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Women Speaking for the State: Official Female Preachers in the Secular Republic of Turkey
Abstract
Currently, one-fourth of Turkey's state-sponsored preachers are women. Employed by the country's Directorate of Religious Affairs, these women regularly issue legal responsa to men and women at official muftiates distributed throughout Turkey, give weekly sermons and lectures to predominantly female congregations in state-controlled mosques and municipal community centers, and supervise the quality of Qur'an instruction for male and female students in centers run by the state bureaucracy, among many other tasks and responsibilities. Based on extensive research and fieldwork in Turkey, this presentation delves into the burgeoning phenomenon of female religious personnel who are employed by a Turkish state bureaucracy to preach and educate others about Islam. Through the active support and intervention of Turkey's Directorate of Religious Affairs, these female preachers are establishing a new model of female religious authority in Turkish society based upon the elevation of well-trained and certified women to official positions of religious influence, whereby they are energetically engaged in shaping the populace's understanding and interpretations of Islam. This emerging model makes inroads into preexisting official male as well as informal female domains of religious instruction, encountering some resistance as it genders religious authority in Turkey in new ways.
Discipline
Religious Studies/Theology
Geographic Area
Turkey
Sub Area
None