Süslüman: on class and gender issues in contemporary Turkish political Islam

Abstract

This article argues that class divisions within Islamist community are an emerging aspect of contemporary Turkish politics. Nearly two decades of rule by an Islamist party enabled the Islamic capital to become a distinct capital fraction without improving the living conditions of the devout masses substantially. This fault line appears in the increasingly discernible criticism of the everyday lifestyles of rich Muslim women from within. Controversy over the extravagance of veiled women appears as a proxy class struggle between the new Islamic middle class and the devout poor, as well as the continued polarization between the Islamists and the secularists.