Islam in Turkey

Islam has its very nature, always in accordance with an important influence on policy had defined it. The secular were always at the same time the spiritual rulers, or at least largely conducted by them. A war in Islam was therefore - as well as the Christian crusades in the Middle Ages - always a holy war, led to the interests of God's sake, to enforce its objectives, to strengthen its power.

The shamanistic Turks were already in the 2nd Half of the 10th Century, when they still lived in Central Asia, converted to Islam. After the 11th Century migrated to the west and gradually Anatolia reign to their area had been gradually the driving force behind its spread. In the year 1453 conquered the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet I. Constantinople, making the collapse of the empire oströmischen was sealed, and as Selim I. in 1517 had conquered Cairo, he was the caliph (successor to the Prophet), the supreme ruler of the Muslims in the whole world. The Turks then for centuries formed the spearhead of Islam "in its name unterwarfen large areas in Africa, Asia and Europe. The Ottoman Empire was in this sense less of a "Turkish" as a Muslim, in which the Sultan "in the name of God" was.

As Mustafa Kemal ATATÜRK after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the successful conclusion of the Turkish Liberation War in 1924 the Caliphate abschaffte, he put the influence of Islam close borders, separated by western model state and religious power. ATATÜRK oppressed is not the religion as such, like many of his enemies then and now again claim, but denied the influence of Islam in the secular power, thus ensuring the creation of a modern society, which, given the self-understanding of Islam and the conviction of many Creditors revolutionary course. Until today, the objective of the founder of modern Turkey is not yet fully implemented, the Reislamisierungstendenzen in the country are proof of this.

In Turkey, Jews and Christians full freedom of religion and special rights. There are churches and synagogues, Christian and Jewish schools and hospitals. The office of the Patriarchs, the Oberhauptes the Greek Orthodox Church, is located in Istanbul. The large majority of Turkish citizens, however, is Muslim, most of them belong to the Sunni and about 20% of alewitischen confession.