Much of the literature on religion and secularism involves the idea of a fundamental conflict between (secular) politics and religion both in the West and the Muslim World. This paper tests the validity of this assumption by applying it to a Middle Eastern case: the abolition of the Caliphate in 1924 by Turkish secularists led by Kemal Ataturk. I examine, through the Foucaultian discourse analysis of both original documents and secondary literature, the political and ideological struggle between Islamists and secularists in the process of the Caliphate's demise in Turkey. Occurring concurrently with the collapse of the Ottoman Empire as a result of World War I, the end of the Islamic Caliphate is usually seen as a final blow on Islam by secularism in Turkey. I contend, however, that this was not a smooth process; rather it was a dialectical one due mostly to the power of Islam and the difficulty to challenge it directly in a Muslim society. To this end, I demonstrate how both Islamists and secularists employed an intensely Islamic discourse to justify their political claims. I also argue that while secularists made an instrumental use of Islam, the Islamists' discourses indicate a new, 'modern' and highly politicized conception of the Caliphate -and of Islam. All this implies, I further argue, a different kind of secularization that was based on the re-definition of religion in the public sphere rather than a direct confrontation with it. I conclude that the boundaries of secularization theory could be expanded with an understanding of secularization as accommodation (as well as conflict) between religion and secularism. Keywords: The Caliphate, discursive strategy, Islam, secularization