How far religious freedom goes in a laic statealevis of Turkey

Abstract

This study aims to analyze the necessities of Alevism as a belief and the limits of freedom that Alevis have had since the foundation of the Republic of Turkey to maintain and practice their cultural and religious components in between a laic state structure and traditionally Sunni Muslim society. It puts the debate on the limits of religious freedom of a certain group; this is to mention Alevis, in a laic state structure, which should aim to keep its distance to any religious identity with possession none of them on the center. The distinguishments aim to emphasize the place of Alevis in political history of the Republic of Turkey, which has been fulfilled with a concrete competition of two aforementioned identities, and to mention the difficulties that Alevis have faced with as a result of their officially unrecognized religious identity by none of the two identities and its consequent limitations. Keywords: Alevism, political history of Republic of Turkey, laicism, religion, political Islam