Turkey is probably at the heart of the ‘modern Islamic problem’. Together with that of Japan, Turkish history constitutes one of the most worthwhile to study experiment of coping with the problem of living in a ‘West’ dominated world as ‘non Westerner’. The Turkish ‘modernising’ reforms which started in early 18th century and gained momentum in the 19th century, culminated in the so called ‘Kemalist’ political and cultural ‘revolution’ that established a ‘West oriented’ Republic. Many faithful Muslims in Turkey and other parts of the Islamic world saw this process as blasphemy. Turkey of our days makes a thrilling reading because the fate of this ‘radical cultural revolution’ is still uncertain. If it settles as a success case in the sense of a stable political and cultural consensus which integrates, ‘democratically’, a nation of about 70 million people, it will permanently influence the fate of the rest of the Islamic world. For an ‘outsider’ wishing to ‘read’ the puzzling complexities of contemporary Turkish society, the ‘story’ of the Ottoman-Turkish venture of attempt at ‘transformation’ in order to cope with the problem of ‘living’ in a ‘West dominated’ world can be interesting and rewarding. This book tells the story of this ‘transformation’.
