NurettinTopçu: the Reinvention of Islamism in Republican Turkey

Abstract

In 1934, NurettinTopcu returned to Turkey after becoming the first Turkish student to obtain a doctorate in philosophy at la Sorbonne. Strongly influenced by Turkish conservative ideas, in France, Topcu became passionate of Maurice Blondel and Louis Massignon as wellhhu as the strengthening European extreme right. Back to his homeland, the Turkish intellectual worked as a publisher and teacher until his death in 1975. His articles and books became very popular among a new religious generation that were disappointed by the Republic and the secular elites. Topcu gave a re-interpretation of nationalism, provided new basis to reconstruct Muslim thought in a secular context, and a methodology to operate without clashing with the secular establishment. Indeed, Topcu is particularly important because he invented a new and peculiar lexicon for Turkish Islamism. NurettinTopcuis a key author to understand Islamism in republican Turkey as he is the author that contributed most to the shaping of Islamist lexicon and values. The present paper will then try to understand the genesis of his ideas and some aspects of them'mainly modernity, nationalism, and state', which characterized his generation of Islamist intellectuals and deeply influenced the following generation.