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Notes -
Erdogan's magic with regards to Islamism was to take over the Muslim Brotherhood type Milli Görüş movement which was making large sections of the population as well as the elite rather uncomfortable at the time, and merge it with the more folksy traditional Islam of the population, liberal pro-EU currents, as well as the dominant center-right capitalist developmentalist tradition of Turkish politics.
Later on he did one more pivot and moved to a type of Islam that the rulers of the Ottoman Empire would be very familiar with, where protecting the religion is the source of the state's legitimacy, and in exchange the state gets the power to define what religion means. This could take on very radical forms, as even implementing laicite can be an act of upholding the religion if the state determines this is what it will take to protect the community of believers(Obligatory photo of Ataturk praying with the muftis and imams at the opening of the first Parliament of Ankara). After all, what does Islam even mean if the Muslims are not strong enough to keep existing? Currently this is what Erdogan-style Islamism ended up transforming into. However the problem with such a model is that it is also quite despotic and spiritually empty, which are two problems Ottomans also often struggled with.
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