Ambivalences of Modernity in Contemporary Turkish Sufism: Cemalnur Sargut’s Affective Qur’an Community

Abstract

This article engages the thought, career, and public activities of the prominent contemporary female Sufi master in Turkey, Cemalnur Sargut of the Rifaʿi order, to explore the negotiation and transformation of Sufi authority in the Turkish public sphere, permeated by the shadows of modern secular power. By examining the multiple platforms through which Cemalnur disseminates her teachings and the hermeneutic that guides her engagement with the Turkish Sufi tradition, this article offers ethnographic and theoretical insights into the encounter between the tradition of Sufism, female religious authority, and the reach and limits of modern secularity. I argue that through creative strategies of engaging the institutional and technological possibilities of the post-secular present (both in Turkey and globally), Cemalnur and her community have enabled an altogether distinct understanding of the modern—one that is not readily available for liberal secular conceptualization.