Islamism in the Post-Arab Spring world

Abstract

Istanbul Think-House (IDE), a self-supported independent research center that
promotes the free circulation of ideas, analyzed “Islamism in the Post-Arab
Spring World” during its October 24-26, 2014, international conference. Istanbul
University’s Political Science Faculty Alumni Association and the Association
for Human Rights and Solidarity with the Oppressed (MAZLUMDER)
hosted the event on their premises.
In his opening remarks on Friday morning, conference co-chair and IDE’s
general coordinator Halil Ibrahim Yenigun (Istanbul Commerce University)
introduced IDE and explained its vision of (1) producing and circulating ideas
without depending on big capital and political power centers and (2) concentrating
solely on the good of humanity, especially that of the subaltern. IDE is
the outgrowth of national conferences on Islamism held during 2012-13, the
first event of which had sparked an almost year-long debate in Turkey about
the revival of Islamism.
The morning panel, “New Islamisms,” dealt with with important theoretical
arguments. Gökhan Sümer (University of Essex) began with a central debate
on how to reconcile the constitutional system and the Shari‘ah by
broaching such questions as to whether democratic constitutions ensuring the
basic rights and freedoms could have been passed after the Arab Spring and
what is Islam’s normative status in these new constitutions. He said that such ...