Comments on abstract, title, references

The abstract of the chosen article introduces the aim of the article as well as its main subject, which is religion, and only refers to Sunni Islam between two parentheses. In addition, it abides the subject discussed to a specific period, which is the reign of the Turkish President Erdogan and his Party, the AKP.

The title seems to be direct and briefed as it includes the main key term of the subject: Turkish secularism, Islam, and reign of Erdogan. The choice of the title could be collective as it indicates one of the heated, still, terms of the field, secularism, and Islam and ends by the time frame that the articles abides by while presenting its thoughts and arguments.

The resources of the article seem to be a collective of newly published paper as of 2019, and earlier ones in the 1990s and beyond. Some of the resources were originally the work of the one of the authors, and many other sources were from the articles published in the special issue of journal. It should be noted that many of the lately published papers and were resourced, were belonging to some of the well-known scholars of the fields related to Turkish and Kurdish studies, among others.

Comments on introduction/background

The article begins by laying on the ground a historical analysis of the subject discusses, and even exemplifies with two important period, late ottoman history, Sultan Abdulhamid II, and then the Young Turk, which witnessed the important developments of Islam in the modern Turkish society. Moreover, the introduction sheds lights on the today's development of Islam and secularism in Turkish society and understanding. Then, it includes backgrounds on the subject by referring to historical discussions and period such as Tanzimat and introduces the complexity of the terminologies referred in the text. Although this part has included valuable introductory remarks of the subject, it did not incorporate thoroughly the latest developments in the Turkish politics, the coup attempt of 2016, which brought the role of religion and state to more relevancy.

Comments on methodology

The chosen article does not have a methodology section per se neither does have any comments on methods. That could be reasoned as this article seems to be an introductory article to the research papers published in this special issue.

Comments on data and results

As commented earlier, this chosen article does not seem to be having any special data or sharing any result because it does not have either of the two. The article, again, seems to be an introductory, short article.

Comments on discussion and conclusions

The article did not have a separate section for discussion or conclusion, but rather included within the text itself. It discussed the subject of the article and referred to some of the important events that had not included in the introductory remarks such as the coup attempt of 2016 and refer to it as an example. The article also put forwarded some conclusion on the subject discussed, and referred to the going on discussion of the status of Turkish democracy, and concluded, based on earlier studies, that the Turkish state is not a full functioning democracy nor a sharia state, but uses religion to justify some of its acts in some certain cases.

One important note, it seems that the article missed including some deep Islamic solely scholarships about Islam and secularism. It could have been better if the article had included more resources and discussion from earlier Islamic scholars from a general overview, and then applies it and compares it to the Turkish society, as it is only one society of many other Islamic societies (i.e. Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc.). The main argument of the article focuses on how Laiklik, a Turkish terms for secularism, and Islamism have been shaping the political, economic and social spheres of the Turkish Republic not only since its establishment in 1930s, but even before that during the latest periods of the Ottoman Empire, and until the modern time specially from 2001 onward as to the rise of the AKP, Erdogan party. Basically, the argument of the article says secularism and Islamism both used to address the people of the Turkish republic and in the earlier state, the Ottoman Empire. However, this is a short article consists of four sections: Introduction; history of state-religion-society relation; Defying the AKP; contribution of the special issue. Thus, is not solely dedicated to the subject it argues about, but dedicates the last section to summarize the articles published in the special issue, which this articles try to cover and make its argument about its main subject.

The article contributes academically to the literature on the subject of Turkish state ideologies, Islam, authoritarianism, and Kemalism by bringing up the root of secularism not only from the period of the republic but from the periods of the young Turks during the Ottoman Empire. Also, the article confirms the concept of top-down secularism as many other studies have noted like …. The article confirms as many other studies do with respect to the concept of the top-down process of secularization, however, it add further to the potential pragmatic cooperation between Islam and secularism as the history of the Turkish politics in second and third sections.

The article provided some evidences brought from the articles published in the special issue, which the article summarizes in the last section. However, there could be some weaknesses noted in this article, mainly, the absence of references to quantitative measures such as surveys or measures of the social and public opinions of the Turkish people concerning the subject of this article and the special issue. Adding some results of surveys would have enrich the article argument, however, it shall be noted that the article focuses more on the theories and historical analysis, rather than contextual or realistic analysis.

The article does not seem to be biased noticeably, but rather it made some general statement such as the differences in understanding secularism between contemporary Islamic world and the European world. The author had cited one of his articles to support his argument. It would be better to include other sources as well to refrain from dependence on earlier personal sources.