1980 saw the occurrence of the third coup in the history of the Turkish Republic. Interfering in the struggles between the right wing ultra nationalists and Marxist-Leninists that dominated the 1970s, the Turkish Army took control of the government for roughly three years. An important act of the junta was the adoption of a new cultural program, called the “Turkish Islamic Synthesis.” Promoted by a group of conservative intellectuals – “Intellectual Hearts”– and advocating the integration of Sunni Islamic values into national culture, the project was officially endorsed in the National Culture Report of the State Planning Organization in 1983 (Bozkurt 1991). This transformation materialized in a pedagogical initiative to promote a new understanding of the Turkish citizenry as a people not only of distinguished military fervor, but also religious piety (Kaplan 2006). Tracing the impact of this transformation on Turkish national defense, this paper explores an emergent Islamist opposition to it. Firstly, it demonstrates the increased invocation of religious traditions of martyrdom in military education after 1980. Analyzing military education textbooks and relevant political documents and speeches, the paper illustrates the ways in which an intimate relationship between Islam and Turkish national defense has been forged on the basis of Islamic teachings, poetry, and the story of the Prophet’s life. Secondly, the paper turns attention to an emergent Islamist resistance to this association of Islam with Turkish militarism. A group of Muslim activists have recently organized peace initiatives and nonviolent campaigns to challenge the secular state’s invocation of religion in the military. Organized under several organizations including the Initiative for the Revolutionary Islamist Youth, Anticapitalist Muslims, and Conscientious Objection for Peace Platform, these activists collaborate with the broader antimilitarist movement and, at times, refuse compulsory military service. Using Islamic teachings and ethics, they oppose the Turkish state’s militaristic interpretation of Islam. While the movement’s critique of nation-state violence is universalistic in nature, activists have a specific target: military violence against Kurdish Muslims in Turkey. On the basis of interviews conducted with these activists, the paper examines the primary parameters of this new movement. Exploring the implications of its development for dominant trends in Turkish Islamism, the paper questions to what extent Turkish activists’ stance could be theorized as Islamist antimilitarism.