Islamic Economics the Islamic Bourgeoisie and the Imagined Community Islami Iktisat Islami Burjuvazi...

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basic tenets of Islam as written in the holy texts. This does not require rigid adherence to

specific rules for behavior and allows for a great deal of interpretation. The second idea

scales the value of ones Muslimness on three basic levels. One can be a good Muslim, a

bad Muslim, or a so-so Muslim depending on how closely he abides by the rules and

spirit of the religion. The third idea divides people along clear cut lines of Muslim and

non-Muslim. This idea holds that one must follow the rules and practices of Islam or he

is only a Muslim in name. This idea demands a high level of religiosity and it shows the

least amount of tolerance. The difference between these conceptions of what it means to

be Muslim is important because this could expand or limit the number and kind of people

that one would desire and be willing to associate with in social, economic, and political

contexts.

Despite the fact that some members claim that Islam does not affect business or that

they exist in separate spheres, the group as a whole agrees that conservative people are

more trustworthy and friendlier than non-conservative people. Also, they show more

concern for others. These qualities provide grounds for entering into partnerships and for

justifying employee-employer relations. In other words religion plays a significant part

in their attitudes toward business relations in terms of how they define themselves and

others not only as good Muslims but also as good businessmen.

The idea of what constitutes community is also important. Again, there are three ways

in which this is conceptualized. The first is the most intimate and therefore the most

difficult to maintain in an industrial society. This is the idea that community takes the

form of familial relations. The core element is the family itself but this extends to

include neighbors and townsmen, who are all to be treated as family. The next way that


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this is seen is as an extension into market relations. Entering into business relations as

business owners, partners, or workers constitutes the basis for community because

everyone involved can see the shared values and goals of the others they are in contact

with. The third way is an even more abstract extension of this. This concept of

community is based on the interaction of Muslims in any sense or context. This shows a

depersonalized understanding of community in which the burden of expectation on

intimate relations is dramatically reduced because one is allowed to distance himself from

such relations. The difference is important here because the kind of interaction that goes

to make up the community also determines who can be in the community and which

spaces are included in its make up.

In the academic literature one important idea that stands out is that Islamic identity

groups have formed as a reaction to certain people with religious lifestyles or living in

rural areas being excluded from the Kemalist development project. The interview group

is mixed in this regard. Some members, like en, Delikan, and Akdemir, refer to their

rural roots. Others, like Burhan and Yegen, refer to prejudices against religious people.

However, as a group these people do not present themselves as reacting to exclusion. On

the contrary, they thank God for their natural abilities and they claim that people have

equality of opportunity to obtain wealth. Although, they compare themselves with

TUSIAD and ITO (the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce) to show that MUSIAD members

are small and independent, several members, like Burhan, Akdemir, and Adamolu

have considered becoming or are currently members of one of these other organizations.

When discussing capitalism the largest area of disagreement concerns whether or not

individualism is good or bad with regard to both economics and social values. When one


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looks closely at these opinions he can see that the definitions that the members employ in

their judgment of individualism are quite different. It must be stated that the members

interviewed claim that liberalism is necessary and good from this and other statements

made by the members, even those who claim to be opposed to individualism believe that

the individual has inalienable rights that must not be violated through social pressure or

state action. In other words, although a member can say that he is opposed to

individualism, his belief in the freedom of individual choice and responsibility shows that

he actually holds individualism in high regard. One member may claim quite candidly

that whatever he does professionally, he does primarily for his own benefit whereas

another member states that as he works he considers the effect of his actions on others;

however, individualism need not be equated with selfishness. The member primarily

concerned with his own earnings does not consider himself to be selfish because he

imagines that his endeavors tend toward the general productivity and development of

society by generating wealth, new jobs, and technological improvement. The member

who denies individualism also imagines that he provides for himself more fully by

entering into partnerships with others. He also is not selfish because he pools his

resources although he does so with a specific kind of partner who he feels he shares

certain individual qualities with. In addition, he claims that forming partnerships, which

have higher overall profits and less risk for the individuals involved than working alone

has, improves the nation through degrees, not directly. This difference in semantics

suggests that there is a conceptual dilemma in the notion that one can satisfy the ethical

priority he has in taking care of himself first without being selfish.


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The challenge for these businessmen is to improve the economy of the nation of

Turkey and to strengthen and maintain a religious value system at the same time. There

are two equally extreme ideas present in this study. The first claims that if the economy

boomed, social problems, including the erosion of tradition, would disappear. The

second claims that if people were better Muslims, there would be no social or economic

problems. These ideas are met with another claim that there are no problems between

rich and poor because the traditional values of giving, family, and neighborly concern

hold Turkish society together even as the distance between rich and poor grows

financially. All of these things suggest that with the right combination of money and

faith any problem can be solved. It is difficult to classify these members as moral

capitalists or alternative capitalists because morality and economic growth have equal

importance in the language that these members use. Being hard-working is a moral

virtue that results in financial gain, and financial development results in better

educational and employment opportunities through which people can exercise their moral

virtue. The significance of the differences in the way that these things are measured is

that one must always compensate for the other in a way that tends toward a practical

conservatism in thought. One must work hard and carry the faith, and if everyone does

this, everything will be ok.

Outlying the Community

Two of the people I interviewed stand out from the rest because their statements

contrast greatly with the community oriented social concern expressed by the others.


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Akka told me that he joined MUSIAD to make more money. He stated, I dont care if

rich people help poor people and things like that. I am a businessman. Erkan takes a

fatalistic approach to the discussion of capitalism and community values. He says that

capitalism is bad for poor people and communities but one must either compete or fall

behind.

MUSIAD has a screening process for new members that requires one to have several

letters of reference that describe the person as having good moral standing. Aca says

that if it comes to the attention that a member of MUSIAD is behaving too unethically his

membership can be withdrawn, and this has happened in the past. The problem here is

that these statements do not necessarily mean that these men are engaged in bad dealings.

They may be running legitimate, ethically sound operations. However, their attitudes do

not match the others. The former rejects the notion of community, and the later rejects

the idea that capitalism is good for Turkey. Both of these men are involved with

MUSIAD so they can benefit from the advantages of belonging to an organization that

educates its members in the ways of business and connects them to other businessmen.

Furthermore, they may be deeply religious in their own ways. One way that these men

are important for this study is that they emphasize something that should already be clear

from the preceding discussion; MUSIAD members are not united in their thoughts and

attitudes. More significantly, this shows the cynicism that has made its way into an

organization that prides itself on its commitment to the community and the nation, which

means upholding notions of both tradition and modernity. There may be little in the way

of inspirational images that these men can contribute to a social imaginary to guide

liberalized Muslims, but they speak from the heart of capitalist logic, whose key concept


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is survival. In this way, these two men relate very closely to the others in this study, for

their concern is for the survival of a way of life that they hold dear.

Conservatism at Work in Society

In conclusion, the members of MUSIAD that I interviewed in Istanbul are united

under the banner of survival. To varying degrees this struggle for survival centers around

three elements: the individual, the nation, and the values that inform them. After

combining the ideas presented previously, one can see the existence of a possible social

imaginary. This imaginary is built on the concepts of work and responsibility. Everyone

must work hard for his own benefit and the benefit of Turkey. Now there are problems

with education, training, and government bureaucracy that prevent many people from

doing their best. The government must invest more money in education. This includes

assisting actors in the private sphere who would open their own educational institutions.

The government must lower taxes and put a check on the price of utilities. Thus, new

businesses can be opened and there will be trained workers to fill new employment

positions. Although the burden on the state may seem daunting in that it must both lower

taxes and subsidize business, the weight of the social-economic project in this imaginary

rests primarily on the individual. The individual has many freedoms and with those

freedoms comes a wealth of responsibility. He must choose to walk in the path of his

forefathers, but at the same time he must also choose to reshape their world along

capitalist lines. The ability to do both requires flexibility in the way that capitalism and

tradition are imagined. In this case, capitalism is the means for the nation to become


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strong economically and militarily. Capitalism is also the mode in which a person can

prove his personal worth as an income earner, an ethical citizen, and a good Muslim.

This imaginary holds that these three things are intimately related and if one is a good

Muslim, he would of course be hard working and ethically bound and this would result in

his material success. To be a good Muslim requires that one express concern for his

fellow man, especially other Muslims. This is expressed: through helping the poor, most

commonly in the form of zakat; through familial concern for those around you,

particularly those you work with; through honest and fair dealing, especially with

business partners and employees; and through the avoidance of what is scripturally

forbidden from ones lifestyle, like drinking alcohol.

The question of what exactly fair is leads us to the open-ended idea of justice that

Aca gives. It is clear that material equality is undesirable and impractical in this

imaginary, and that everyone has a varying degree of natural ability. Therefore, justice in

this imaginary is the end result of a smoothly running market economy, in which ones

labor is measured relative to others and he gets what he deserves. Unfortunately, what

one deserves may not be adequate for him to satisfy his needs. This is where traditional

community values come in to compensate for low wages or unemployment. In other

words, if one maintains his faith and works hard, he will be justly rewarded in one way or

another, either directly through is labor or with the help of the community. Justice is not

something that can be quantified here, it is a relation between the market and the

community with the individual giving impetus to both.


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CHAPTER 10

CONCLUSION

This work is built on the theory that the social imaginary transforms and develops as

sign systems and reality diverge, and it is premised on the idea that the Islamic

bourgeoisie is engaged in a struggle over the definition of the Muslim community. This

struggle is carried out through language as words take new shape in the social

imagination. The bourgeoisie has structural advantages in having its brand of ideas

institutionalized due to its access to mass media and government. With the liberalization

of Turkey, the bourgeoisie plays a more significant role in society and politics. The

Islamic bourgeoisie fuses liberalism and religious conservatism in a way that forces a

rethinking or re-imagining of business and Islam in Turkish society. Vague universal

notions such as justice are dependent on the imaginary that results from the interaction of

liberal logic and religiously inspired moralization.

One idea that stands out in the discourse of several of those interviewed is that there

are no problems between the rich and the poor in Turkish society because of the

continuing tradition of sharing and helping the poor. There is a serious contradiction

between this idea and the reality that one can see in the city of Istanbul, which is heavily

segregated along economic lines. The painful differences between rich and poor are

more obvious when one compares the eastern and western regions of Turkey. One way

that this contradiction between language and reality could be remedied is by re-imagining

the concept of equality. If one accepts the view that equal living standards are


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undesirable and even unjust, as Burhan suggests, one is left with the conservative social-

economic idea that equality means being equal before the law. The fact that everyone has

the same legal rights to pursue wealth translates into the unsupported belief that people

have equal opportunities. In addition to this, the Islamic bourgeoisie excuses itself and

the rest of society for not paying taxes which might go toward improving services for the

poor because the tax burden is too high. In other words, in the same way that the

bourgeoisie helps society by efficiently pursuing its own profit, they imagine that people

would help by paying taxes if the government were not an obstacle to their good will.

This points to another contradiction that needs some re-imagining to peacefully enter

the consciousness of society. The fact that some children cannot attend school because

they must work to help support their families or the fact that some children cannot go to

school because there is no school for them to attend is definite proof that people do not

have equal opportunities. Although many of the interviewees see the Turkish education

system as a big problem, they overlook other structural differences that limit the

opportunities of the poor. A good education does not afford anyone the capital to start

his own business. The imaginary presented here proposes that individuals live in

communities of mutual support, in which ones relatives and neighbors share each others

costs. People can form partnerships that help them overcome burdens such as poverty.

However, there may also be a contradiction between language and reality over the

idea that everyone in Turkish society can benefit from the strong family network that

continues to exist as the bedrock of Turkish tradition. Several members point to the

problem of the disintegrating family structure and they imagine its solution as a return to

tradition. More interestingly, another way of solving this contradiction is by enlarging


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ones definition of family and transplanting the family from the home to the workplace.

In this case, ones business partners, employees, managers, and coworkers become

brothers. They celebrate holidays together and attend each others weddings and

funerals. Thus, the tradition of family support remains even if the nature of the family is

radically different.

The religious approach that interviewees take in business and social concerns conflicts

with Kemalist ideology, which sees secularism and progress as closely related. They

solve this problem by redefining Ataturk. The re-imagined Ataturk was a religious

visionary whose ideas have yet to be realized. The Islamic bourgeoisie is carrying on his

mission of uniting the nation under the banner of progress and democracy. Ataturk

himself is still infallible but the ways that his initiatives have been carried through are

flawed and reflect a corrupt bureaucracy and a misguided populace. If any of Ataturks

measures were too radical, they were necessary for Turkey to catch up industrially and

economically with the rest of the developed world. Now that Turkey has nearly caught

up, the Islamic bourgeoisie argues that it is time to focus on liberalizing and

democratizing with a focus on religious freedom as Ataturk would have wanted.

The terms that the Islamic bourgeoisie uses are not entirely of its own making. The

terms overlap with competing ideologies which are secularist or anti-capitalist. This is

important because it shows that the actors involved although competing are

interdependent and signification is ultimately an unpredictable and never ending process.

In addition, this deepens the understanding of this particular group by linking it with the

origins of the language it employs. These origins may from the outset structure the

bourgeoisies disposition toward capitalism, liberalism, and community, placing


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limitations on the ability of social classes, status groups, or occupational groups to

coalesce outside of a rigid system of economic hierarchy.

Suggestions for Future Study

To fully grasp the significance of differences in language and attitudes toward

capitalism in the Muslim community, a detailed study including both the bourgeoisie and

the working class is necessary. Closer comparisons between business associations would

reveal differences in bourgeois attitudes. Examining the working class through Islamic

labor organizations could reveal the extent to which the attitudes and beliefs presented in

this paper have been accepted or rejected. Finally, a survey of the relations that the

Islamic bourgeoisie has with the government and the media would help clarify the extent

of its influence in politics and society.


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Bura, A. (1998). Class, Culture, and State: An Analysis of Interest Representation byTwo Turkish Business Associations. International Journal of Middle East Studies ,30, 521-539.

Castoriadis, C. (1997).World in Fragments: Writings on Politics, Society, Psychoanalysis, and the Imagination , Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Chapra, M. U. (2000).The Future of Economics: An Islamic Perspective , Leicester: TheIslamic Foundation.

elik, N. B. (2000). The Constitution and Dissolution of the Kemalist Imaginary. In D.Howard, A. J. Norval, and Y. Stavrakakis (eds.), Discourse Theory and Political

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Gilsenan, M. (1993). Recognizing Islam: Religion and Society in the Modern Middle ,. East . London: I. B. Taurus.

Gle, N. (1997). Secularism and Islamism in Turkey: The Making of Elites and Counter-Elites.Middle East Journal , Washington: 51, 46-59.

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Kaplan, S. (2002), Din-u Devlet All Over Again? The Politics of Military Secularism andReligious Militarism in Turkey Following the 1980 Coup. International Journal of Middle East Studies , 34, 113-127.

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Kuran, T. (1996) The Discontents of Islamic Economic Morality.The American Economic Review . 86, 438-442.

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Maurer, B. (2005).Mutual Life, Limited: Islamic Banking, Alternative Currencies, Lateral Reason . Princeton: Princeton University Press.

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Pfeifer, K. (1997) Is There an Islamic Economics?.In J. Beinin and J. Stork (eds.), Political Islam (154-165) Berkeley: University of California Press.

Rodinson, M. (1997). Islam and Capitalism , New York: Penguin Books.

Sakallioglu, U.C. (1996). Parameters and Strategies of Islam-State Interaction inRepublican Turkey. International Journal of Middle East Studies . 28, 231-251.

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Shambayati, H. (1994) The Rentier State, Interest Groups, and the Paradox of Autonomy:State and Business in Turkey and Iran.Comparative Politics . 26, 307-331.

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APPENDIX A

INTERVIEWS

Albayrak, Atilla Hakan. Personal interview, Spring 2007.

Albayrak, Orhan. Personal interview, Spring 2007.

Ar, Omer. Personal interview, Spring 2007.

Arpnar, Cemil Turhan. Personal interview, Spring 2007.

Arslan, Ali Riza. Personal interview, Spring 2007.

Baykal, Tark. Personal interview, Spring 2007.

Bursal, Ahmet. Personal interview, Spring 2007.

alar, Hseyin. Personal interview, Spring 2007.

avuolu, Ali. Personal interview, Spring 2007.

Efe, Fatma. Personal interview, Spring 2007.

Hocaolu, Fazl. Personal interview, Spring 2007.

Kaya, Selim Sr. Personal interview, Spring 2007.

Manzak, Kamil. Personal interview, Spring 2007.

Suda, Alim. Personal interview, Spring 2007.

Topalolu, Cokun. Personal interview, Spring 2007.

Utku, Melikah. Personal interview, Spring 2007.


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APPENDIX B

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

Why did you become a member of MUSIAD?

How is MUSIAD different from other business associations in Turkey?

In what ways do member companies of MUSIAD operate differently from other businesses in Turkey?

What do you feel like you share in common with other MUSIAD members personallyand professionally that you do not share in common with others?

Hakan Yavuz has stated that some religiously motivated entrepreneurs and intellectualsin Turkey shun the term Islamic. Are you opposed to this term? Why?

The famous Islamic economist M.A. Mannan writes that in Islamic economics, economicactors operate according to the dictates and guidance of the Koran and Sunnah. In whatway does Islam guide your business activity?

In what ways has your organization been misinterpreted by others?

What does it mean to be a member of the Muslim community in Turkey?

What role should entrepreneurs play in the development of the Muslim community andthe republic of Turkey?

What do you contribute or hope to contribute to society?

Liberal thought maintains that individualism is a necessary component of a dynamiceconomy. Do you agree or disagree with this idea? Why?

At what point does individualism pose a threat to community?

In what ways could the Muslim community become stronger without economic prosperity?

What role should the Muslim community play if one of its individuals threatens its unity?

Does the individual ever need to be protected from the will of the community? Why?

Does Islam provide for this kind of protection? How?


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Some writers emphasize a wage based on the overall profitability of the company whileothers assert that the wage should be tailored to the needs of the worker. In any case,Siddiqi and Chapra would agree that the community itself should have the final say.What do you think?

What responsibility do entrepreneurs have in promoting the well-being of employees?

Cihan Tual writes that divisions within the Muslim community are rooted in class.What is your opinion of this?

Some people have argued that the health of the Muslim community requires anegalitarian society? What do you think about this?

How is justice possible if people have unequal living standards?

What kind of leadership does the Muslim community need to grow economically andmorally? Can MUSIAD provide that leadership? How? Could others provide thatleadership?

What were some of the most significant achievements of the Turkish revolution?

What would you have done differently if you had led the revolution?

What should the state do to improve the business environment in Turkey?

What effect do you think MUSIADs economic success could have on Turkeys politicallife?

How are political conditions for Muslim people in Turkey different now from the past?How could conditions be better in the future?

What role should economic actors play in modernizing the nation?

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