The Islamist Businessman

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Sep 7, 2021 Turkey
Photo by hosny_salah via Pixabay. Photo by hosny_salah via Pixabay.

The Islamist Businessman

By : Utku Balaban

[This article is part of a roundtable on "The Shifting Islamist Sector in Turkey." Read the other contributions to the roundtable here.]

Islam First


What is Islamism? This is not an easy question to answer because Islamists generally see Islamism as a conceptual superimposition by infidels. They are Muslims, not Islamists. They work to live Islam. They work to make Islam prevail. They work to govern their Dar al-Islam.

However, we know that Islamism is not a mere misnomer. It touches upon and describes certain social and historical relations. Differences among multiple sects, tariqas, and theological schools are often embedded in former worldly disputes. Islamist movements compete with each other for resources and power. Islamist governments change their laws and policies according to the new circumstances they face. Beyond the relationship of individuals to certain scriptures, beliefs, and rituals, Islamism is a web of relations among certain political actors. Unlike what its believers tend to think about Islam, Islamism is political.

Thus, maybe we should take a step backward and focus on why Islamism prevailed over what some call “political quietism” (al-Sarhan, 2019). Why do many Muslims around the world look for something in religion that addresses their political aspirations? Which Muslims are in this kind of search and what are their motivations in this endeavor? Whom does Islamism represent?

One answer to the last question is the electorate of Islamist parties, if the relevant country has free and fair elections, of course. If this is not the case, then the answer depends on a broader set of considerations. According to the Economist’s Democracy Index (and many other comparable indices, such as those by Freedom House or Polity IV), none of the Muslim-majority countries was governed by fully democratic regimes as of 2020. By this measure, only nine percent of members of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation even have a “flawed democracy.” The rest have semi- or fully authoritarian regimes. In fact, even if there is one, the ballot box says only a little about whom Islamism represents.

Given this context, gaining a better understanding of what Islamists deliver to their supporters is essential to answering the initial question. To some degree, this is an easier inquiry because we can take the Islamists’ actions and discourse as a reflection of their intentions. And what they offer supporters may encompass a broad range of services, opportunities, and goods, which may be related to religious practices and performances, or about everyday life-related challenges or economic advantages, among many others.

I believe we generally assume an epistemic hierarchy among these issues when we study different aspects of Islamism. To be specific, Islamist movements are assumed to exist primarily to address religion-based demands of Muslims. Social concerns that may be addressed by Islamists, such as the provision of eldercare or respect for sartorial norms, are subsumed as part of such religion-related interests. And economic interests that may be served by Islamists are only taken into consideration as a collateral matter after addressing all other issues on the higher echelons of the epistemic hierarchy through which Islamists are understood.

The specificity of the interests of different supporter groups is lost in this meta-narrative. Islamism is Islam in action. Islamists are seen as the representatives of Islam. Supporters of Islamism are seen as pious Muslims with limited interest in worldly affairs. If a particular social, cultural, or economic group, which is somehow associated with Islamism, is studied, members of this group are labeled as “Islamist first” and this assumption frames the entire reading of the characteristics of that group: Islamist woman, Islamist activist, Islamist businessman….In each case, the adjective takes primacy over the noun. The gender, ideology, or trade of the person is subordinated to their affiliation to Islamism.

One problem with this perspective, which we could call here “Islam First,” is its unfairness to Islamists and their supporters. Unlike other religiously-inspired movements such as the Christian Democrats in Europe, Islamism is reduced to a theological narrative. When Christian Democrats mobilize for an infrastructure plan, very few would ask how they justify their plan in accordance with the New Testament, while any book on financial instruments advocated for and supported by Islamists has at least some discussion on the theological foundations of the industry. Thus, efforts to understand Islamism run the risk of approaching the issue from an orientalist perspective.

The second problem is more about the critical questions that this meta-narrative fails to answer. Why did Islamist movements begin to genuinely challenge their political establishments only after the 1970s? Why do we see such a great variety in the socio-economic policies and programs among different Islamist governments and movements? Despite this diversity, why have we not seen a socialist Islamist government (yet)?

The Islamist Businessman


I do not believe the “Islam First” perspective has a good answer to any of these questions, because none of these issues are essentially and inherently related to Islam as such. We need a new pivotal theme and the following question could help us identify such alternatives: Why have Islamist movements become more successful in industrializing countries?
We need a new pivotal theme and the following question could help us identify such alternatives: Why have Islamist movements become more successful in industrializing countries?

Islamic revivalism has a certain connection to the industrialization of the Muslim-majority countries especially after the 1970s, even though Islamist movements often call for a new political order similar to the one established during the Prophet’s times. In 1979, Iran ranked second among Muslim-majority countries in non-extractive manufacturing industries. After Indonesia’s manufacturing output surged in the 1980s, the Islamist movements became the overlords in the local politics of the country. Ironically, slower industrial growth in recent years empowered the older political establishments in Egypt, Pakistan, and Tunisia vis-à-vis the Islamist opposition. Since rentierism makes labor-intensive manufacturing industries unprofitable in oil-rich countries, Islamists either failed against the ruling dynasty (as in Saudi Arabia), or they dismantled the state apparatus to overthrow their rulers (as in Libya). While effectively organizing the cultivation and production of the agricultural narcotic raw materials for global markets, Islamists choose to rule Afghanistan without a unitary form of government but as a federation of tribes.

In short, we may hypothesize that Islamists’ political strategies are closely related to the industrial inputs their countries supply for global commodity chains, how they produce those commodities, and in what volume. In fact, the patterns of integration of the Muslim-majority countries to the world economy have an impact on the political strategies of their local Islamist movements. Accordingly, we can rephrase our question to address this connection: Which actors have been playing key roles in the transformation of this integration process since the 1970s, and what is the nature of the relationship of these actors to the Islamists?

To address this question, I will discuss the case I know best: Turkey. Turkish Islamism has arguably outperformed many other Islamist movements. Islamists in Turkey successfully purged the strongest secularist political establishment in the Muslim world without dismantling the state apparatus. Islamists now control that apparatus and deploy it, together with the language of democracy, in their own favor.

Turkey is historically the most industrialized country in the Muslim world. The country went through a major transformation in its industrial relations in the 1980s. Among the countries with a population of over ten million, Turkey had the third-highest urbanization rate, the fourth fastest manufacturing value-added growth, and the third fastest merchandise exports growth in the world in this decade (World Bank, 2021). Islamists won the municipal elections in both Istanbul and Ankara in 1994, taking political control of the country’s capital as well as its most populous and economically vibrant city.

This transformation occurred in parallel with—and was also related to—the rise of the small industrialist. Over 100,000 small industrial establishments began their operations between 1985 and 1998 with an average initial capital stock, in some years smaller than USD$20,000. Currently, over 400,000 such small facilities employ over four million workers. These enterprises together produce more than half of the export output value of the country. According to my estimates, at least 50,000 such facilities operate within the working-class neighborhoods of Istanbul and employ probably over a million workers. Furthermore, Turkey’s manufacturing output and Islamists’ voting shares have had consistently simultaneous ups and downs since the mid-1980s, while this trend does not apply to earlier years, different economic sectors, or political parties. Lastly, Islamists were only able to finally stop the decline in their voting shares since the early 1970s when they succeeded in expanding their support base in the working-class neighborhoods of industrialized cities in the mid-1980s. Most of the small-scale manufacturing facilities mushroomed in these neighborhoods in the same period (Balaban, 2010).

My main argument is that the Islamists in Turkey could not have come to power without an alliance with these small industrialists. This argument implies two corrections of the literature for the purposes of this essay. First, the critical actor in this story is not “the Islamist businessman” per se but the small industrialist. Rather than their religious beliefs and lifestyles, what determines the politics of the members of the business community is, for the most part, their position in industrial supply chains. Even though there are big business groups benefitting from the Islamists, it is the small industrialists who provide critical support for the Islamists. Second, it is not “the Islamist businessman” as a product of the rising Islamist movement, but the small industrialist, whose support is critical for the Islamists. In other words, the rise of the small industrialists (and other economic interests), who facilitate the integration of the Muslim-majority countries to the world economy, is not an outcome of Islamic revivalism, but a major process behind it. Furthermore, the Islamist government in Turkey continues to frame its economic, social, and cultural policies in accordance with the interests of small industrialists. In fact, the ongoing authoritarian turn in Turkey is a part of the broader strategy to administer what I call “sustainable decline” in order to help small industrialists remain globally competitive.

The Cat in Istanbul


Then why is it the small industrialist and not the Islamist businessman that is at the heart of the rise of Islamism? The presumption that the rise of the Islamist businessman—rather than an alliance between small industrialists and Islamists—is the key explanatory factor reflects the myopia of the “Islam First” approach described above. However, the narrower focus specifically on small industrialists offers a new perspective on the three broad points of agreement in the existing literature on the relationship between new entrepreneurial groups and Islamists since the 1980s.

First, there is a general agreement in the literature that Islamist business associations and major business groups represent a new “Islamist bourgeoisie,” which is in a tense relationship with the old (secularist) bourgeoisie (Balkan et al., 2015; Yavuz, 2006). Second, the new Islamist bourgeoisie preexisted the 1980s and differs from the secularist bourgeoisie in terms of its business values and everyday practices (Madi-Sisman, 2017; Yankaya, 2014). Third, the industrializing towns of the provincial regions of the country known as the “Anatolian Tigers” were the birthplace of this class (Buğra & Savaşkan, 2014; Öniş, 1997).

These arguments are based on the assumption that pro-Islamist business groups have an antithetical position to the rest of Turkey’s business community, while the non-political origins of this rift mostly remain obscure. Accordingly, cooperative relations among and between pious and non-pious businesspeople are overlooked. Moreover, the category of Islamist bourgeoisie subsumes both the small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and larger companies. This results in emphasizing the political or economic positions of (pro-Islamist) big capital at the expense of attending adequately to the (often tense) relationship of this sector with small industrialists. Lastly, the aforementioned studies acknowledge that the largest proportion of Islamist entrepreneurs were (and are) located in the big cities of the country, yet they still insist on looking for the roots of Islamist entrepreneurs in distant corners of the country.

Let me now turn to my observations in different cities of Turkey in order to discuss these arguments in some more detail. During my fieldwork between 2002 and 2015, I was convinced that the ideal-typical “Islamist businessman” is a garment sweatshop owner in a thickly settled working-class neighborhood of Istanbul. He employs roughly twenty-five workers, the minimum figure to operate a functional assembly line in such a sweatshop. His shop is located on the first floor or the basement of a residential building that has five floors. Except for the slumlord, who was an early migrant to the city and possibly has sons, who have their own sweatshops, other residents of the building likely work at another sweatshop in another neighborhood nearby. The sweatshops in many cases outnumber the streets. My research setting in Istanbul, Bağcılar, for instance, was the largest district of Istanbul well into the mid-2010s. Accommodating more than 700,000 people in an area covering roughly eight square miles, Bağcılar had on average 2.5 small manufacturing facilities on each of its roughly 2,200 streets. This density reflects the central position of Istanbul and other major cities in the industrial output of the country. Istanbul, Ankara, and Izmir, the three biggest cities, together accounted for fifty-three percent of all of the new manufacturing facilities as of January 2021. The share of Istanbul alone is more than one-third of the total figure for the country. Most of these enterprises are, however, smaller than their counterparts in smaller cities. For instance, Istanbul ranked twenty-sixth among the eighty-one provinces in terms of the average capital investment per new enterprise. Ankara and Izmir respectively ranked sixty-sixth and seventy-fifth in the same list. In effect, even one single neighborhood of these big cities could host more small industrial establishments than the entire cities in the rest of the country. In other words, “the Islamist businessman” is not an Anatolian tiger. He is an Istanbulite cat.

Another consistent fact I repeatedly observed during my fieldwork in Bağcılar and in three industrializing towns in Anatolia (Denizli, Gaziantep, and Kayseri) was the fragility of the manufacturing SMEs. The great majority of them are owners of micro- or small-sized enterprises. Most of these businesses have a longevity shorter than five years. Thus, small industrialists as the owners and operators of these establishments are not capitalists but members of (a) middle class.

However, this simple fact is somewhat difficult to discover with the help of the literature. For instance, studies on the “conservative,” “Muslim,” or “Islamist” middle class generally choose to focus on consumption patterns of well-to-do Islamists (Yavuz, 2020), sartorial practices of a new generation of pious women (Cevik, 2016), and/or this middle class’s cultural competition/negotiation with the secularist middle class (Somer, 2007, p. 1276). In fact, we are not given enough to understand what helped these people to aspire to the ranks of (a) middle class.

Unlike these studies, we see references to the local entrepreneurs more often in neighborhood and workplace ethnographies in relation to the informal employment relations in working-class communities (Dedeoğlu, 2008; Ozbay, 2010; J. B. White, 1994), Muslim women’s role in the social life of working-class communities (Saktanber, 2002), everyday life concerns and interpersonal relations in working-class communities (J. White, 2002), and the relationship between Islamists and workers (Tuğal, 2009). These studies convincingly portray the pressure on the urban working class by the mostly male and predominantly Turkish local elites. In fact, ethnographies in working class communities cast light on the local allies of the Islamists to a far greater extent than the studies of the pro-Islamist middle class. Nonetheless, a thorough discussion about the class position of those elites is missing in these ethnographic studies as well.

The Circulation of Capital


In answer to my opening question, then, I argue that Islamism represents the new economic interests that have emerged since the late 1970s. Its fate depends on the conditions of globalization-related transformations that determine the power of those new interests. Islamism in Turkey represents the interests of the small industrialists and their other local and small business partners in other sectors mostly operating in working-class communities, who emerged in the 1980s initially in the most industrialized regions of the country and played a pivotal role in export-led industrialization in the decades to come.

This conclusion does present an answer to my initial question, but it is still not clear who this “small industrialist” is in terms of their class position. I believe this is not a trivial matter, because a detailed typology of pro-Islamist actors would be one way to bypass problems embedded in the “Islamism First” approach.

We can work on developing such a typology by borrowing some inspiration from Karl Marx’s theory of capital circulation. In the second volume of Capital, Marx discusses three metamorphoses of capital, from money form to productive and then to commodity forms. Each metamorphosis is a social setting of struggle. Stock exchanges, work organizations, and commodity markets generate opportunities for the production and realization of surplus value as well as significant risks and limitations for particular kinds of capital. Middle classes play a functional role in each one of these metamorphoses and bargain with the bourgeoisie for their share from the total surplus value, usually via party politics. Since there are three metamorphoses, there is a historical potential for three different middle-classes to emerge.

The ideal-typical and leading representatives of each one of the classes are the CEOs of multinationals, the small industrialists, and salaried professionals such as scholars and government bureaucrats. CEOs take part in the metamorphosis of money capital to productive capital by designing and operating global commodity chains. The small industrialists oversee the production of cheap inputs for those commodity chains with the help of below-subsistence wages in the global semi-periphery and periphery. Scholars and government bureaucrats facilitate the aesthetic, normative, and legal conditions for the consumption of those commodities via the metamorphosis of the commodity capital to its money form. In my earlier work, I referred to these middle classes respectively as technocracy, faubourgeoisie, and petty bourgeoisie (Balaban, 2013).

The faubourgeoisie, or the class that lives outside the walls of the city, has played a critical role in politics all around the world. Small industrialists and other local entrepreneurs as members of this social class take part in political alliances and use their credibility within working-class communities for those alliances. Small industrialists in different parts of the Muslim world, such as Egypt, Bangladesh, and Indonesia, make their mark on national politics to different degrees.

In Turkey, the late industrialization began in the 1980s with political and economic reforms much more expansive than the ones in many other Muslim-majority countries, partially because the older import-substituting growth strategy was more successful and, hence, its crisis was more destructive. Also, socialist movements in Turkey posed a substantial challenge to the regime and capitalized on the crisis. Despite the efforts of the post-1980 governments, however, Turkey failed to attract significant volumes of foreign direct investment. The absence of foreign direct investment helped a large number of small industrialists to directly produce for retail chains or major brands in high-income countries. The country had an exceptionally high rural-to-urban migration in the 1980s. The military coup in 1980 mostly eradicated the political power of labor unions and socialist movements. All these factors both empowered the faubourgeoisie much more than their counterparts in the rest of the Muslim world and facilitated the conditions for a long-lasting alliance with the Islamists.

Conclusion


A continued scholarly emphasis on this social class and its alliance with the Islamists could give us new insights about three subjects within the Turkish context. First, in contrast to our knowledge of the operation and transformation of Islamist parties in Turkey (Baykan, 2018; Delibas, 2014; Dogan, 2016), we do not know much about what methods (or social technologies) local elites use beyond party activities to deliver mass support for the Islamists. Thus, our knowledge about the local factors behind the continued success of Islamists in working-class communities is now mostly limited to studies on Islamist parties and NGOs.

Second, this reading could be useful to discuss Islamists’ economic policies from an alternative perspective. Turkey’s GDP has been declining since 2013. The number of new manufacturing establishments per year was a mere 3,000 in 2012. The numbers have grown each year since then and the figure for 2020 reached 14,000. Given that more than ninety-six percent of these establishments are SMEs, we now see that the Islamists’ seemingly erratic economic policies, in fact, serve the interests of the faubourgeoisie.

Third, if Islamic revivalism is a result of the almost total purge of socialist movements by the military junta of 1980-1983 coupled with the ensuing export-oriented growth strategy, which granted Islamists new political opportunities, we can now see why the rift between Islamists and secularists dominated the political scene after the 1980s. These movements represent the faubourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie, respectively. In effect, relations between these two middle classes frame the relationship between the Islamist and secularist movements. The two decades after 1980 witnessed the dynamic resistance of the petty bourgeoisie under the banner of secularism against the faubourgeoisie-supported efforts to dismantle the earlier state-run developmentalist growth strategy. Ironically, the military, which is a faction of the petty bourgeoisie, initiated this transformation in order to overcome the deep economic crisis of the 1970s that alarmingly empowered the socialists. With the advent of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and its rapid rise to power, the petty bourgeoisie adapted to the new conditions while also benefiting from the Islamists’ economic policies.

Thus, even though the (secularist) petty bourgeoisie—who might be considered the equivalent of white liberals in the United States—are not satisfied with certain policies and restrictions by the Islamist government, they still believe that they are better off in comparison to the earlier decades prior to AKP rule. In effect, it is probably a better strategy to look at what the petty bourgeoisie have not done since the early 2000s than what it did in the same period, in order to understand the nature of the Islamist-secularist rift in Turkey. For instance, we could study the countrywide demonstrations in 2013 known as the Gezi Protests as a major expression of discontent with the government, which it was, and these studies would inform us about the dynamics of political demonstrations. However, we know that the protests did not evolve into an expansive solidarity network to reach out to the working-class communities. Many protestors, who allegedly demanded a better world, were, in practice, highly reluctant to get involved in politics in the “worse parts” of this world such as the working-class communities of their cities. In short, the perspective offered here helps us to distinguish between a politics of discontent and a politics of social class by the petty bourgeoisie and the faubourgeoisie.

Furthermore, as of now, two election camps are competing in the upcoming elections in Turkey and each camp has secularist and Islamist parties. The bloodiest clash of the last decade took place between two Islamist factions during a failed coup attempt in 2016. In fact, the approach offered here seeks to explain both the factors behind the longevity of the seemingly unreconcilable Islamist-secularist tension and reasons for its gradual erasure in party politics. 

On my argument, the authoritarian turn in Turkey represents the terms of the reconciliation of interests between the petty bourgeoisie and the faubourgeoisie and the tacit consensus between the secularists and the Islamists on repressive government policies in order to keep economic decline “sustainable.” The key connection among these actors and incidents is industrialization. Thus, I call the political phenomenon which we have been observing in Turkey since the 1980s “industrial Islamism.”

References


al-Sarhan, S. (Ed.). (2019). Political Quietism in Islam: Sunni and Shi’i Practice and Thought. I.B. Tauris.

Balaban, U. (2010). A Conveyor Belt of Flesh: Urban Space and the Proliferation of Industrial Labor Practices in Istanbul’s Garment Industry. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung.

Balaban, U. (2013). Faburjuvazi ve İktidar: Yakın Türkiye Tarihinde Sınıf ve Siyasal İslam. Praksis, 32(2), 11–63.

Balkan, N., Balkan, E. M., & Öncü, A. F. (2015). The Neoliberal Landscape and the Rise of Islamist Capital in Turkey. Berghahn Books.

Baykan, T. S. (2018). The Justice and Development Party in Turkey: Populism, Personalism, Organization. Cambridge University Press.

Buğra, A., & Savaşkan, O. (2014). New Capitalism in Turkey: The Relationship between Politics, Religion and Business. Edward Elgar.

Cevik, N. (2016). Muslimism in Turkey and Beyond. Palgrave Macmillan US. http://proxy.library.cornell.edu/login?url=http://link.springer.com/openurl?genre=book&isbn=978-1-349-56723-2

Dedeoğlu, S. (2008). Women Workers in Turkey: Global Industrial Production in Istanbul. Tauris Academic Studies. http://site.ebrary.com/id/10231639

Delibas, K. (2014). The Rise of Political Islam in Turkey: Urban Poverty, Grassroots Activism and Islamic Fundamentalism. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=941671

Dogan, S. (2016). Mahalledeki AKP: Parti İşleyişi, Taban Mobilizasyonu ve Siyasal Yabancılaşma. Iletisim Yayinevi.

Doğan, S. (2016). Mahalledeki AKP: Parti Işleyişi, Taban Mobilizasyonu ve Siyasal Yabancılaşma. İletişim.

Madi-Sisman, Ö. (2017). Muslims, Money, and Democracy in Turkey: Reluctant Capitalists. Palgrave MacMillan.

Öniş, Z. (1997). The Political Economy of Islamic Resurgence in Turkey: The Rise of the Welfare Party in Perspective. Third World Quarterly, 18(4), 743–766.

Ozbay, C. (2010). Retailed Lives: Governing Gender and Work in Globalizing Istanbul. University of Southern California. http://cdm15799.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p15799coll127/id/422153

Saktanber, A. (2002). Living Islam: Women, Religion and the Politicization of Culture in Turkey. I.B. Tauris.

Somer, M. (2007). Moderate Islam and Secularist Opposition in Turkey: Implications for the World, Muslims and Secular Democracy. Third World Quarterly, 28(7), 1271–1289. https://doi.org/10.1080/01436590701604888

Tuğal, C. (2009). Passive Revolution: Absorbing the Islamic Challenge to Capitalism. Stanford University Press.

White, J. (2002). Islamist Mobilization in Turkey: A Study in Vernacular Politics (1st edition). University of Washington Press.

White, J. B. (1994). Money Makes Us Relatives: Women’s Labor in Urban Turkey. University of Texas Press.

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Yankaya, D. (2014). Yeni Islâmî Burjuvazi: Türkiye Modeli (M. I. Durmaz, Trans.). İletişim.

Yavuz, M. H. (2006). The Emergence of a New Turkey: Islam, Democracy, and the AK Parti. University of Utah Press.

Yavuz, M. H. (2020). Nostalgia for the Empire: The Politics of Neo-Ottomanism. Oxford University Press.

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    • Scholars in Context: Utku Balaban

      Scholars in Context: Utku Balaban

      My current research focuses on the relationship of the post-developmentalist industrialization of Turkey to the advent of the Islamist movement to power since the early 1980s. I am presently drafting a proposal for a book project to present my research findings, tentatively entitled The Rise of Industrial Islamism in Turkey.
Sep 7, 2021 Lebanon
Nihat Celik By :
Nihat Celik

The Islamist Sector and Humanitarian NGOs in Turkey

[This article is part of a roundtable on "The Shifting Islamist Sector in Turkey." Read the other contributions to the roundtable here.]

Turkey has become an emerging humanitarian actor in the last decade, with increasing activities of its government agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) abroad. The Turkish Cooperation and Development Agency (TIKA), which was established in 1992, became an influential actor in providing development and humanitarian aid and gained enormous capabilities in the 2000s. Turkish humanitarian NGOs are relatively new, having been established largely in the 1990s and 2000s, yet the scope of their activities and growth deserve some attention. The rise of Turkish humanitarian NGOs can be seen as a direct result of Turkey’s growing conservative capitalist class, a more favorable political environment, a new legal framework, and tax incentives for NGOs. In this contribution, I argue that in the humanitarian domain, Turkish civil society is increasingly dominated by an Islamist sector that has flourished due in part to government regulation deliberately tilted in its favor, with notable consequences at home and abroad.

The wealth accumulation and growth of conservative capitalists had a significant impact on the growth of Turkish faith-based humanitarian NGOs. This group of capitalists is sometimes called the “green capitalists,” “Islamic capitalists,” or “Anatolian tigers” (Demir, Acar, & Toprak, 2004). The businesses in this group are mainly successors of the petite-bourgeoise of the 1970s, whose interests were represented by Necmettin Erbakan’s National Salvation Party. These entrepreneurs faced the more powerful industrialists within the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB) and their economic interests and priorities were divergent. In return, the traditional business elites, who were regarded by Erbakan as the representatives of the “comprador-Masonic minority,” established the Turkish Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association (TUSIAD) in 1971 and enjoyed remarkable lobbying power and influence over the government (Shambayati, 1994, p. 316). This division very much reflects Serif Mardin’s analysis of center-periphery relations in Turkish politics (Mardin, 1973). While large secular corporations were able to secure their interests thanks to their central positions, networking, and political power, small enterprises were located at the periphery and had very limited influence.

With Turgut Ozal’s neoliberal policies that triggered the transition from an import substitution industrialization strategy to export-oriented industrialization, Turkish entrepreneurs expanded their horizons and established stronger relations with outside markets. The growth and transition from small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to corporations were supported by the emergence of interest-free banks, as they enabled access to capital and encouraged capital accumulation (Demir, Acar, & Toprak, 2004, p. 171). Since for many conservative individuals in Turkey interest is considered to be a prohibited practice in Islam, those individuals refrained from working with banks, and as a result, lacked the tools for capital growth and investment. However, the emergence of Islamic banks in the 1980s, such as the Faysal Finans and Albaraka Turk, opened a new venue for them and provided access to financial markets. However, the main force in this growth was the networks of social relations. Islamic orders/sects such as the Naqshbandi order provided the social network for investment and cooperation, leading to the emergence of business networks (Ozel, 2009, p. 148). Thus, it is important to acknowledge that so-called “Islamic capital” is not monolithic, though shared religious values did serve as a common identity that distinguished this sector from its more secular, Istanbul-based competitors. Indeed, the common interests of groups operating in this sector were also defined by the shared experience of competition with TUSIAD, which represented the interests of the Istanbul-based large enterprises. 
In the humanitarian domain, Turkish civil society is increasingly dominated by an Islamist sector that has flourished due in part to government regulation deliberately tilted in its favor.

This coalition gained an institutional identity with the establishment of the Independent Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association (MUSIAD) in 1990 by five businessmen. Representing mostly the relatively new SMEs in Anatolia, MUSIAD had 2,700 members with 10,000 affiliated firms in 1997 (Hosgor, 2011, p. 348). Today it has 11,000 members with approximately 60,000 affiliated firms (MUSIAD, n.d.) This growth can be explained in part by the organization’s increasing visibility. But the more significant factor is the fact that it received the support of the Justice and Development Party (AKP) as its preferred business association. In particular, the AKP treats MUSIAD as a favored alternative to TUSIAD, which sometimes criticizes the government’s policies and actions. From its inception in 2001, the AKP and MUSIAD have developed strong ties, and some MUSIAD members were even elected as deputies from the AKP ranks in national elections (Baskan, 2010, p. 408). Firms affiliated to MUSIAD were able to secure public contracts both from the central government and municipalities run by the AKP, and they also started to become media owners (Hosgor, 2011, p. 354).

This mutually beneficial relationship is better understood when one focuses on the last decade of AKP rule, when the initially cordial relations with TUSIAD started to deteriorate due to the increasing authoritarianism of the AKP. In 2014, Muharrem Yilmaz, the then-chairman of TUSIAD, criticized the government due to the deterioration of the rule of law and the use of tax penalties and other regulatory powers as a means of retaliating against businesses based on political tensions with their owners. Yilmaz argued that these conditions were making it more difficult to attract foreign capital to the country. Erdoğan responded by charging Yilmaz with treason (Gursel, 2014). Following the annulment of local elections in Istanbul in March 2019, TUSIAD again criticized the government. Erdoğan’s reply captures the government’s increasingly contentious approach to the organization: “Well, you are doing wrong. First of all, everybody should know one’s place. Everybody should do one’s job. Our attitude [towards TUSIAD] will change [based on its failure to know its place.]” (Sozcu, 2019).

As a matter of fact, it was well known in business circles that some business groups were unofficially blacklisted by the government for political reasons and excluded from government contracts. Tarik Sara, the founder and CEO of ENKA, one of the largest conglomerates in the field of construction, stated in 2015 that despite receiving large construction jobs in many parts of the world, his company could not secure a public contract in Turkey for twelve years (BloombergHT, 2015). On the other hand, MUSIAD is a political ally of the AKP, refraining from any criticism of the government and supporting its domestic and foreign policies against Syria, Egypt, and Israel. Indeed, the Association touts its membership in various pro-government civil society initiatives including the Rabia Platform (a humanitarian nonprofit named for the square in which Muslim Brotherhood supporters were massacred in Egypt in 2013) and the National Will Platform (a coalition of nearly 300 pro-government Turkish NGOs) (MUSIAD, n.d.).

Members of the Islamic capitalist sector represented by MUSIAD share the same ideational vision as AKP elites who see Turkey—a member of the Islamic ummah and successor to the Ottoman Empire—as having a leadership role to play in the Islamic World. They view themselves as having two basic grounds for the legitimacy of their pursuit of economic gains: religious and nationalist. Thanks to their economic gains, they can provide zakat (compulsory charity as a religious duty) and support charities and the poor in the form of sadaka (alms), which are all pious acts from a religious point of view. From a nationalist point of view, they contribute to the development of their country, supporting it in becoming a major power and gaining self-sufficiency against the western world (Demir, Acar, & Toprak, 2004, pp. 175-76).This vision, and the government support it has enjoyed, has facilitated the transformation and growth of the conservative bourgeoisie in Turkey. That growth, in turn, has contributed a great deal to the emergence of an Islamist humanitarian NGO sector in the country capable of undertaking substantial overseas activities with the help of increasing private and corporate gifts.

Other factors have also contributed to the growth of the Turkish humanitarian NGO sector. Modifications to the Law on Associations in 2006 enabled NGOs to form partnerships abroad and abolished the requirement that they operate under the direct control of the Turkish Red Crescent (Kizilay). In addition, tax-exempt status was provided easily to these NGOs by the government and the gifts made to these organizations became tax-deductible, an improvement that encouraged donors and provided them tax benefits. These organizations are not obliged to get permission from the Ministry of Interior Affairs before starting fundraising campaigns or new projects. However, there is not much transparency as to how to obtain this beneficial status. It is granted by the government through a presidential decree upon the application of NGOs, yet the president has full discretion in determining whether the organization deserve this status or not, and this may cause some arbitrary decisions.

The polarization of society along secular-Islamist lines is visible in the treatment of NGOs by the government. For example, the Association for Supporting Contemporary Life (CYDD) provides scholarships to girls with the aim of promoting gender equality and enjoys tax-exempt status accorded to the association by the government in 1997. However, this NGO has to go through an onerous process of obtaining permission from the Ministry of Interior Affairs for each project and fundraising campaign and gifts to the organization are not deemed tax-deductible. Its application to obtain this status was rejected by the AKP government due to the NGO’s support for secularism (Dirik, 2014). This preferential treatment by the government based on the political stance of an organization and its mission clearly tilts the regulatory environment in which NGOs operate in Turkey, according certain privileges and the capacity for accelerated growth to those organizations that are more closely aligned with the government’s vision and priorities.

Turkish NGOs that had previously focused their activities on regions bordering Turkey, especially the Balkans, have been able to extend their regional scope to Africa and Latin America in the 2010s. This expansion was facilitated by their cooperation with TIKA and other public agencies. Moreover, these NGOs’ expanded horizon coincided with the AKP’s foreign policy openings into these same regions, a move followed by free-trade agreements, visa-free travel arrangements, and newly concluded educational partnerships. Somalia, which attracted the highest level of commitment from Turkey, was chosen as a showcase for Turkey’s humanitarian diplomacy and its power as a stabilizing actor in a conflict-ridden country. The purpose was to increase Turkey’s regional and global prestige and to secure its status as a global actor (Akpinar, 2014). Although there have been some recent initiatives in Latin America, Turkish humanitarian NGOs have largely focused on Muslim countries or countries with large Muslim populations. 

While it may be argued that Africa’s emergence as an important export market for growing Turkish industries was also a motivation for donations from businesses to these areas through NGOs, other ideational factors, such as assistance to impoverished Muslims who belong to the ummah and contributions to Turkey’s prestige as the rightful leader of the ummah, were also powerful motivators. At the individual level, digging a well in the name of a deceased family member as an act that will contribute to the good deeds of the deceased or donation of udhiyyah (kurban in Turkish) during the Eid ul-Adha are clearly motivated by Islamic principles of charity. However, the choice of foreign destination for these donations are often motivated by additional factors such as feelings of Islamic solidarity and the role attributed to Turkey as a leader and protector of Muslims. Former Ottoman lands with Muslim populations, such as Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, North Macedonia, and Albania, are also a favored destination for donors who view these territories as especially significant to re-establishing Turkey’s pre-eminent role in the Muslim world.

With its increasing humanitarian assistance, Turkey was the fourth-largest donor in the world in 2012, with a total of approximately one billion dollars (Development Initiative, 2013, p. 23). In the following year's Turkey’s contributions increased; however, the Syrian Civil War and the resulting refugee crisis forced Turkey to reallocate resources to serving this population rather than dispersing donations more broadly. Turkey has become the world’s largest refugee-hosting country with approximately four million Syrian refugees. This has changed the priorities of the efforts of Turkish NGOs. Because Turkey treats its expenditures on Syrian refugees as part of its humanitarian portfolio, calculating the scope of Turkish donor assistance beyond its borders has become more complicated. In 2019, Turkey provided approximately $9.3 billion in development assistance in total. To give an idea about the scope of the activities of Turkish NGOs, it would suffice to underline that they spent approximately $350 million, which is a significant amount given the relatively short history of the NGOs (TIKA, 2020, p. 13). In 2020, the US was the top donor with $8.9 billion and Germany was the second-largest donor with $3.7 billion. However, despite differences in calculations and the definition of humanitarian assistance, Turkey claimed to have spent $8 billion in the same year, which makes it the second-largest donor (Development Initiative, 2021).

Turkish humanitarian NGOs play an important role in Syria. The AKP government has cited the Islamic concept of ansar—the residents of Medina who took the prophet Mohammad and his followers into their homes following the Hijra in the year of 622—to offset the social and economic conflicts that may be caused by the influx of millions of people into the country, portraying assistance to fellow Muslims escaping the Assad regime as an Islamic duty based in prophetic tradition (Haber 7, 2014). Turkish NGOs share and promote the same understanding. In addition to the efforts of official Turkish government agencies, NGOs operate both in Syria and in Turkey to assist Syrian refugees. For example, the IHH (Humanitarian Relief Foundation) was instrumental in negotiating the evacuation of civilians from Aleppo at the end of 2016 and provided food and medical supplies to civilians once they arrived in designated safe areas. The organization has built container and tent cities in which approximately 150,000 people live and supports the needs of refugee populations living in these facilities (IHH, n.d.). With Turkey’s military operations in Syria and as the government asserts authority over new territories in northern Syria, Turkish organizations have turned their focus to the provision of food and medical supplies and basic services to the people in these areas. 

From a logistical point of view, Turkey’s geographic position and the Turkish NGO network in Syria has meant that many international organizations had little choice but to cooperate with these actors in seeking to provide humanitarian aid. For example, more than thirty-seven organizations/individuals from twenty countries have coordinated with the Deniz Feneri Association for their humanitarian aid efforts in Syria (Deniz Feneri Association, n.d.). Thanks to their ability to be nimble based on the funds at their disposal and their flexibility in employment decisions, NGOs are instrumental in providing education to the Syrian children in refugee camps. As one study shows, NGOs cite two motivating factors for their activities in assisting with education for refugees: first, “Islamic brotherhood/sisterhood,” and second, the danger of assimilation by secular Western ideas. They consider their work in educational facilities as an “Islamic obligation” (Mccarthy, 2017, p. 6). 

Without a shadow of doubt, the refugee crisis increased Turkey’s influence in the Syrian conflict and provided leverage, especially against the European Union. With thousands of asylum seekers and migrants flowing into Greece through Turkey, the EU was alarmed and entered into negotiations with Turkey to come to an agreement to stem migrant mobility. Signed in 2016, the deal made Turkey a bulwark against migration as Turkey pledged to control migration routes and activities and accept the return of migrants attempting to enter Greece without having been processed through the EU resettlement arrangements. In return, Turkey received three billion Euros for the Syrian refugees, in addition to other benefits (Terry, 2021). Turkish NGOs complement the efforts of the government in preventing refugees from migrating from Turkey while providing basic services and helping them settle. Given the size of the refugee population, it would be a very difficult task for any government to deal with in the absence of civil society support. The involvement of faith-based NGOs has also facilitated efforts to recruit volunteers and solicit donations for Syrian refugees from the Turkish population.

In conclusion, in the last decade, Turkish humanitarian NGOs witnessed rapid growth, in part supported by the growth of conservative capitalist groups and in part due to the preferential treatment that they received in regulatory oversight and tax treatment from the AKP government. Sharing the same world vision and values with the AKP and motivated by both religious and nationalist considerations, these organizations have become critical actors in Turkey’s humanitarian diplomacy and ability to project soft power abroad. 

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