Durkheim and Islam

On the Turkish Nationalist Ziya Gökalp’s Reception of Durkheimian Sociology

Abstract

In the early 20th century in Turkey, Ziya Gökalp（1876-1924）, a leading nationalist and sociologist, made a singular attempt to learn from Durkheimian sociology and apply it to the analysis and reformation of Islam. This paper delves into his argument regarding Islam to determine its significance to the history of the reception of Durkheim.

Gökalp, who attributed the evolution of modern society to the social division of labor, argued that the division of labor demarcated a public functional sphere that is peculiar to Islam. According to his Durkheimian theory of rituals, the intrinsic social function of religion is to integrate the nation through worship. Gökalp sought to bridge this sociological interpretation―the concept of collective effervescence, above all―to Sufism, a traditional Islamic mystical belief and practice.

He argued that Islam’s close relationship with political power in the Ottoman Empire hampered the functional purification of the Islamic faith and its worship. He therefore advocated for the reformation of Islam and proposed that the Ottoman government should undertake institutional reforms that would make the separation of religion and politics possible.

The significance of Gökalp’s argument is as follows. First, he attempted to fuse Durkheimian sociology and Sufism, which is an idea that only an intellectual of the Islamic world could have developed. Second, his findings from Durkheimian sociology contain the germs of secularization theory based on social differentiation, functionalist social integration theory, the theory of collective effervescence, and civil religion theory. Third, he embarked upon a quest to reform Islam by linking theory and practice. These points will add knowledge to the historical study of the reception of Durkheim from a broader perspective.