Instituting Religion and Nation: The Foundation of Ankara University Divinity School

Abstract

This study examines the controversial character of higher religious education in Turkey by tracing back and problematizing the mektep-madrasa /secular-religious education conflict in the late Ottoman Empire and the historicopolitical developments in the early republican era that led to the foundation of the first theology faculty, Ankara University Divinity School in 1949. I argue that A.U. Divinity School developed Turkish-Islamic Theology that prevailed for many years as an academic and public paradigm of Islam which is now being contested by the AKP rule. The recent interest of the AKP in developing its own intellectual milieu and academia called attention to the origin of debates which this study does by textually analyzing the historical and governmental documents, speeches, academic works, and the institutional organization of A.U. Divinity School