The thesis prepared by Büşra Demirden, one of our master graduates from the Department of Sociology at Ibn Haldun University, under the supervision of Prof. Ramazan Aras, has been published as a book by İBER Akademi Publishing under the title "Religion, Memory and Sense of Belonging: The Tradition of Memorization of the Qur’an in Türkiye (1923–1950)".
This academic work provides an in-depth analysis of the impact of secularization policies implemented during the Republic of Turkey's first quarter-century (1923-1950) on the tradition of Qur’anic memorization (Hafızlık). The study examines how the reorganization of educational institutions, the state control of religious practices, and the discourse of modernization transformed the identity, belonging, and educational processes of the memorizers.
Using oral history and ethnographic methods, the research illuminates the pressures memorizers faced in daily life, the forms of resistance they developed against these policies, and the traces they left in social memory. Coşkun’s work highlights the complex interrelations between religion, the state, memory, identity, and belonging, filling an important gap at the intersection of the sociology and history disciplines, and contributing significantly to the understanding of religious structures in Turkey during this critical period.
We congratulate our graduate student and wish her continued academic success.
