Person: ARSLAN, Berna
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Berna
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ARSLAN
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ArticlePublication Metadata only Legal pluralism and the Shari'a: a comparison of Greece and Turkey(Wiley, 2014-08) Turner, B. S.; Arslan, Berna Zengin; Humanities and Social Sciences; ARSLAN, BernaThe creation of a national and unified legal system was an important aspect of the rise of the modern state and national citizenship. However, this interpretation of legal rationalization has been challenged by sociologists of law such as Eugene Ehrlich (1862–1922) who claimed that this juridical theory of state-centred law masked the presence of customary laws outside this formal system. In critical theories of the law, legal pluralism is proposed against the idea of legal sovereignty or legal centralism. In this article we explore the implications of the growth of the Shari'a as an example of legal pluralism. We take Turkey and Greece as two interesting but different examples of legal pluralism and consider the implications of these case studies for debates about liberalism, multiculturalism and citizenship in multi-faith societies.ArticlePublication Metadata only Reforming Laïcité or reforming islam? Secularism, islam, and the regulation of religion in France(Brill Academic Publishers, 2021) Arslan, Berna Zengin; Açımuz, Hayriye Bige; Humanities and Social Sciences; ARSLAN, Berna; AÇIMUZ, Hayriye BigeThis paper focuses on management of Islam by the French State since the state of emergency declared in 2015. We analyze the legal actions of the State using a law-in-context approach and theorize secularism as the State's management of religion. We focus on the Senate Report (2016) concerning Muslim worship, the legal changes wrought by the state of emergency, and the institutions formed to govern Islam and secularism. We examine whether there has been a change in the French State's approach to Muslim worship. Rather than remaining neutral, the French State has become even more actively involved in the field of religion by adopting a reformist attitude intended to transform not the principles of laïcité but the Muslims in France. In this period, the State has taken concrete steps and built institutions both to support the formation of a secularized French Islam and to govern the boundaries of laïcité.ArticlePublication Metadata only Reading the universe with heart and practicing science as religious ethics: reconciling islam and science in contemporary Turkey(Taylor & Francis, 2019-10) Arslan, Berna Zengin; Humanities and Social Sciences; ARSLAN, BernaThe article examines how the epistemologies of Islam and modern science are reconciled in the writings of the contemporary Turkish Sunni Islamic scholar Fethullah Gulen (b. 1938), one of the once most influential yet vastly controversial religious leaders in contemporary Turkey. Through a close reading of his texts on science, the article analyzes how Gulen defines the scientific practice as an ethical act of reading the universe with heart and mind, and as a path in which one can fully grasp the magnificence of God. Framing with references to Sufism, Gulen also explains science as a domain where Islamic ethics can be practiced. The article shows that Gulen's project of Islamization of science is not limited to the domain of knowledge, but rather comprises a comprehensive cultural transformation led by a new epistemic approach to contest the secular hegemony in the country. Therefore, Gulen's politics of Islam at large should be understood as a project of transforming the episteme, or the hegemonic regime of knowledge, in society, from secular to Islamic. However, the article also notes, somehow paradoxically, in his harmonization of the Sufi notions with secular science, Gulen cannot escape from being captured by the very epistemology of the modern science.ReviewPublication Metadata only Christopher Dole. Healing secular life: loss and devotion in modern Turkey. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 2012. x + 291 pages.(Cambridge University Press, 2013-10) Arslan, Berna Zengin; Humanities and Social Sciences; ARSLAN, BernaArticlePublication Open Access Aleviliği tanımlamak: Türkiye’de dinin yönetimi, sekülerlik ve diyanet(Mülkiyeliler Birliği, 2015) Arslan, Berna Zengin; Humanities and Social Sciences; ARSLAN, BernaDiyanet, uzun süre akademik ve siyasi çevrelerce Türkiye’de laikliğin istisna bir kurumu, yeterince sekülerleşememiş olmamızın bir göstergesi olarak görüldü. Oysa bugün, özellikle antropoloji disiplini içinden, din ve sekülerliği birbirine zıt ve kesin sınırlarla ayrılmış olarak anlayan bu yaklaşıma eleştiriler getirilmekte ve bir ulus devlet pratiği olarak sekülerliğin kendini din alanıyla ilişki içinde kurduğu vurgulanmaktadır (Asad, 2003). Bu açıdan baktığımızda, farklı örnekler için seküler devletin elini din alanından çekmediğini, aksine din alanını yönettiğini (Turner, 2013) ve (modern anlamda) din alanında kurucu bir rol oynadığını görüyoruz (Asad, 2003). Daha önce, Bryan Turner’ın ‘dinin yönetimi’ (management of religion) kavramına referansla, Diyanet’in Cumhuriyet tarihi boyunca, din alanının ve sekülerliğin şekillenmesinde ve yönetiminde temel kurumlardan biri olduğunu vurgulamıştık (Turner ve Zengin Arslan, 2013). Bu makale ise, ‘dinin yönetimi’ kavramı yardımıyla, devletin Alevilik konusuna yaklaşımını analiz etmeyi amaçlamaktadır. Cumhuriyet rejiminin Aleviliği seküler kimlik içinde eriterek tanıdığını, bu anlamda Aleviliği yok saydığını; AKP iktidarı döneminde ise, AB süreciyle birlikte devletin ‘Alevi açılımı’na yöneldiğini; ancak bu süreçte iktidarın Aleviliği tanımak değil, kendi bakış açısından, Alevilere rağmen tanımlamaya yöneldiğini vurgulamaktadır. Bu tanımlamanın, Sünni İslam’ın din anlayışı üzerinden, Sünni İslam’a referansla ve Diyanet’in himayesinde yazılı kültüre geçirilme gibi bir dizi yönetim stratejisi ile gerçekleştirildiğini göstermektedir.