Islamic economics: the Islamic Bourgeoisie and the Imagined Community

Abstract

In this thesis I examine the languge of the Islamic Bourgeoisie in Turkey as represented by MUSIAD, a business association known for its religious conservatism, to show that the Islamic bourgeoisie imparts its own meaning to the terms of capitalism and Islam in a struggle over hegemony in defining the Muslim community in Turkey today. Where liberalism and notions of community conflict, this class imagines old concepts in modern ways so that Turkish society can be Muslim and Capitalist at the same time without violating the values of either Turkish-Islamic tradition or Capitalism. This work is premised on the theory that the ideas expressed through language give shape to reality; thus, novel reinterpretations of concepts can bring about changes in social practices, particularly when the imaginaries produced through those reinterpretations become institutionalized. This is a socially relavant issue in Turkey today due to the increased access that the bourgeoisie has to media outlets and government ministries.