The 9/11 debate was centered on a single issue: Islam. Osama Bin Laden was taken at his own words by the West: Al-Qaeda, even if its methods were supposedly not approved by most Muslims, was seen as the vanguard or at least a symptom of “Muslim wrath” against the West, fueled by the fate of the Palestinians and by Western encroachments in the Middle East; and if this wrath, which has pervaded the contemporary history of the Middle East, has been cast in Islamic terms, it is because Islam is allegedly the main, if not the only, reference that has shaped Muslim minds and societies since the Prophet. This vertical genealogy obscured all the transversal connections (the fact, for instance, that Al-Qaeda systematized a concept of terrorism that was first developed by the Western European ultra-left of the seventies or the fact that most Al-Qaeda terrorists do not come from traditional Muslim societies but are recruited from among global, uprooted youth, with a huge proportion of converts).

The consequence was that the struggle against terrorism was systematically associated with a religious perspective based on the theory of a clash of civilizations: Islam was at the core of Middle East politics, culture, and identity. This led to two possibilities: either acknowledge the “clash of civilizations” and head toward a global confrontation between the West and Islam or try to mend fences through a “dialogue of civilizations,” enhancing multiculturalism and religious pluralism. Both attitudes shared the same premises: Islam is both a religion and a culture and is at the core of the Arab identity. They differed on one essential point: for the “clashists,” there is no “moderate” Islam; for the “dialogists,” one should favor and support “moderate” Islam, with the recurring question, what is a good Muslim?

Then came, just ten years after 9/11, the Arab Spring, in which Islam did not play a role, and the killing of Osama Bin Laden, whose death went almost unnoticed among Muslim public opinion. What about the “Muslim wrath”? Suddenly, the issue of Islam and jihad being at the core of the political mobilization in Muslim societies seemed to become, at least for a time, irrelevant. So what went wrong with the perception of the Western media, leaders, and public opinion? Was the West wrong about the role of Islam in shaping political mobilization in Muslim societies? Yes. The essentialist and culturalist approach, common to both the clash of and dialogue of civilizations theories, missed three elements: society, politics, and more astonishingly . . . religion.

In fact, three paradigms—social, political, and religious—have changed in Muslim societies over the last twenty years:

1. A new global generation — As Philippe Fargues showed some time ago, there has been a profound demographic change in the Arab world: the fertility rate has fallen dramatically (in Tunisia, it fell below the French rate after 2000), women have entered universities and the job market, young people marry later, there is more equality in couples (in terms of age and education), they have fewer children and are better educated than their parents, and nuclear families are replacing extended households. Cell phones, satellite TV, and the Internet have allowed these new generations to connect and debate on a “peer” basis rather than through a top-down authoritarian system of knowledge transmission. The younger generation is a peer generation and does not want to be strongly bound to a patriarchal society that has been unable to cope with the challenges of contemporary Middle Eastern societies.
2. A shift in the political culture — Being more individualistic, the members of this new generation are less attracted to holistic ideologies, whether Islamist or nationalist, and there is a sharp decline of interest in the patriarchal model embodied by charismatic leaders. The failure of political Islam that I pointed to twenty years ago is obvious; it does not mean that Islamist parties are no longer present on the political field—to the contrary—but that their Utopian conception of an “Islamic state” has lost credibility. The Islamist ideology is challenged either by a call for democracy, which rejects the claim of any party or ideology to have a monopoly on power, or by the “neo-fundamentalists,” or Salafis, who claim that only a strict personal return to the true tenets of religious practices could help to establish an “Islamic society.” Even among the Muslim Brotherhood, young members reject blind obedience to the leadership. The new generation calls for debate, freedom, democracy, and good governance. They are more patriotic than nationalist, and while the Palestinian issue still has an emotional impact, it is no longer at the core of political mobilization (a fact, by the way, that undermines the well-established cliché stating that, as long as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains unsettled, there will be no peace or democracy in the Middle East). The appeal of democracy is not a consequence of the exportation of the concept of Western democracy, as fancied by the supporters of the US military intervention in Iraq. It is the political consequence of a process of social and cultural changes in Arab societies, which, of course, is part of the globalization process. It is precisely because the Arab Spring is a succession of indigenous upheavals, centered on the nation and unlinked from Western encroachments (which, when they happen, come after and not before the movement, as in Libya), that democracy is seen as both acceptable and desirable. Consequently, the ritual anti-imperialist mottos and chants have disappeared from demonstrations (including the usual condemnation of Zionism as the source of all the problems of the Arab world). This explains why Al-Qaeda is out of the picture: the uprooted global jihadist is no longer a model and fails to germinate when he comes to enlist local militants for the global cause (Al-Qaeda has been expelled from Iraq by the local fighters), with the exception of the geographic fringes of the Arab world (Sahel, Somalia, Yemen). Al-Qaeda was part and parcel of the old anti-imperialist Middle East political culture: fighting the West first and never caring about real societies. It disappears with the dictators because they are two sides of the same coin.
3. A new religiosity — This is probably the least understood mutation. There were two recurrent premises underlying the debate on Islam: that democratization is linked with secularization and that this secularization process should go with a rise of a “liberal Islam.” So began the search for reformers, liberals, not to speak of a Muslim Martin Luther (the people who advocate a reformation of Islam in order to free it from fundamentalism, anti-Semitism, and gender prejudices apparently never read Luther). The visible re-Islamization of Muslim societies during the last thirty years (spreading of the veil, growing mosque attendance, Islamization of daily life, and so forth) seemed at odds with this supposed prerequisite, but in fact, it is far more congruent with a process of democratization than expected. Why? This wave of re-Islamization hides a very important fact: it has contributed to the diversification and the individualization of the religious field. Religion (theological corpus) did not change, but religiosity (the way the believer experiences his or her faith) did, and this new religiosity, liberal or not, is compatible with democratization because it unlinks personal faith from collective identity, traditions, and external authority. The usual religious authorities (ulema, or Islamist leaders) have largely lost their legitimacy in favor of self-appointed, and often self-taught, religious entrepreneurs. Young born-agains have found their own way by surfing on the Internet or joining local groups of peers: very critical of the cultural Islam of their parents, they have tried to construct their own brand of Islam. Religion has become more and more a matter of personal choice, ranging from Salafism to any sort of syncretism, not to mention conversions to other religions (see, for instance, the growth of an evangelical Protestant church among former Muslims in Morocco and Algeria). This individualization and diversification has had the unexpected consequence of disconnecting religion from daily politics, of bringing it back to the private, and of excluding it from the sphere of government management. As I tried to show in Holy Ignorance, fundamentalism, by disconnecting religion from culture and by defining a faith community through believing and not just belonging, is in fact contributing to the secularization of society (hence the bitter belief of any fundamentalist, from born-again Christian evangelicals to Salafi Muslims, that true believers are a minority, even if the surrounding society is nominally sharing the same religion).

All these changes gave way to what I called “post-Islamism” (the expression was first used by Asef Bayat)—it does not mean that the Islamists disappeared, but that their Utopia did not block social, political, or even geo-strategic realities. They have no blueprint for an “Islamic economy,” and although they run many charities in deprived neighborhoods, they tend to become socially conservative, opposing strikes and approving of the rescinding of agrarian reform in Egypt; they have never been able to articulate a coherent supranational program of mobilizing the “ummah” (the Islamic world), leaving the concept in the bloody hands of Al-Qaeda and standing in the Middle East in an uneasy status quo between the strategic ambitions of a supposedly Islamic, but Shia, Iran and Arab dictators (from Saddam Hussein to the Saudis) who claim to protect the Sunnis from the “Shia threat.” They favor elections because they do not support armed struggle even when unable to strike a deal with authoritarian regimes, but they are uneasy about sharing power with non-Islamic groups and turning their “brotherhood” kind of an organization into a modern political party. They have not given up formal support for sharia (except in Tunisia and Morocco) but are unable to define a concrete ruling program that would go beyond banning alcohol and promoting the veil or some other petty forms of shariatization.

After the Arab Spring, which started outside their ranks, the Islamists have choices to make. The first option would be the “Turkish model” (the AK Party): turning the “brotherhood” into a true modern political party, trying to rally a larger constituency than hard-core devout Muslims, recasting religious norms as more vague conservative values (family, property, work ethic, honesty), adopting a neoliberal approach to the economy, and endorsing a constitution, a parliament, and regular elections. Another option would be to ally with “counterrevolution” forces for fear of a real democracy that they are not sure to control, but they thereby risk losing their remaining legitimacy, as in Egypt, where they might be instrumentalized by the army. They may also side with the Salafis by calling for an Islamization that would center on certain isolated issues (veil, family law), the same way Christian conservatives in the West are focusing on abortion and gay marriage while ignoring other social and economic issues.

Whatever the political ups and downs, the diversity of the national cases, the foreseeable fragmentation of both “democrats” and “Islamists” into various trends and parties, the main issue will be to redefine the role of, and the reference to, Islam in politics. The de facto autonomization of the religious field from political and ideological control does not mean, once again, that secularism is necessarily gaining ground. What is at stake is the reformulation of religious reference in the public sphere. There is large agreement on inscribing in constitutions the “Muslim” identity of society and of the state; there is also large agreement on the fact that sharia is not an autonomous practical system of law that could be implemented from above and replace “secular” law.

As I’ve described, modern forms of religiosity tend to stress individual faith and choices over conformity to any sort of institutionalized Islam. The old motto “in Islam, no separation between religion (din) and worldly issues (dunya)” already turned a long time ago from an academic statement to mere wishful thinking, but it has been definitively undermined by the Arab Spring. What we see, more than secularization, is a deconstruction of Islam, torn between some sort of a cultural identity (there could be, in this sense, “atheist Muslims”), a faith that could be shared only by born-again believers (Salafis) in the confines of self-centered faith communities, or a “horizon of meaning” where references to sharia are more virtual than real.

The recasting of religious norms as values helps also to promote an interfaith coalition of religious conservatives that could unite around specific causes—opposition to same-sex marriage, for instance. It is interesting to see how, in Western Europe, for example, secular populists tend to stress more and more the Christian identity of Europe, while many Muslim conservatives try to forge an alliance of believers to defend shared values. In so doing, many of them tend to adopt an evangelical Protestant agenda, fighting abortion and Darwinism, both issues that have never been relevant in traditional Islamic debates. In this sense, modern neo-fundamentalists are trying to recast Islam as a kind of Western-compatible religious conservatism, a fact that is obvious in Turkey, where, in 2004, the prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, tried to promote an anti-adultery law that defined adultery not in terms of sharia but by reference to the modern Western family (a monogamous marriage of a man and a woman with equal rights and duties, thus making the custom of polygamy, not uncommon among traditional AK local cadres, although illegal since 1926, more clearly a crime). Islam is thus part of the recasting of a religious global market disconnected from local cultures.

Such an evolution is completely inconsistent with the image of Islam that is constructed and spread by populist movements in the West. In fact, as far as the West is concerned, the main legacy of 9/11, which will survive the “War on Terror” and the death of Bin Laden, is the rooting of Islamophobic populist movements in Western Europe and the United States. These movements have fully borrowed and legitimized the clashist theory: Islam is construed as the enemy of an otherwise elusive “Western” identity. Even populist movements born of a different set of grievances (Lega Nord in Italy, the Tea Party in the United States, the Vlaams Belang in Belgium) have endorsed Islamophobia as one of their main battle cries. It is no surprise that they all dismissed the Arab Spring as irrelevant and don’t acknowledge the way Muslims, both in their native societies and in the West, are recasting their faith into global forms of religiosity. Interestingly, the debate on Islam in the West raised the same questions as in the Middle East: Is religion first a faith or first an identity? Is the crucifix in Italian classrooms just a cultural symbol of national identity or the symbol of the sacrifice of Christ for sinners? The debate about the role of religion in the public sphere should be conducted beyond the clichés of Orientalist essentialism by acknowledging the transversal dimension that connects all the great world religions in their endeavor to find a balance between faith and identity, religion and culture, individual quest and collective belonging, and territorialization and globalization. In this sense, there is neither an Arab nor an Islamic exceptionalism.

Due to severe restrictions on Islamist political parties throughout most of Turkey’s history, charitable foundations and organizations have taken on a particularly important role in developing and defining Islamic politics in a country that is constitutionally secular, but, at least nominally, 99.9 percent Muslim.

To take only the most prominent example, the Gülen movement has become one of the most powerful and influential forces within Turkish society, with control of Turkey’s most popular newspaper, a major university, several television stations, a bank, etc. Internationally, the movement, through businesses, charitable groups, scholarly activity, and, in particular, affiliated schools, has done a tremendous amount to increase both its own and Turkey’s influence abroad. In a remarkably shrewd program of public diplomacy, it quietly runs conferences and tours of Turkey for foreign academics and opinion makers, which aim to increase public sympathy both for Turkey and for the Gülen movement’s own vision of Islamic modernism. Its influence has garnered attention; it is the subject of a remarkable literature, some unabashedly hagiographical, and some depicting an almost mafia-like network of control. The Gülen movement is also the most successful example of a religious movement integrating itself into the fabric of the Turkish political system, with strong mutual ties between itself and the AKP and, by all appearances, with influence on major bureaucracies (most notably the police, which it has apparently used to stifle criticism). For decades, the secular government viewed the movement as a direct threat to the state. In recent years, however, despite some apparent tensions, a relationship has developed between the AKP and the Gülen movement and has clearly strengthened both.

The Gülen movement is also the most significant example of a larger process, however. As Jenny White outlined in her landmark Political Mobilization in Turkey, the relationship between religious organizations and charities, on the one hand, and Islamist political parties, on the other, was central to the rise of what would become the AKP. It is a formula that has continued to work and one of the reasons why the AKP has, since it first came to power in 2002, almost completely dominated Turkish politics and, in many ways, initiated an era of transformation in Turkish society that is at least as profound as that undergone during Turkey’s transition to democracy under Adnan Menderes, between 1950 and 1960.

The same type of alliance between private charities and the AKP that marked its rise to power and continues to color its domestic policy can be seen in its foreign policy. In particular, the AKP has worked with the İnsan Hak ve Hürriyetler İnsani Yardım Vakfı (The Foundation for Human Rights and Freedoms and Humanitarian Relief), or IHH, in several highly conspicuous missions that have greatly increased Turkey’s regional visibility and prestige. This relationship, in turn, has allowed Turkey greater flexibility of action than it might otherwise have enjoyed.

The IHH initially developed as a response to the targeting of Muslims in the breakup of Yugoslavia. Despite harassment by the Turkish government and early controversies regarding use of funds and its relationship to militant Islamist groups, it has, since the 1990s, become one of the most effective and influential Islamic NGOs in Turkey. Like many civil society organizations, the IHH gained substantial credibility in the aftermath of the earthquake of 1999, which left the Turkish state looking lackadaisical and uncaring in comparison to the proactive and efficient response of civil society. In addition, the IHH highlights the growing prominence of self-consciously Islamic actors within the Turkish public sphere under the AKP.

The AKP has won elections, not just by carrying its base, but also by creating shifting coalitions—pulling in voters who, while not necessarily sympathetic to its religious profile, nonetheless see it as the best electoral option. The IHH, however, represents the AKP’s core constituency: more religious and, while still deeply nationalistic, far more aware of itself as part of an international community of Muslims. Although it is true that many in the AKP’s devout base would prefer a party that was more explicitly Islamic, there is little question that this group makes up the AKP’s most loyal supporters. Like most Turks, they tend to see Muslims in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Balkans as part of their “near abroad.” However, the IHH and groups like it have been especially innovative through their a longstanding interest and activities the Muslim Africa and the Arab Middle East, which has, in turn, helped to redefine the Turkish public’s commitment to these regions (and although the IHH has engaged in charitable activities outside of the Muslim world, the reality is that these efforts have been extremely limited in both scale and duration).

It is precisely because of this “internationalist” outlook that the IHH and similar groups have proven such valuable allies to the AKP in its regional foreign policy, which has taken on an increasingly “Islamic” tone in the past five or so years. Initially, Turkey made real efforts at EU ascension, at addressing the issue of Cyprus, and at improving ties with both Greece and Armenia. Since the middle of the last decade, however, most of these programs have stalled, sometimes because of Turkish decisions, but just as often because of choices quite outside of their control. As the 2000s wore on, therefore, the “strategic depth” envisioned by the AKP’s chief foreign policy strategist, Ahmet Davutoğlu, took on an increasingly (though never exclusively) Muslim character.

Groups like the IHH have been a central component of the “soft power” influence that Davutoğlu sees as central to Turkey’s growing regional role. For example, the IHH served as the vanguard for Turkish reconstruction work in Lebanon in the aftermath of Israel’s 2006 invasion. Their work has included, in addition to medical and other charitable support, the establishment of an “Istanbul Education Center.” Along with technical training, the school offers Turkish classes, Similar programs have been developed elsewhere. A survey of the IHH’s activities makes it clear that it is an Islamic charitable organization, but one also very much colored by its Turkish identity. From the AKP’s perspective, this has made it an important vehicle for Turkish ties to the region (and visits by AKP dignitaries make clear the IHH’s prestige). At the same time, the IHH also represents one means by which the AKP’s devout Sunni base has been able to pressure the government to take policies more in keeping with their vision. In the past year, the IHH was particularly active in pressuring Turkey to take a harder line with the Assad regime in Syria, and it appears to have facilitated Turkish contacts with the Syrian opposition.

The IHH played an even larger role in the dissolution of the Turkish-Israeli alliance, which the AKP has inherited from its predecessors. The close relationship between Turkey and Israel was largely the product of the Turkish military’s determination, in the 1990s, to define Turkish foreign policy. From the perspective of the AKP, a cooling of this relationship was attractive in terms of domestic politics (demonstrating that the civilian government had the final say over all matters of policy), electoral politics (Israel’s standing with the Turkish public was never high and declined precipitously after the Second Intifada), and for Turkey’s standing in the wider Middle East. In order to be an effective regional player, Turkey needed to be able to interact with Israel without appearing to be merely a U.S. proxy. Ideologically, politically, and strategically, the Turkish-Israeli alliance was an unwelcome inheritance for the AKP and grew increasingly sour over time. By 2009, Erdoğan was loudly berating the Israeli government for “knowing well how to kill,” while at the same time increasing Turkey’s contacts with Hamas and Hizbullah.

Although the IHH had facilitated these shifts, both by lobbying in Turkey and through its contacts in Lebanon and Palestine, its most dramatic contribution has been its participation in an international “Gaza Freedom Flotilla,” in 2010, which aimed to weaken the Israeli blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip by transporting humanitarian aid directly to the Port of Gaza, bypassing Israeli controls. Despite claims that it had no role to play, there is little question that the Turkish government supported the flotilla, facilitating the IHH’s purchase of the Mavi Marmara ferryboat from the AKP-controlled Istanbul Municipal Government. The leader of the IHH, Bülent Yıldırim, specifically thanked the AKP and two other parties for their support at the ceremony marking the beginning of the flotilla. And although Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu later claimed that he attempted to persuade the IHH to bring the aid through an Israeli port, it seems unlikely, given the close relations between the AKP and the IHH, that real pressure was brought to bear. Indeed, the Turkish position at the time was simply that it had no way of controlling a civilian organization.

Although the flotilla was certainly designed to prompt a confrontation that would embarrass Israel and weaken the embargo of Gaza, it seems unlikely that anybody had foreseen Israel’s clumsy attack on the flotilla, which left nine activists killed and dozens injured. Despite the high human costs, however, Turkey had the excuse it needed to finally end an awkward alliance with Israel, while its moral stature in the region was now unparalleled. Turkey’s economy, its cultural output, and the broad model of a Muslim democracy all are important elements of its improved standing in the Middle East. Nonetheless, the assertiveness with which it has positioned itself as a critic of American policy in the region, along with its increasingly vocal support of Palestinian rights, has put it in a class by itself. According to recent polls, Tayyip Erdoğan is the most admired foreign political leader in the Arab world and most Palestinians see Turkey as their best regional ally.

Nonetheless, the AKP seems to have calculated that, while it has no particular interest in a warming of relations with Israel, it also has little to gain from further heightening tensions. The AKP successfully persuaded the IHH to forego a second Gaza Flotilla in 2011. Diplomatic ties will continue to be cool, but Turkey has a strong enough tradition in multi-party talks to serve as a mediator if the opportunity arises. In the meantime, Turkey can enjoy the independence and prestige of a public estrangement. Israel, in turn, is left painfully aware that it needs Turkey far more than Turkey needs it. Official apology or no, hopes in Israel that the estrangement with Turkey is temporary are simply wishful thinking. Posters placed by the Turkish Ministry of Culture and the Istanbul Municipality promise brotherhood with the Palestinians in their struggle to liberate Jerusalem, and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan has voiced interest in a visit to Gaza.

An IHH aid flotilla played a similarly central role in another recent Turkish foray into regional politics. Initially, Turkey met the rise of the anti-Gaddafi resistance movement in Libya with considerable discomfort, finding itself at odds with both its Western allies and regional public opinion. To its credit, however, the Turkish government quickly changed tack, pairing minimal and grudging support for the NATO intervention with a very broad humanitarian effort, with the IHH again taking a leading role. At a time when the Libyan opposition was still protesting against Turkey’s apparent sympathy to Gaddafi, the IHH’s presence enabled the Turks to backtrack from an untenable position: it allowed them to address a real humanitarian crisis, to build bridges with an initially antagonistic Libyan opposition, and to distinguish themselves from their NATO allies by highlighting humanitarian projects over military intervention. As Turkey realized that Gaddafi’s position was hopeless, it began to build on these ties to reach out to the Libyan opposition. By July 2011, Turkey had clearly positioned itself as an ally of the Libyan opposition. Humanitarian aid had played a key role in allowing the AKP to negotiate a difficult transition and to reposition itself for a post-Gaddafi Libya.

The alliance between the AKP and Islamic charities such as the IHH has been mutually beneficial. The AKP mobilized its base as a means of increasing its outreach, both domestically and overseas. This cooperation has both appealed to the internationalist outlook of the AKP’s devout base and afforded Turkey increased influence in its “near abroad,” thus serving as an important component of the AKP’s emphasis on amplifying the country’s “soft power.” Under the AKP, charity abroad has served Turkey well.