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A Discussion on the Myth of Mevlânâ in Modern Turkey

ABSTRACT Mevlânâ Celâleddin Rumî, a thirteenth-century Sufi leader, is an important religious figure in the Islamic-Sufi tradition. He is regarded as the founder of the Mevlevi Order. On the other hand, Sufism has been officially banned in the Turkish Republic since 1925, which includes all Sufi lodges, and the Mevlevî order is no exception. Although the public visibility of Sufi practices had been illegal and Sufism had lost its legitimacy in modern Turkey, the Turkish State established and recognized commemorations in honour of Mevlânâ approximately two decades after launching the secular reforms banning Sufism. Today these ceremonies are held annually and attended regularly by the highest state authorities. The first commemoration was held in Konya in December 1942 on the occasion of the 670th anniversary of Mevlânâ’s death where Mevlânâ was presented as ‘the great thinker of Anatolia’. This paper examines the intellectual and discursive context that helped legitimize the commemoration of a religious figure. Drawing on Michel Foucault and Edward Said’s theoretical insights, it analyses the cultural-intellectual debates and framings of Mevlânâ by the traditionalists, humanists, and nationalists thinkers, expressed in the speeches given at the first commemoration in 1942. Analysis suggests that epistemological shifts behind different conceptions of Mevlânâ have given way to a hybrid narrative.