Columns
Author: Mohammed Amin* I was recently surprised to receive an unsolicited invitation to become a columnist for the Istanbul Network. Having accepted, I am using this first column to introduce myself as readers are entitled to know “where I am coming from.” Like many things in life, my connection with the Istanbul Network arose from…
Author: Bugra Kalkan* The news about Syriac Orthodox churches in Mardin, a historical multi-cultural city in the south-east Turkey, have shown again that how religious liberty is still so fragile in Turkey. According to the Agos Newspaper, after Mardin became a metropolitan municipality, its villages were officially turned into neighborhoods. And The Transfer, Liquidation and…
Author: Bugra Kalkan* Secularization of the public sphere and public education through strong and restrictive public policies has been often offered to solve the religious conflicts and religious radicalism problems in Muslim-majority countries. From this perspective, explicitly or implicitly, Islamic religious beliefs and organizations are seen in conflict with the idea of constitutional democracy, innovation…
Author: Bugra Kalkan* Religious liberty emerges and survives only in the countries where the rule of law is institutionalized. And to build rule of law in a country requires a neutral government that protects rights of members of political society. Well, this is the central claim and also the central problem of classical liberalism. Why…
Author: Bugra Kalkan* Is religious persecution a unique phenomenon in Muslim-majority countries? Of course, not! Christian-majority countries and other-majority countries have also serious religion related violence issues. But this does not mean that there is no problem concerning Muslim-majority countries. As a matter of fact, Brian Grim and Roger Finke show that “religious persecution is…
Author: Bugra Kalkan* Even in pluralistic Western Europe countries governments cannot resist to regulate religious affairs. The obvious result of these regulations is the monopolization of the religions. In developed liberal democracies, such as Western Europe, religious pluralism is under surveillance in highly regulated religious markets. Especially the dominant religion in these countries is monopolized…
Author Buğra Kalkan* Last week, I made an introduction to the religious markets theory. In brief, religious markets theory focuses on the supply side of the religious affairs instead of questioning the source of the religious beliefs. Why focusing on the supply side of the religious affairs matters? Because supply side is largely the determinant…
Author: Buğra Kalkan* Secularization and socialization theories are the dominant explanations originated in sociology in religious studies. Advocates of secularization comprehend religious behavior as irrational behavior or childish superstitions that will be evaporated as the advancement of science and modernity. It is claimed that once the humanity understands how the nature and the society works…