Throughout the Middle East, the clash between Islamic forces and authoritarian states has undermined many democratization efforts. But in Turkey, Islamic actors—from the Gülen movement to the pro-Islamist Justice and Development Party—have been able to negotiate the terms of secular liberal democracy. This book explores the socio-political conditions and cultural venues in which Islamic movements cease to confront and start to cooperate with secular states.

Though both the Gülen and JP have ambivalent attitudes toward individual freedoms and various aspects of civil society, their continuing engagements with the state have encouraged democracy in Turkey. As they contest issues of education and morality but cooperate in ethnic and gender politics, they redraw the boundaries between public sites and private lives. Showing opportunities for engagement between Islam and the state, from Turkey to Kazakhstan to the United States, Between Islam and the State illustrates a successful means of negotiating between religion and politics.

"The need to understand Islam is obvious. Berna Turam's elegant and incisive ethnography of Turkey's Gülenist movement makes a major contribution in showing tension and diversity within the Islamic world." - McGill University

"Turam's study provides valuable insights into the mental framework of large sections of Turkish society." - National Identities

"In dealing with Islam, books have seemed incapable of going beyond terrorism, jihad, and al-Qaeda. But, Berna Turam ably demonstrates that Islam has multiple faces and diverse ways of dealing with the existing secular world. For anyone who wants to understand the evolving role of Islam in the Middle East and beyond, Between Islam and the State is a must read." - University of Washington

"Berna Turam's study of Islam and democracy in Turkey also advances debates about Islamist moderation. She tackles a crucial case study—Turkey's mainstream Islamists—because Turkey would seem to be a case of exclusion leading to moderation . . . [Turam] emphasizes everyday interactions, rather than a focus on the inclusion of Islamists into electoral politics or the formal political system . . . Turam draws attention to a whole political context and not merely to a sequence of mechanisms that affect the behaviors and/or ideologies of discrete Islamist groups and individuals." - World Politics