The Responses of Turkish Islam to COVID-19 Pandemic: Health and Salvation
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to analyze the discourse and the policies of the official religion, Islam, in Turkey about the pandemic. Understanding the attempt to explain and interpret the virus in the eyes of the Muslims, and the process followed by that discourse throughout the pandemic are the focus points of this study. There has been intense cooperation between religion and politics in Turkey in terms of the policies regarding the recent pandemic in the country; the official Turkish Islam has a great function in legalizing the decisions of the government by refering to religious sources and provide continuance of the indivuduals’ belonging with DİYANET. It is observed that “Islamic plague culture” and the previous experiences about similar disasters have been taken as references throughout the pandemic. In this respect, this study aims to define the pandemic through the eyes of the official Islam in Turkey, to locate the individual and define his/her elbow room, and to analyze the reorganized daily life and new dimensions of the reconstructed conscious based on new fatwa with a “qualitative descriptive” method.
Keywords
COVID-19, Turkish Islam, Islamic Plague Culture, DİYANET, Sociology of Religion
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