"Thanksgiving for Turkey
From the December 27, 2004 issue: Europe moves east, and Turkey moves West.
by Mustafa Akyol
12/27/2004, Volume 010, Issue 15 Increase Font Size Printer-Friendly
Istanbul
WITH LAST WEEK'S vote in Brussels, the admission of Turkey to the European Union has come one step nearer. Yet some still suspect that the accession of an overwhelmingly Muslim nation to the E.U. will signify an alarming new intrusion of Islam into a continent already uneasy about its Muslim minorities. Some fear--to put it more provocatively--that Turkish membership in the E.U. will turn out to be an Islamic Trojan horse.
Indeed, if one sees Islam as a monolithic faith, and reckons its influence simply by counting its adherents, the doubters could well be right. If, however, the reality is more complex, it may be that Turkey's accession to the E.U. will help remedy, not aggravate, Europe's Muslim problem. To see this, it is necessary to appreciate the distinctive nature of Turkish Islam.
Compared with the Arabs, the Turks were latecomers to the Muslim faith. The former were politically and intellectually more advanced until the 13th century, when the Arabs' brilliant civilization was nearly destroyed by one of the most devastating conquests ever, the Mongol catastrophe. The Arabs never recovered, and the leadership of Islam passed to the Turks. The Turks flourished, especially under the Ottoman Empire, the global superpower of the 16th and much of the 17th centuries. Although it then entered a steady decline, the Ottoman Empire survived as a powerful state until World War I."
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