Table of Contents

Part I.- Chapter 1 Religion and Nationalism.- Chapter 2 The Politics of the Khilafa, Old and New.- Part II.- Chapter 3 Ottoman/ Turkish “Official Nationalism”.- Chapter 4 Abdülhamid II’s pan-Islamism/ Nationalism.- Part III.- Chapter 5 Exclusionary Islam and Kurdish Nationalism.- Chapter 6 Kurdish Nationalism and Khilafa in Nursi’s Pre-exile Writing.- Chapter 7 “Fully-fledged Nationalism in Religious Garb”.

Promotional Information

"In contrast to theories of nationalism that downplay the significance of religion in the emergence of nationalist movements, Kamal argues that religion and nationalism have been closely intertwined in ways that had been obscured by the discourse of elites at the center of power, whose perspectives have, in turn, shaped subsequent scholarship. This book demonstrates a sophisticated knowledge of the theoretical literature on nationalism and makes an original contribution to this literature by challenging the Eurocentric assumption that nationalism is inevitably or even centrally linked to secularism. Soleimani develops the theoretically original idea of the 'nationalist utterance' as an Austinian performative, suggesting how nationalisms have legitimized themselves by taking on conventional rhetorical forms modeled on Western nationalisms even when the goals and structures of local nationalisms are quite different ... an important contribution." (Katherine Ewing, Professor of Religion, Columbia University, USA)

About the Author

Kamal Soleimani is a historian of the Modern Middle East and Islamic world. His research interests include Islamic political history and Arab, Kurdish, Persian and Turkish nationalism. He received his PhD from Columbia University in New York, USA. He has taught at Turkish and US universities.