Amr Khaled: From Da‘wa to Political and Religious Leadership

Amr Khaled, a Muslim-Egyptian televangelist, illustrates the ways in which satellite television and the Internet provide a new form for challenging political and religious authority. This article examines the manner in which Khaled constructs this authority by examining his flagship programme, Sunaa' al-Hayah (‘Lifemakers’).     

The Zaynabiyya awza in Damascus and its Role in Shī‘ite Religious Instruction

The purpose of the present article is to examine the system of Shī‘ite religious instruction in the Zaynabiyya awza in Damascus. As background we discuss the historical development which brought about the establishment of Shī‘ite awzas and the evolution of Shī‘ism in Syria. We analyze the reasons for the founding of the Zaynabiyya awza in Damascus, the causes of its great success, conditions for acceptance to the awza, the number of students, classrooms, teaching methods, the schedule, the language of instruction, official vacations and breaks, sources of financial support, stages of instruction and the curriculum of each stage, projects associated with the awza, the administrative building, the services it provides for its students, the awza's prospects for the future, its political role, and the Zaynabiyya awza's distinctive features in comparison to other Shī‘ite institutions of the same kind.     

The ‘Europeanization’ of the Religious Cleavage in Turkey: The Case of the Alevis

The EU accession process reveals a series of paradoxes, which are not merely indicative of the complexity of Turkey's state–religion relations in general but also point to how the Justice and Development Party (JDP) government portrays controversies such as the Sunni–Alevi divide. The religious cleavages in Turkey have become Europeanized and found expression in the European political and legal structures. The Alevis have been one of the groups most affected by this issue partly because of their heterodox and transnational religious identity and partly as a result of their links with secularist political sectors. The paper underlines a dilemma of current Turkish politics. The case of the Alevis shows that the regime's current transformation undermines its basis through exclusion. The JDP's political strategy, focusing on the effective control of the mainstream Sunni base, does not willingly accept or tolerate the autonomy of some civil society groups, including the Alevis.     

The Turkish Republic's Jihad? Religious symbols,terminology and ceremonies in Turkey during the Korean War 1950–1953

On 25 July 1950, a month after the beginning of the Korean War, the newly elected Democratic Party (DP) in Turkey announced that a brigade would be sent to assist South Korea as part of the UN mission led by the United States. The main argument of this article is that although the DP regime is considered a secular and Kemalist one, the state continued the Ottoman tradition and practice of using Islam to gain support for the war and to mobilize the Turkish nation. To do so, the article will show the similarity of both the means and the content of religious propaganda used in the Korean War to those used in the Ottoman jihad in the First World War. This article suggests that parts of the public understood the war as a religious conflict and not just as an ideological one thus indicating the success of the religious messages and their efficiency.