SUFI ORDERS ARE KNOWN FOR THEIR ESOTERIC NATURE, IN CONTRAST TO ORTHODOX
Islam. This has often implied an emphasis on mysticism over literalism and strict interpretation of Sharia law. It would be a mistake, however, to view the Naqsh- bandi order through this lens. It stands out among Sufi orders for its compatibil- ity with orthodox, official Islam. Indeed, the Naqshbandi differs from most Sufi orders, almost all of whom trace their silsila—their chain of spiritual transmis- sion—back to Muhammad via his son-in-law Ali, who is the first imam in the Shia branch of Islam. By contrast, the Naqshbandi is the only order to trace its chain of transmission through the first Sunni Caliph, Abu Bakr. This explains the order’s firm allegiance to the orthodox Sunni tradition, and its strict adherence to Sharia, with mysticism only a second story subservient to the fulfillment of formal Islamic duties.1
A central figure in the order’s development is the seventeenth century Sheikh Ahmad al-Sirhindi, who reinforced the orthodoxy of the order and its opposition to Shiism while strictly regulating ijtihad (independent reasoning) “within the bounds of the Quran and Sunna.”2Sirhindi advocated an “activist Sufi practice
that encouraged political and social life at the expense of older Sufi practices of withdrawal from public affairs.”3In the nineteenth century, this thinking would be
picked up by Khalid-i-Baghdadi, a sheikh of Kurdish descent from present-day northern Iraq who was initiated into the Naqshbandi in India in 1809. He devel- oped a new branch of the order known as the Khalidi branch, or Khalidiyya, which reinforced Sirhindi’s ideas with a powerful rejection of foreign rule, or non-Islamic
ideas. From the North Caucasus to Indonesia, this struck a powerful chord among Muslims subject to European colonization. In the Ottoman lands, it resonated with a population chafing under European-imposed “capitulations,” or preferen- tial treaties. Soon, the Khalidi order began to eclipse others in prominence in the Ottoman Empire. It became a public force in the 1820s, urging “the reinstate- ment of Islam as a guideline for reform” and the “promotion of a stricter use of the Sharia.”4As the Westernizing reforms of the Tanzimat period won the day, the
Khalidi order positioned itself firmly in the political opposition.5
This opposition continued into the Republican era. One of Baghdadi’s disciples, Ahmad Süleyman al-Arwadi (d 1858), was dispatched to Istanbul, where he initi- ated the prominent Naqshbandi Ahmad Ziyauddin Gümüşhanevi (1813–93), who started what later became known as the Iskenderpaşa lodge. One of Gümüşhanevi’s successors was perhaps the most important Islamist of Turkey: Mehmet Zahid Kotku (1897–1980), a son of migrants from Dagestan. Initiated into the Khalidi order in 1918, Kotku was given ijazah (grant of authority) to become a sheikh in 1952 and took up preaching in Istanbul. He took over the Iskenderpaşa mosque in 1958, where he remained until his death.
In the three decades that followed, Kotku became the informal leader of Turk- ish political Islam, promoting the Khalidi doctrines in the new environment of multi-party democracy. Kotku was influenced by anti-colonialist thinking, urging his disciples to unshackle Turkey from foreign “economic slavery” by developing indigenous industry. He understood the importance of modern science and tech- nology as much as he opposed the cultural values of the West, arguing that by imitating the West, the Turks had “lost the core of [their] identity.” He believed Mus- lims “should try to capture the higher summits of social and political institutions and establish control over society.”6In the bureaucracy, Kotku’s followers success-
fully ensconced themselves in the State Planning Organization, allowing them to influ ence economic and social policies and municipal personnel appointments.7
It is difficult to overstate the role of Kotku and the Iskenderpaşa lodge. He par- ted with his immediate predecessor, Abdulaziz Bekkine (1895–1952), who had prohibited the mixing of Islam and electoral politics. He encouraged a generation of pious Muslims to take positions in the state bureaucracy, and started the process of infiltration and takeover of state institutions that would help political Islam dominate Turkey. As the Turkish scholar Birol Yeşilada has observed, “The Nakşibendis always emphasized the need to conquer the state from within by aligning themselves with powerful sources of capital and political actors.”8More
directly, Kotku eventually formally sanctioned the split of the Islamist wing from Turkey’s center-right, giving his blessing to Necmettin Erbakan to form the
National Order Party in 1969. A leading Islamist of the time relates that Kotku told Erbakan that “the country has fallen into the hands of freemasons imitating the West … for the government to fall into the hands of its true representatives within the boundaries of laws, forming a political party is an inevitable historical duty for us. Be part of this enterprise and lead it.”9
The roster of Kotku disciples and Iskenderpaşa members who attained promi- nent political positions include not just Erbakan, but subsequent President Turgut Özal, his more conservative brother Korkut Özal, subsequent Prime Minister and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, his Interior Ministers Abdülkadir Aksu and Beşir Atalay, and close to a dozen other ministers during Erdogan’s tenure.
Erbakan’s political ambition gradually strained the relationship to the Isken der- paşa community, causing the latter to recede from politics.10As long as Kotku was
alive, this public rift was contained. But in 1978, two years before Kotku’s death, Korkut Özal, then a senior figure within the National Salvation Party, led a quiet rebellion against Erbakan’s style of management, claiming to have received Kotku’s blessing for his revolt.11Following Kotku’s death, leadership of the com-
munity passed to his son-in-law, Professor Esad Coşan. Coşan further distanced the order from Erbakan, and for all practical purposes severed the link between his lodge and Erbakan’s politics. The lodge itself subsequently declined in influence; Coşan left Turkey for Australia following the 1997 military intervention, where he died in a car accident in 2001. He was succeeded as sheikh by his son, Nurettin Coşan, who remains in Australia. While the religious leadership of the lodge is a thing of the past, its lay followers constitute the core of the AKP’s leadership, un- derscoring its outsized influence on Turkish politics.