From Ataturk’s reforms to the emergence and development of the radical political movement "Muslim brotherhood" and to modern Pan-Turkism

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National Institute for Strategic Studies

From Atatьrk's reforms to the emergence and development of the radical political movement “Muslim brotherhood” and to modern Pan-Turkism

Petriaiev O.S., Graduate Student

at the Faculty of Sociology and Law

Abstract

The article is devoted to Islamic fundamentalism in the Turkish Republic at the present stage of its history, as well as to Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East in the second half of the 20th and early 21st centuries. After the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War, and its termination, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk came to power. His radical reforms changed Turkey and made it an almost secular state. The Republic of Turkey during the twentieth century did not play an active role in international politics, but gave importance to the development of the economy. After Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his political party Justice and Development came to power, Turkey began to move away from secular politics, and took a course towards the Islamization of the country. Especially, President Erdogan began to pursue an active policy of Islamizing Turkey after an attempted military coup in 2016, which he succeeded in suppressing. Another important component of the political map of the Middle East is the activities of the Muslim Brotherhood political organization, which is one of the oldest political movements with the ideology of Islamic fundamentalism. Their vigorous activity in Egypt and Syria led to bloody coups and hostilities in the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century. Many countries and organizations in the Middle East want to lead the ideology of Islamic fundamentalism for their own political purposes. These includes Turkey under the rule of President Erdogan, as well as the Muslim Brotherhood organization. The article analyzes the evolution of the ideology of Islamic fundamentalism at the present stage, the Islamization of the Turkish Republic, the domestic and foreign policies of President Erdogan. Today, Turkey is conducting military operations in Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq, which testifies to its aggressive military foreign policy.

Key words: Islamic fundamentalism, neo-Ottomanism, Turkey, Ottoman Empire, Muslim Brothers, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Анотація

Від реформ Ататюрка до виникнення і розвитку радикального політичного руху «Брати-мусульмани» та до сучасного пантюркізму

Стаття присвячена ісламському фундаменталізму в Турецькій Республіці на сучасному етапі її історії, а також ісламського фундаменталізму на Близькому Сході в другій половині ХХ і початку XXI століття. Після поразки Османської Імперії в Першій світовій війні та припинення її існування до влади прийшов Мустафа Кемаль Ататюрк. Його радикальні реформи змінили Туреччину і зробили її майже світською державою. Турецька Республіка протягом ХХ століття не грала активну роль у міжнародній політиці, але приділяла увагу розвитку економіки. Після приходу до влади Реджепа Тайіпа Ердогана і його політичної партії «Справедливість і Розвиток» у Туреччині почався відхід від світської політики, було розпочато курс на ісламізацію країни. Особливо активну політику по ісламізації Туреччини, президент Ердоган став вести після придушення спроби військового перевороту у 2016 р.

Ще одним важливим складником політичної карти Близького Сходу є діяльність політичної організації Братів Мусульман, яка є одним із найстаріших політичних рухів з ідеологією ісламського фундаменталізму. їхня активна діяльність у Єгипті та Сирії призвела до кровопролитних переворотів і бойових дій у другій половині ХХ століття і початку XXI століття. Багато країн і організації на Близькому Сході хочуть очолити ідеологію ісламського фундаменталізму у своїх політичних цілях. До них належить і Туреччина за правління президента Ердогана, і так само організація Брати Мусульмани. У статті аналізується еволюція ідеології ісламського фундаменталізму на сучасному етапі, ісламізація Турецької Республіки, внутрішня і зовнішня політика президента Ердогана. Сьогодні Туреччина проводить військові операції у Сирії, Лівії, Афганістані, Іраку, що свідчить про її агресивну військову зовнішню політику.

Ключові слова: ісламський фундаменталізм, неоосманізм, Туреччина, Османська Імперія, Брати Мусульмани, Реджеп Тайіп Ердоган.

Introduction

The revival of Islamic fundamentalism in the twentieth century is directly linked to the historical process of society's transition from the modern to the postmodern. The rejection of the religious principles of existence was negatively perceived by part of the population professing Islam. The fall of the Ottoman Empire led to the establishment of mandates and pro-Western regimes in the Middle East and North Africa. The movement towards Islamic fundamentalism became a struggle against Western ideas, the Western way of life and modernist currents in Islam itself. The main goal for Islamic fundamentalists was to fight against the influence of the West in the region, to resist secular political regimes, as well as to establish their power with the further building of Islamic states.

The main goal of the article is to analyze the political changes in Turkey and the Middle East, in connection with the withdrawal into the ideology of Islamic fundamentalism. The article examines the political and social transformations in the Republic of Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Analysis of recent research and publications.

For the study, works of different political scientists, historians and sociologies where analyzed, such as Howard Eissenstat, Primakov E.M., Bagdasarov S.A., Satanovsky E.Y., Soner Cagaptay, Ceren Lord, Hakan Yavuz, Yesim Arat and etc.

The main research material

In the First World War, the Ottoman Empire, defeated by the Entente, permanently entered a state of national struggle for the preservation of its territories and independence under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal, who later received the nickname Ataturk (father of the Turkish people). These political events, referred to as the Kemalist Revolution of 1919-1923, culminated in the conclusion of the Lausanne Peace Treaty, which formalized the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the formation of Turkey within its modern borders. Kemal Ataturk was elected President of the young Turkish Republic.

After gaining power and founding the political People's Republican Party, Mustafa Kemal began a series of reforms called the Atatьrk Devrimleri. The main tasks set by the Kemalists were to separate religion from the state, to build a secular republic, and to Europeanize Turkey.

To strengthen his power, Ataturk dissolved the Ottoman parliament, and on March 16, 1920, a new parliament was convened in Ankara - the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (GNAT). The success of the Kemalist reforms lies in the historical period of their implementation. After the First World War and the War of Independence, Turkey was in decline, technically backward, impoverished and illiterate, and in need of modernization. Public order was archaic due to the high level of religion in society, so the religious aspect of social life in Turkey also required radical changes.

Free elections were held to the new parliament created by Mustafa Kemal, and its deputies were representatives of the entire Turkish people, who expressed the political views and demands of all sections of the population. In 1924 the Constitution was approved. However, according to the second article of the new Constitution, Islam remained the official religion of Turkey and all implemented laws had to be approved by the Commission of Experts in the Field of Islamic Law. Thus, Sharia law was maintained in Turkey for some time. During this period, there was a situation of dual power in Turkey: Kemal Ataturk held power in Ankara, and Sultan Abdul-Majid II - the last caliph of the Ottoman Empire in Istanbul. Finally, the political confrontation ended on November 1, 1922 with the victory of Mustafa Kemal, the sultanate ceased to exist - and political power passed completely to the Turkish parliament.

On October 29, 1923, Turkey was proclaimed a republic, but the caliphate, deprived of power, still existed. Many Turkish believers, as well as outside the country, were dissatisfied with Mustafa Kemal's policies to overthrow the caliphate and sultanate. Finally, on March 3, 1924, the Turkish parliament enacted Law № 431 to abolish the caliphate, and the last representatives of the Ottoman Empire were expelled from Turkey.

The abolition of the caliphate provoked a negative reaction from the Muslim clergy in other Islamic countries, such as Persia (now Iran), Egypt, the Kingdom of Hijaz (now Saudi Arabia), Palestine, and Emirate of Transjordan (now Jordan). In particular, in Cairo and Mecca in 1926 and Jerusalem in 1931, conferences were held with the participation of Islamic religious figures, which resolved the dilemma: either to recognize the decision of the new Turkish government to abolish the caliphate, or to appoint a new caliph. At the same time, these debates did not lead to anything, and Mustafa Kemal described such actions as an attempt at external interference in Turkey's internal affairs.

Thus, Turkey rejected external attempts to restore the caliphate and continued the course of secular reform of the country. Kemal Ataturk got rid of such political rivals as the old Ottoman political and spiritual elite, which prevented him and his government from reforming and modernizing Turkey. The Kemalists' next step was to reform the education system. In March 1924, the law № 430 on a unified system of secular education was adopted. The teaching of religion was forbidden in schools. All schools, as well as madrassas (so-called religious schools in the common people), became subordinate to the Ministry of National Education. Islam itself has also undergone reforms in Turkey. In 1927, a state committee on religion was set up to Europeanize Turkish Islam and transform the Muslim faith into an instrument of Kemalist reform. Atatьrk's reforms also affected the family and women's rights. Marriages could only be registered by secular authorities. Women were given the right to vote. Thus, the reforms of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk completely changed the social and religious life of Turkey and prepared it for the passage through the twentieth century. As a Muslim state after the First World War, Turkey was able to remain independent and avoid occupation by European Christian states. The abolition of the caliphate and the removal of Turkish religious figures from power made it possible to rapidly modernize the state. Kemal Ataturk's own ideology led to the preservation of the statehood, identity, and borders of the Turkish Republic, in which neither fascist nor communist ideologies found support. Atatьrk's secular transformations demonstrated the departure of a Muslim state with centuries-old Islamic traditions from the principles of Islamic fundamentalism to secularism [1-3].

Almost simultaneously with the Turkish transformations of 1928, the Islamic religious political organization «Muslim Brotherhood» emerged in Egypt. Its founder was a school teacher Hassan al-Banna. The reason for the emergence of a new religious and political organization was the liquidation of the caliphate and the implementation of secular reforms by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in Turkey. For al-Banna, the strong position of Islam had to be restored in Arab society not only from the standpoint of religion, but also in political life. After the fall of the Ottoman Empire, secular leaders began to come to power in the new young Arab countries, ideologically professing the principles of Arab nationalism, as played by the British Empire during the First World War in the struggle against the Ottoman Empire on the Middle East.

A small part of the Arab population of the newly formed Islamic states belonged to the extremely conservative part of Islamic society, which longed for the Ottoman sultanate and caliphate. This part of the people became the basis for the young Islamist organization «Muslim Brotherhood». In the 1930s, the Muslim Brotherhood began to grow rapidly, establishing a branch in Syria. Despite attempts to expand its political activities in other countries, the organization still remained unpopular in Egypt, which at the time was dominated by liberal political parties and the European style of government of King Farouk I. During World War II, the Muslim Brotherhood had the support of Nazi Germany. In particular, in 1942, a German tank army under the command of Erwin Rommel approached Egypt from the western part of Africa. The «Muslim Brotherhood» at the time of the approach of the German army had to seize power in Egypt with the help of weapons provided by Germany. The “Muslim Brotherhood” planned the genocide of the country's Jewish and Christian populationns, which impressed Nazi Germany. At the same time, the coup in Cairo did not happen because of the victory of British troops over the German army at the Battle of Al-Alamein.

Due to the growing popularity of the Muslim Brotherhood among the Egyptian population, who were impressed by the ideas of Islamic fundamentalism, in December 1948 the Egyptian authorities banned the organization. In response, the Islamic organization assassinated Prime Minister Mahmoud al-Nukrashi Pasha, resulting in the arrest and execution of Muslim Brotherhood leader Hassan al-Banna. In 1952, a revolution took place in Egypt, the monarchy was overthrown, and King Farouk I left the country. The Egyptian military, led by Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser, came to power and adhered to the ideology of Arab nationalism. After the assassination attempt on President Nasser in 1954 by the Muslim Brotherhood, the organization was banned again, and its leaders were arrested and sent to concentration camps. In 1966, Said Ibrahim Qutb, leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and the chief ideologue of modern Islamic fundamentalism, was executed. fundamentalism policy muslim erdogan

The most important religious and political work left by Qutb is the book «Milestones in the Way of Allah. » In particular, in his work, Qutb criticizes not only the Western world, democracy and the Western way of life, but also the Soviet Union, the socialist camp and communism as a source of Western political thought. According to him, the Western liberal world and the Eastern socialist world are the way to nowhere; only Islam «has moral values and guidelines as a program for the future. » In addition, Qutb calls Western capitalist and Eastern socialist society a society of pagans. He uses the special term “jahili- yyah”, which means a period of pagan ignorance before the Arabs converted to Islam. At the same time, Qutb acknowledges that the Islamic world cannot yet produce as many and varied material values as the Western world does: “There is a need for leadership that could ensure the preservation and development of material civilization at the level achieved by mankind through the use of European genius in the field of material creativity, supplying humanity with new unprecedented perfect values compared to what mankind knew”. That is, Islam does not deny creativity in the field of material production, considering it “worship of Allah and fulfillment of the purpose of human existence”, and the Islamic system of building a society brings liberation to man.

“People in any non-Islamic system somehow enslave each other. And only in the Islamic system are all people freed from the practice of worshiping one person to another through the worship of Allah alone”.

The construction of a new Islamic society must be waged through jihad, that is, holy war. The holy war must be waged against pagan ignorance, which is detrimental to the Islamic ummah (religious community). Thus, jihad must be waged against jahiliyyah (primitive rudeness and ignorance). “Obedience to Allah is the universal basis to which humanity must either turn or in general take a peaceful position and not oppose the Islamic call, in no way oppose any political system, no material force, and give everyone the opportunity to decide for themselves how to be. Man must decide for himself whether to accept this doctrine of his own free will or not, but he must not resist it or oppose it with a weapon in his hand. If anyone does otherwise, adherents of the Islamic world must fight him until they kill him or declare their obedience”.

Qutb explains that jihad must be waged against infidels who oppose the spread of Islam. Those who do not accept Islam, but do not resist it, such as Christians and Jews, must pay jizya - a tax, a tax, a ransom for saving their lives; the infidels must accept Islam and not resist its spread, and those who will resist must be destroyed. The goal of Islam is the liberation from slavery not only of the Arab man, but of man in general, as Qutb believes. “The Islamic religion is not a declaration of the liberation of the Arab man alone, nor is it a mission that concerns only the Arabs, - Qutb explains. - The subject of this declaration is the person in general, a human race, and the sphere of its application is the earth, all earth. Allah, praise be to Him, is not the Lord of the Arabs and only. Moreover, He is not even the Lord exclusively of those who profess Islamic doctrine. Allah is the Lord of all the worlds. The Islamic religion aims to convert all the inhabitants of this world to their Lord and free them from enslavement and worship of anyone but Allah”.

In his work, Qutb sees the building of a just society through the practice of Islam, which will allow all peoples to live in peace and harmony. Hence the Islamic faith, or Islamic law, which does not take into account nationality, race, human origin, so Muslim society is open to all people on earth. The public education that Saeed Qutb dreamed of was the internationalism of people living in the Islamic empire (caliphate) and abiding by strict Islamic laws. “The victorious Islamic society united Arabs, Persians, Syrians, Egyptians, Maghrebians, Turks, Chinese, representatives of India, the Roman Empire, Greece, Indonesia, Africa - all races and peoples. Within this society, in harmony and cooperation, all their specific features have been mixed and united in the name of building an Islamic society and Islamic civilization. This powerful civilization has never, not one day, been only Arab. It has always been Islamic. Never, not one day, has it been a nation-wide civilization. It has always been a religious civilization. All Muslims came together on equal terms with a sense of love and direction. They applied the maximum of their talents and talents and showed the deepest virtues of their races. They have invested all the personal and historically accumulated experience of their nations and people in building a single society to which they all belonged on an equal footing. In this society, they are united by a connection with their one and only Allah. And only through this connection, without any obstacles, is their humanity and humanism manifested. No other community in history has had anything like this”. In the final pages of his work, Saeed Qutb says that the battle between Muslim believers and infidels is like a battle for doctrine. Muslims wage war for the true faith, while their pagan enemies wage war against the orthodox under the banner of politics, economics, or race. “Before our eyes is one of the examples of camouflage of the flag in the attempt of the modern world movement of the Crusaders to distract us from the truth of the battle and to falsify history. They claim that the Crusades were a cover for colonialism. By no means! On the contrary, colonialism, coming with some delay, served as a cover for the crusading spirit, which is still able, as in the Middle Ages, to drop its mask and show its true face; who in those distant times crashed on the rock of faith, facing Muslims, led by military leaders - people ofdifferent races: there were the Kurds Sala ad-Din, and the Mamluk Turan Shah, and representatives of other races and peoples, who, forgetting about their nationality, remembered the doctrine and won under the banner of this doctrine”.

The book “Milestones in the Way of Allah” by the Egyptian thinker Said Qutb in the second half of the twentieth century and at the beginning of the XXI century became the main source of Islamic fundamentalism for the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood in the implementation of its political plans [4]. After the death of President Nasser, Anwar Sadat was elected the new president of Egypt. To fight the leftwing opposition, he pardoned members of the Muslim Brotherhood and released them. Some of the more radical activists withdrew from the Muslim Brotherhood and founded their own Islamist organization, Jihad, whose members assassinated President Sadat in the fall of 1981 for recognizing the state of Israel as Egypt and signing the Camp David Accords [5].

By the end of World War II, the Muslim Brotherhood had expanded considerably, becoming an international association with more than half a million members. In addition to Egypt, the organization's activities were widespread in Tunisia, Libya, Algeria, Syria, Turkey and many other countries in the Middle East. Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, the Soviet Union, and some other countries considered the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist movement, while Tunisia, Sudan, Yemen, and Bahrain considered it political. The active development of the Muslim Brotherhood began in the Syrian state. Back in the 1960s, the Muslim Brotherhood recruited Syrian schoolchildren and students through its mosques. The program included a mandatory study of the works of the founders of modern Islamic fundamentalism, Hassan al-Banna and Saeed Qutb. After religious and ideological training, young Syrians were sent to special camps, where they were taught how to handle weapons. Many small Islamist groups have joined the Muslim Brotherhood. At this time, Syria was led by the Alawites - one of the sects of the Shiite branch of Islam - led by Hafez Assad.

Members of the Muslim Brotherhood waged the most active struggle against the Syrian government, which did not dare to use repression against extremism for fear of an outbreak of religious confrontation. The Alawite government's crackdown on Sunni Muslim Brotherhood could be a major pretext for Sunni Islamists to fight openly against the Syrian government. To avoid a possible conflict, President Assad has appointed Sunni Syrians to some senior government positions.

President Assad himself was well aware of the political situation in Syria, noting in every way that he adheres to all the precepts of Islam as an orthodox Muslim. In 1971, he added the phrase “I swear by Allah” to the presidential oath, and in 1973, yielding to the demands of the Syrian clergy, he added to the annex to the Syrian constitution an article stating that only a Muslim could be president. In his speeches, Hafez al-Assad often emphasized that the PASR (Party of Arab Socialist Revival) is based on the spiritual principles of Islam. The ideology of Arab socialism in Syria was based on the modernization of the economy and the unification of all Arabs into one great nation. The PASR leadership began to actively involve Islamic imams in its ranks, who spoke about the need to modernize Islam.

Between 1978 and 1982, a political crisis erupted in Syria. Economic experiments conducted by the Syrian ruling PASR party have led to a decline in living standards and a political crisis. The government was opposed by the middle classes of the urban population, large businessmen, landowners and Muslim traditionalists. In some parts of Syria, political struggles have escalated into religious conflicts. Islamists advocated the overthrow of the secular state regime and the revival of Islamic traditions. At the same time, the Sunni majority of the country, which dominated for 400 years during the rule of the Ottoman Empire, disagreed with the fact that the country, however, is mostly ruled by Alawites. The Muslim Brotherhood took advantage of the difficult economic situation in the country. In addition, many members of the religious organization infiltrated government agencies. The Islamic organization has exploited the discontent of the masses, accusing the Syrian government of abuse of power, corruption and large numbers of Alawites in government.

By 1979, the Muslim Brotherhood had begun an armed struggle against the PASR regime and President Assad. They were joined by smaller Islamist groups, such as the Kharakat al-Tahrir al-Islami (Islamic Liberation Movement), the Kataib Muhammad (Phalanxes of Muhammad), the Mujahideen, and Jund Alla. Later, the activities of Islamic fundamentalists entered a phase of terrorist war. They carried out terrorist acts, killed officials, doctors, teachers, and intimidated the owners of private shops and stores, which were mostly Alawites; set fire to government buildings, demanded the repeal of laws on the nationalization of land and private enterprises.

Along with terrorist acts there was an ideological struggle. The dead Islamists were declared martyrs, leaflets were scattered calling for the overthrow of the Assad regime. To enlist the support of Arab Christians, the Muslim Brotherhood leaflets claimed that they were fighting only against the PASК and the Syrian Communists. The main stronghold of the Syrian Islamists was the city of Hama, which regular government troops were able to liberate from jihadists only in 1982, defeating an armed uprising there.

Despite public dissatisfaction with President Hafez al-Assad's reforms, the Syrian people did not support the Muslim Brotherhood's armed struggle. The uprising was not joined by the rural population, young people and big business, as the Islamic Revolution in Iran took place in 1979, so the Syrian people were concerned about the possibility of similar events in Syria [5]. During the twentieth century, the Turkish army was an independent political arbiter after Ataturk's reforms. As soon as religious rhetoric began on the part of politicians, the military overthrew civilian authorities and held new elections. It was thanks to military coups that the secular regime survived. At the same time, it was noted that the Turkish people during the twentieth century lived with a double consciousness, in which the secular reforms of Ataturk and the state religion of Islam were applied. Sunni Islam is the religion of 99.8% of Turkey's population. Therefore, the Justice and Development Party, founded by Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2001, began to introduce soft Islamization, which was more based on the embodiment of symbolism, which was a normal phenomenon for a Muslim country.

In the first decade of the current XXI century, during the presidency of Recep Tayyip Erdogan (20032014), the domestic policy of the Turkish state can be described as a course of departure from the secular model to Islamization; in foreign policy there was a departure from the ideology under the motto: “Zero problems with neighbors.” This concept was developed and published in the monograph “Strategic depth. Turkey's International Situation” by former Foreign Minister and former Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu [6, c. 71]. Davutoglu saw strategic planning for Turkey's future development in expanding spheres of influence in regional policy, which proposed transforming Turkey not only into a regional state but also into a global superpower, dividing Turkey's spheres of influence into three groups (basins).

The first group of influence is the Middle East, the Balkans and the Caucasus; the second group of influence includes the Black Sea region, the Caspian region, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf. The third group includes Central and East Asia, South Asia, Europe and North Africa [7]. In the second decade, during the presidency of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey began to actively return to some Islamic traditions of the Ottoman Empire. Young Turks began to wear the hijab, reduced or stopped the sale of alcohol in the cities, limited the sale of tobacco products, increased the construction of mosques and the opening of madrassas (religious schools). German Islamic scholar Catherine Ait of Halle University in Germany said further reforms could lead to the proclamation of Sunni Islam as the state religion of Turkey and the introduction of Sharia law [8]. 2016, 2017 and 2020 were important stages in the transformation of modern Turkey. On July 16, 2016, the military launched a lightning-coordinated operation in the country's major cities to overthrow the regime of Recep Tayyip Erdo- gan. An attempt at a military coup to oust Recep Tayyip Erdogan from the leadership was prepared by the Turkish opposition Hizmet party and its leader and Erdogan's longtime enemy, Fethullah Gulen. Soldiers and officers of the Turkish army with the help of military equipment tried to capture Ankara, Istanbul and other major cities. Thanks to social networks, the civilian population of Turkey took to the streets to block the actions of the military. Part of the Turkish army and police remained loyal to President Erdogan. The remnants of the rebellious military surrendered on the Bosphorus Bridge in Istanbul. A total of 241 people were killed and 2,194 were injured. Erdogan's government was able to quell the uprising.

In the second half of 2016, Erdogan carried out a complete sweep of all supporters of the Hizmet movement. Schools and universities owned by the movement were closed. Turkish soldiers, officers, generals and government officials who were secret members of Hizmet's extensive network were also arrested. In this way, Erdogan was able to get rid of his political opponents and pave the way for the usurpation of power [9; 10 p. 39-50].

After destroying the opposition, Erdogan began to take organizational and political measures to strengthen his power. On April 16, 2017, a referendum was held in Turkey on the issue of amending the country's constitution to change the form of government. Thus, Turkey moved from a parliamentary-presidential form of government to a presidential-parliamentary one. Constitutional reforms have significantly strengthened the president's power and given him the freedom to build a new Islamic state [11]. It is important to note that Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party have not and do not hide their sympathy for the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas by openly providing them with weapons, medicine and money. In addition, Recep Tayyip Erdogan's policy of open Islamization of Turkey has set a course for its establishment as a leader of Muslims in the Middle East, Asia Minor and Central Asia [12]. In 2020, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took several more significant political steps, confirming his intentions to move towards state Islamic radicalism. Despite protests from many religious leaders, including the Pope, the Patriarch of Constantinople, Moscow and All Russia, as well as other Christian religious organizations and UNESCO, the first Friday prayer was held on June 24, 2020 at the Al-Sophia Mosque in Istanbul. The prayer began with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reciting a passage from the Qur'an and the Imam calling for prayer from the minarets. Christian frescoes were hung during prayers.

This political move was an open statement about Turkey's rejection of the principles of a secular state and its return to the centuries-old Islamic traditions of the Ottoman Empire [13].

Today, Turkey is actively implementing the concept of restoring its empire. In particular, at this time, Turkish troops are in Syria, Iraqi Kurdistan, Cyprus, Libya, provided assistance to Azerbaijani troops during the second war in Nagorno-Karabakh in autumn 2020. Turkey also uses the Syrian refugee factor in Europe as a soft force for its influence and pressure on the European Union [14; 15].

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