular Democracy : The Case of Turky

This paper examines the case of secularism in a Muslim country, focusing on Turkey. It seeks to answer the question of why the sufism and politics of religion can flourish in Turkey, a country where secularism is strictly enforced. Since 1924, the Muslim-majority country has established itself as a secular state, which separates religion from state politics. The policy initiated by Mustafa Kemal Atat?rk (also known as Ataturk) represented a rejection of the Islamic caliphate system that had been implemented by the Uthmaniyah dynasty since the 13th century. Ataturk sought to modernize Turkey based on democratic and secular principles. Although secularism has been a long-standing feature of Turkish society, the influence of Islam remains evident in the socio-cultural fabric of the country. Indeed, the passion for Islam has been visible in the political landscape since the early 1990s, particularly in sufism movement and political party. This paper is based on a qualitative study conducted through a literature search, supported by observation of events based on information from the mass media. The result of this study is an important finding about the reality of the dilemma in the implementation of secularism in the Muslim country of Turkey. That is, there is a paradox between the politics of religion and secularism in the Turkish state.

Between Jerusalem and Babylon: Catholic Discourses of Israel and National Identity in Elizabethan and Jacobean England (ca. 1560–1625)

Abstract This article examines how English Catholics imagined Jerusalem and Israel in relation to themselves, their nation and their Church. While English Protestant uses of Jerusalem imagery have been well-studied, their inter-confessional context has received less attention, and yet it was crucial to shaping them. Catholic deployments of Old Testament images and typology were no less sophisticated and significant than Protestant ones; English Catholic texts show how multivalent imagery of Jerusalem and its antithesis, Babylon, could be used both to express and to attempt to resolve tensions between the officially Protestant nation and the “true” Church. Exploring Catholic conceptions of Jerusalem, England and the Church is valuable because it offers insight into the culture that formed English Catholic recusants, missionaries, exiles and politicians, but also because it is important to a properly integrated account of the religious politics of England.

Hagiography of Iconodules’ Saints : Representation of Byzantine Religious Politics

Hagiography of Iconodules’ Saints : Representation of Byzantine Religious Politics

Brendan J. J. Payne. Gin, Jesus, and Jim Crow: Prohibition and the Transformation of Racial and Religious Politics in the South.

Brendan J. J. Payne. <i>Gin, Jesus, and Jim Crow: Prohibition and the Transformation of Racial and Religious Politics in the South</i>.

Gin, Jesus, &amp; Jim Crow: Prohibition and the Transformation of Racial and Religious Politics in the South. By Brendan J. J. Payne. Making the Modern South Series. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2022. xii + 273 pp. $45.00 cloth; $19.95 ebook.

Gin, Jesus, &amp; Jim Crow: Prohibition and the Transformation of Racial and Religious Politics in the South. By Brendan J. J. Payne. Making the Modern South Series. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2022. xii + 273 pp. $45.00 cloth; $19.95 ebook.

:Gin, Jesus, and Jim Crow: Prohibition and the Transformation of Racial and Religious Politics in the South

:<i>Gin, Jesus, and Jim Crow: Prohibition and the Transformation of Racial and Religious Politics in the South</i>

:Accidental Pluralism: America and the Religious Politics of English Expansion, 1497–1662

:<i>Accidental Pluralism: America and the Religious Politics of English Expansion, 1497–1662</i>

Faith and Power: Latino Religious Politics since 1945

Faith and Power: Latino Religious Politics since 1945

Scottish Liturgical Traditions and Religious Politics: From Reformers to Jacobites, 1540–1764 ed. by Allan I. Macminnes, Patricia Barton, and Kieran German (review)

Scottish Liturgical Traditions and Religious Politics: From Reformers to Jacobites, 1540–1764 ed. by Allan I. Macminnes, Patricia Barton, and Kieran German (review)

Ideas, Politics, and The Making of Muslim Democracy: An Historical Trajectory in Indonesia

Debates regarding the compatibility of Islam and democracy have thrived, with a focus on political moderation and post-Islamism to explain changes among Islamist groups. However, there’s been little exploration into the historical evolution of their ideologies and political preferences in religious politics. This study examines the role of ideas and politics within Muslim organizations, political parties, and the state in Indonesia. It emphasizes the mechanisms behind both ideology and political motivations, showing how political Islam adopted pragmatic behaviour before entering democratic politics. The interaction between the ideological renewals of Muslim thinkers in the 1970s and changes in the state’s institutional arrangement under the New Order drove Islamic transformation. Political institutions shape Islamic political ideas and their manifestation, influencing cultural identity, political mobilization, and negotiation of group claims. Muslim leadership acts as agents in defining religious interests based on institutional markers.

The Reception of the Decree Tametsi in Northern Ottoman Europe (1580s–1680s)

Throughout the early modern world of Catholic reform and evangelization, the proclamation and implementation of the Tridentine marriage decree Tametsi was complicated by a series of factors, including local demography, geography, and religious politics. Focusing on the Ottoman-governed regions of Bosnia, Slavonia-Srem, and the Banat (northern Ottoman Europe), this paper analyzes how the local dynamics of these areas conditioned the reception and enforcement of Tametsi between the end of the 16th and the end of the 17th centuries. In the broadest sense, this article aims to demonstrate how various case studies from northern Ottoman Europe can enrich our understanding of the variety of marital customs and their continuous reconfiguration throughout the Early Modern world.

The wreck of the Gloucester revisited

Abstract The wreck of the frigate Gloucester off Norfolk on 6 May 1682 has always figured in histories of the Restoration period; it was taking James, Duke of York (the future James II and VII) to Edinburgh to collect his wife Mary of Modena and his daughter Princess Anne after his years of exile in Scotland. It has long been known that there were royal musicians on board, two of whom were drowned, though interest in the subject has been rekindled by the discovery of the wreck and an exhibition of artefacts from it in Norwich in 2023. Some other historic wrecks have proved to contain musical instruments, including the Mary Rose and several Dutch ships, though the Gloucester is unique in that a musical artefact—a brass trumpet mouthpiece—can be matched to documentary evidence concerning the musicians on board. Court documents concerned with replacing lost instruments and compensating survivors and the families of victims show that those on board included four royal trumpeters and a kettledrummer (Walter Vanbright, who was drowned); a five-man group drawn from the Twenty-Four Violins, led by the composer Thomas Farmer and including Thomas Greeting (who was also drowned); and the oboist, recorder player and bass violinist James Paisible, who had apparently been working in Edinburgh in the Duke of York’s household. Paisible may have been a member of Farmer’s string group, though there is a possibility that he was accompanied by three other French musicians, forming a separate recorder/oboe consort. An anecdote concerning James rescuing the string player Edmund Flower from drowning throws light on the musical and religious politics on board the Gloucester: the earliest version, published in 1730, claimed wrongly that the duke ‘turn’d him out of his band because he would not turn Papist’.

Gin, Jesus, and Jim Crow: Prohibition and the Transformation of Racial and Religious Politics in the South

Gin, Jesus, and Jim Crow: Prohibition and the Transformation of Racial and Religious Politics in the South

Quête des ansāb et quête des ašrāf dans le monde arabe (XVe-XXe siècle)

Abstract One hundred years after Lévi-Provençal’s Les Historiens des Chorfa and almost twenty-five years after Oriente Moderno’s founding issue on sādāt and ašrāf, a new special issue of Oriente Moderno is devoted to the “quest for ansāb”, along with the quest for ašrāf. Our project focuses mainly on Morocco, and on modern and contemporary sources. Firstly, we will take stock of twentieth- and twenty-first-century historiography, with works devoted to Arab genealogy (Zoltàn Szombathy) and “sayyido-sharifology” (Kazuo Morimoto), and to the intersection of the two (Sara Bowen Savant and Helena de Felipe). Modern and contemporary history is still relatively neglected in a field of research favored by medievalists and ethnologists. Our project aims to reflect on the links between genealogical science, the writing of history and the question of ašrāf, at a time of religious politics. imperial politics and the construction of modern states. Focusing on Morocco, this issue adopts a comparative spirit with three studies on Iraq, genealogical literature in Ottoman Egypt and contemporary Mauritania.

Unjust Treatment and Intolerance: The Dynamic of Religious Politics and Christianity in Türkiye

Türkiye was the centre of Christianity until the Ottoman Empire invaded Constantinople in the 15th century. The Ottoman Empire granted rights and protection to the Orthodox Christians, but major conversions to Moslems with political purposes occurred during this period. In 1924, Türkiye became a modern state based on the secularism of Kemal Ataturk and then controlled religious affairs. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has held power since 2003, amended the constitution and strengthened Islamic politics in Türkiye in the last decade, benefiting conservative Muslims. Therefore, this study aimed to elaborate on the impact of religious political dynamics in Türkiye from the Roman Empire to the Erdogan regime on Christianity in the country. The theory of religious politics and a qualitative methodology with a historical comparative approach was adopted. The result showed that the political transformation in Türkiye, from the Ottoman Era and Kemal’s secularism to Erdogan’s Islamism, did not change the political attitude of the Turkish government towards Christianity. Regrettably, Christians continue to experience unpleasant and discriminatory treatment from the government, particularly after the failed 2016 coup, due to the perception that Christians are often associated with the interests of the US and Western countries.

Fertile Seedbed for Planting Habaib’s Religious Political Authority

The Ḥaḍramī people in Indonesia, popularly called ḥabā’ib, are those of Arab descent who have contributed to the history of this nation. Their same origin does not necessarily make this community homogeneous, especially when it comes to Islam and Indonesianness. The vibrant tones that characterize this diversity can even be traced back to the colonial era. One of them is related to the struggle for the influence of h}abā’ib’s religious politics in the public sphere. The recent growth of their authority at the national level has drawn attention and prompted a key inquiry about what infrastructure and superstructure are conducive and supportive for this to occur. A heuristic analysis is conducted to explore the issue. This study reveals that ḥabā’ib’s religious politics have grown in prominence in Indonesia because they have hospitable spaces to grow in accord with the construction of their identity as a social and religious elite group. Meanwhile, this phenomenon is difficult to develop in cultural settings that do not accommodate the expressions of supremacy based on race, ethnicity, or ancestry. The existence of cultural spaces with different inclinations in addressing h}abā’ib’s identity is still constitutionally permitted in Indonesia. Muslims have the wisdom as well as the resilience to manage the struggle for religious and political authority in their respective Islamic cultural environments. The state and government must continue to position themselves as the large tent for the diversity of their people.

Gin, Jesus, and Jim Crow: Prohibition and the Transformation of Racial and Religious Politics in the South by Brendan J. J. Payne (review)

Gin, Jesus, and Jim Crow: Prohibition and the Transformation of Racial and Religious Politics in the South by Brendan J. J. Payne (review)

Gin, Jesus, and Jim Crow: Prohibition and the Transformation of Racial and Religious Politics in the South by Brendan J. J. Payne (review)

Gin, Jesus, and Jim Crow: Prohibition and the Transformation of Racial and Religious Politics in the South by Brendan J. J. Payne (review)

The Religious Politics of Empire in the Gilded Age

In the fall of 1880, Rutherford B. Hayes became the first sitting U.S. president to tour the U.S. West. While rarely recognized as such in scholarship, Hayes was a culture warrior. His seventy-one-day, 2,500-mile tour of the West traced the spiritual battle lines of the politics of empire in the Gilded Age. On his journey the president explicitly and implicitly championed his answers to the Indian Question, School Question, Mormon Question, and Chinese Question. These Western policy positions established a Republican culture war program with deeply religious overtones that animated U.S. politics for over a decade and continues to resonate today. This article is part of a special issue of Pacific Historical Review, “Religion in the Nineteenth-Century American West.”

Ahmadiyya Congregation in the Shadow of Religious Politics: Tensions Between Law and Freedom of Religion

The right to freedom of religion is a fundamental right. For Indonesian people, religion is not only seen as a ritual but also as a part of the social relations between society members and the state. However, the sacred value of religion in social relations is degraded through normative recognition in the form of official religious politics. The policy does not actually engender order and justice. On the contrary, official religious political policies and restrictions on religious freedom raise widespread discriminatory practices that affect religious minority groups, such as the Indonesian Ahmadiyya Community. The purpose of this study is to examine the tension between the law and the right to freedom of religion or belief in cases of discrimination against the Ahmadiyya Community of Indonesia from the point of view of the legal theory of legal disorder. The research methods used are socio-legal with a statutory approach, a conceptual approach, and a critical legal study approach using legal disorder theory. This research emphasizes that the Ahmadiyya, as a sect in Islam, has the right to freedom of religion within the Forum Internum. In practice, the official religious politics subordinated the rights of religious freedom under the control of religious majoritarianism. However, empirical facts show that the multireligious social context of Indonesian society places the situation in a state of irregularity. Through the disorder of law theory, Sampford opens the horizons of the legal paradigm, showing that seeing and answering various irregularities cannot be done through the lens of order.