Transformation of a sufi tradition in contemporary Istanbul: The case of Cemalnur Sargut's group

Abstract

This thesis analyzes the transformation and the newly-emerging forms of Sufism or tasavvuf and dervishness in contemporary urban field of Turkey by focusing on the murids of a Rifai shaykh, Kenan Rifai, and his murid, Samiha Ayverdi. The group’s contemporary leader is Cemalnur Sargut. I investigate the way the group imagines and practices Sufism, the way these imaginary and practices are related to the past and present of Turkey as a nation state, which has been subject to modernization and secularization projects, and to the global context. I also analyze the subjectivities and identity construction processes of the group members. I gathered my data through fieldwork, which involved participant observation method and in-depth interviews, and the analysis of the group’s publications. In the study, I suggest that the group sets an example for the complex religious identities in the secularized order of Turkey. The group members regard and experience tasavvuf as the ‘true,’ ‘proper’ and safer form of Islam and define “religiosity” and “secularism” as parts of modernity. They reverse the modernist gaze which has equated Sufism with backwardness and they associate it with enlightenment and profundity. The case undermines the ongoing dichotomies such as religious/secular and my analysis calls for a new conceptual space that transcends these dichotomies. Moreover, the literature on the language of late modernity is operational in grasping the content and the form of the message the group tries to spread and the subjectivities of the group members.|Keywords: Sufism, spirituality, modernization, secularization, subjectivity.