From “Barbarian Turk” to “Muslim Turk”

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Created on Thursday, 09 October 2014 14:55

Armenian and Turkish identity today Standpoint of Turkey From “Barbarian Turk” to “Muslim Turk” Ayşe Hür

Ayşe Hür Writer and columnist for the newspaper Radikal

Such terms like “Tu-kiu”, “Tu-Kue”, “Tut-Kut”, “Tolköl” occurred firstly in Chinese literature, had been entered into Arabian and Byzantium literature by being translated as “Turk” (plural word “Türük” or “Türküt”) by Arabian-Muslim references as of 9th century. After Danish linguist Thomsen read some of terms in Yenisey and Orkhon inscriptions dated 6^th -8^th centuries as “Turk” in 1893, the term “Turk” entered into Western literature. Today some scientists think that Chinese people called all foreigners as “Tu-kui”. Some scientists assert that this term is the name of tribes coming from a common ancestor. And some others assert that it is the name of tribes which have a certain type of organization with reference to the shape of helmet by correlating with the word of “tulga” which means helmet in Mongolian language. Some scientists assert that it is the name of a community that speaks a common language (Turkish) (according to them the word “Turk” means “strong”, “those who are strong” in Turkish).

Period of “Barbarian Turk”

We do not know which thesis is true among all but, the author of Diwan-ul Lügat  al-Turk that was written in the last quarter of 11^th century mentioned about a hadith (saying of the Prophet Mohammad) about Turks and said: “I saw that the God rises the Sun from the great tower of Turks and that they turned the circles of skies on their properties. The God gives them the name of “Turk” and makes them master/lord of the whole world. He creates Khans of our time from their tribes. He gives the bridles of World’s nations to their hands. He makes those people who work with them and who support them sacred and mighty. Because of Turks, all their dreams and wishes were come true by God. The God protected those people from the evil and dregs of society. What logical people must do in order to avoid from their arrows is to go after these men. There is no other way from explaining yourself and pleasing Turks by speaking with their language…”

Mahmud al-Kashgari, who repeated his honor for being a Turk by saying “I am one of those Turks who is the frankest, smartest and whose lance is the sharpest one” continues as follows: “Actually Turks are come from 20 tribes. There are so many phratries of each tribe and only the Lord knows how many. I mentioned only the main tribes among them. I left phratries. But, I wrote those which must be known by everyone, those tribes of Oghuz(…).”

In the years when Mahmud al-Kashgari wrote these phrases, a part of Oghuz tribe was flowing to Anatolia, where al-Kashgari called “Rûm”, by passing through steppes of Middle East. After Oghuz tribes came to Anatolia, there were terms such as Tourkoi (Turks) and Türkie (Turkey) occurred in Byzantium documents; there were some terms like barbarorum Turci (Barbarian Turks) occurred in the documents of Papacy, the Vatican. A priest, who participated to the First Crusades, wrote down in his diary on 11^th October 1098 after wars around Antakya: “There are Turks everywhere”.

Guillame de Tyr, who told this Crusade after 100 years, mentioned about Turquia which was under the sway of Turks.  Another knight from Crusader army, a Bavarian poet Tannhäuser , said in his poem called Crussaders Song [Kreuzfahrtlied] in the years of 1228-29; “Winds are blustering/from the barbarianship to my face/Winds are blustering and hurting/from Turkey[Türkei]…”

Period of “Unperceptive Turk”

According to Marco Polo, who passed from Konstantinopolis and Anatolia in 1270s: “There are 3 types of people in Turcoman city. One is Turcomen, who pray for Mohammad, they are simple and have rude languages. They live in mountains and valleys and they ranch; they have very valuable horses and big mules. Those, who live in other cities and engage in trade and arts, are Armenians and Rums….” 

However, it is accepted that the Ottoman Empire, which was established 30 years after Marco Polo, was established by Kayı tribe that is asserted as a “Turkish tribe”; the qualification of the state/crown as “Turkish” is always discussed. Because, there were so many people in Ottoman Empire from both executives and among the public who were not Turkish. Some of executives and all of soldiers in the household troops of Sultan  and some of estate owners consisted of those who were not Turkish-Muslim. Other than a few ones; men of the dynasty were married with women who were not Turkish and considerably “diluted” the “Turkish blood”. On the other hand, Turkish is the language that was spoken within the dynasty and governmental agencies. All records of the Empire were kept in Turkish language uninterruptedly for hundreds of years. Arabian language was read in Medrassahs but the spoken language was always Turkish.

What confuses is the fact that Ottomans used Kayzer-i Rum (Kaiser of Rums), ‘Memleket-i Rûm’, (Country of Rums) ‘Şuara-yı Rûm’ (Rum Poets ), ‘Ulema-yı Rûm’ (Rum scholars), Lisan-ı Rum (Language of Rums), ‘Rûm horse-riders’, ‘Rûm heroes’, ‘Eyalet-i Rûm’ (State of Rums) in order to identify their country, institution, languages and also their own. Briefly, Ottomans identified themselves primarily as “Rum”. (As is remembered; Mahmud al-Kashgari, author from 11^th century, called Anatolia “the country of Rums”.)

Their approach towards Turkishness was not uniform. In references, the term of “Turk” or “Turkish” was used as having positive, negative or neutral meaning relatively. For example, in the most important work of early-period Ottoman history, Tevarih-i Âli Osman written by Âşıkpaşazade (died in 1481) which told about how Turks came to Anatolia, it mentioned / identified Turks as the community which beated the Arabians” and who were from “Yafes nationality” and it was said that “Turkish language was not a well-known” and “Even Turkish people could not speak this languge”.  In the contrary; in the literary work called Vâkı’ât-ı Sultan Cem (Events of Cem Sultan)  which was completed in 1480, Cem Sultan was mentioned as “the son of Turkish Emperor” in glowing terms. Again, in the literary work called Saltukname, which was compiled upon demand of Cem Sultan, the word “Turkish” substituted “Muslim” and “Ghazi”. While an author from 15^th century Neşrî called “Turkish Sultanate” for Seljuk Dynasty, he said “There are some people who do not know what the religion is (….) there are some Turkish people, who pray for the stone, tree, ox or fire or who imitate Jews”.

Let’s bracket here. Until 1492, when Granada fell down, “the others” of Europe were Arabs. Thus; the expression about Turks in Europe was generally positive at that time. After 1492, “the others” became Ottoman (Turks) and the expression turned into negative. Even after the Wien defeat in 1529, extremely rude and rough terms such as “dogs, cruels and blood-thirsty, dirty, animal, brutish, crook, tyrant, bully, disgusting” were continued to be used. The reason of this negative approach is of course “Fear from Turks”.Hence, the heritage of the concept of Obsessione Turc(Turkish Obssession) occurred in those days, is the exclamation called “Mamma li Turchi” in Italian language, in other words “Mommy! Turks are coming!”. According to assertions, the source of inspiration for some words in Italian language; such as “a torquendo” means keelhauling, “torxuere” means torture and “truculent” or “trux-trucis” means cruelty or deception, is Turks of that period. 

If we go on; the author Suzi Çelebi (died in 1524) who could see the first years of Suleyman the Magnificient, was the first person who said that phrase “One Turk against the world”.  But the famous poet of that period, Baki, confused us in his poem which he dedicated to Suleyman the Magnificient whom he called “one of the biggest Turkish ancestors”, he wrote “Hodja! That whom from Turkish nation is a little bit rude!”. Another poet of the period, Hafız Hamdi Çelebi did not like Turks as he said: “Oh my great Sultan! From the creation of the universe/The rudeness of Turkishness has been mentioned throughout the World/The God does not give any comprehension skills to Turks/A Turk is reckless even if he is smart/Kill a Turk even if he is your father/Because that goody and mighty prophet, Mohammad said “Kill Turks, their blood is halal”. 

It is understood that what Çelebi offered to be killed by giving reference to the hadith of Mohammad are Qizilbash (Redhead) Turkmans of Anatolia. Hence, while armies of Kuyucu Murat Pasha continued their massacres of Redheads in Anatolia in the year of 1609; while it was said “Turk” instead of Qizilbash in documents of the era, it is not surprising to read those adjectives with these terms such as ‘bağî’ (forestaller), şakî (bandit), tağî (wild), celâlî (rebellious), zındık (irreligious).  The Historian, Koçi Bey (died in 1650) did not use any positive terms for “Turks” that he identified with several terms such as Turk, Tatar, Yoruk. Likewise,  the historian of the Tulip Era, Naima (died in 1716) used the concept of Turkishness in a negative meaning, since he wrote from a central perspective.. ‘Türk-ü sütürk (wild Turk), ‘Türk-bed lika’ (bad-faced, ugly-faced Turk), ‘etrak-ı bi idrak’ (unperceptive, silly Turks), ‘nadan Türk’ (rude Turk) are all his terms.

The ideology of Turkism

With the Ottoman Reform (Imperial Edict of Gülhane), usage of “ethnic” definitions occurred. One of whom used “Turk” concept as an “ethnical” category was Polish imimigrant Constantin Borzecki, who got the name of Mustafa Celaleddin by being Muslim after refuged to Istanbul.  The book of the author called Les Turcs anciens et modernes (Turks, Old and Modern) that was published in İstanbul and Paris in 1870, took an important role in the development of “Turkishness” awareness.

A Hungarian Jewish Orientalist Arminius Vambery, who was one of detectives of Abdulhamit II, was one of those who cooked the books in this field. Tha author used terms such as “Turkish dynasty”, “Turkish block”, “Turkish communities”, “Turkey” in his book called Journey to Middle East (1873).  French Turcologist Léon Cahun was the owner of a thesis that there was an inland sea in the Middle East, around which there were Turks living there, and after this inland sea was dried, Turks started to immigrate to Eurasia.  What makes Cahun in Turkey, is his book called Introduction à l’histoire de l’Asie (Introduction to Asian Histrory) that was published in 1896. It is known that Mustafa Kemal took notes with his own handwiriting on his own copies of this book which made Orkhon Scripts (Inscriptions), that were invented between 1889-1893, famous throughout the world. 

It was near to turn the concept of “Turkishness” which abovementioned authors invented into a political project under the name of Turkism. New generation elites (Young Turks) who saw that; ethnical fractions, which were affected from nationalist trends spread from Europe after the French Revolution in 1789, were getting further away from the Empire, relied on the “Turkism” trend that could be summarized as highlighting Turkish identity in both ethnical, cultural and political terms after their “Westernism”, “Ottomanism” and “Pan-Islamism” ideologies, which they actualized to rescue the Empire, became unsuccessful.

In Russia, where a Western style modernization was quickly lived, this trend which was mainly created as a reaction to the Russian nationalism, was taken/moved to Ottoman country by intelligentsia of Russian origin such as Gaspıralı İsmail, Hüseyinzade Ali, Ağaoğlu Ahmet, Caferoğlu Ahmed, Mehmet Emin Resulzade, Zeki Velidi Togan and Yusuf Akçura.

Especially, the book called Üç Tarzı Siyaset (1904) – Three Types of Politics – which summarizes ideas of Akçura that were firstly found “romantic”, “weird”, “pure dream” and “extreme” and that was then deemed as the manifest of political Turkism; affected intelligentsia of late Ottoman period such as  Ziya Gökalp, Ömer Seyfettin, Moiz Kohen and Mehmet Emin.

Invention of Turkish nation

According to what Yahya Kemal from this generation told; one of his academicians in Sorbonne University in Paris, Albert Sorel, once said to his students that: “There are two unknown concepts in the history. One of them is poles in geograpgy and the other is Turks in the history…”. This sentence flashes in Yahya Kemal’s mind: “I was going to students’ demonstrations in Paris. On the eve of Balkans War, our minorities, Rums, Bulgarians organized very big public demonstrations. At that time, our Young Turks were busy in toopling Abdulhamid. They did not know anything about the Turkish nation. I realized that what those Rums, Bulgarians wanted to topple was not Abdulhamit, it was another thing. Those wanted to topple the Turkish nation. It means that there is something called Turkish nation! I wondered how was this nation? What was its history? I was already having my education of history in the School of Political Sciences. I started leafing through history books in order to learn about the history of Turkish nation. Thus, the sense of nation and nationalism was born in my mind and my soul.”

This story of Yahya Kemal about “the invention of sense of nationalism” was typical example of the process which so many intelligentsia of that era lived. But, it won’t have been so easy for public to adapt “Turkism” project. There is a clue regarding this fact occurred in the in the memories of Ottoman military officer Rahmi Apak during World War I. There was a conversation happened between Mr.Rahmi Apak and a young soldier whom Mr.Rahmi thought as Armenian: “Which nationality are you belonged to?” “I am Ottoman” “What does it mean? Ottoman? Aren’t you Turkish?” “No, I am not Turkish, I am Ottoman” “Ok, which language do you speak? Armenian or Turkish?” “I speak Turkish” “If you speak Turkish, then you are Turkish” “No Sir! I am not Turkish!” “Man Alive! You are Turkish, so am I!” “Sir, You can be Turkish, it is non of my business, but I am not Turkish” “My dear soldier! Are you crazy? Even Sultan is Turkish” “Sir, please do not cast aspersions of my Sultan, Sultan could not be Turkish!”

There is a similar story in the autobiographic book of Şevket Süreyya (Aydemir) called Suyu Arayan Adam (The Man who looks for the Water). The author, who was in the Caucassian Front Line during the World War I as a student in the age of 17, asked to a group of soldiers from Anatolian villagers in the front line: “What is our religion?” Everyone said a different thing. Some of them said “We are from the religion of Ali”, some others answered “We are from the religion of Imamı Azam”. Şevket Süreyya asked: “Who is our prophet?” Again, they gave different answers. There was someone who answered even “Enver Pasha”. Şevket Süreyya took another step forward and asked “Aren’t we Turkish?” Soldiers answered in unison “Estagfurullah! (May Allah forgive our sins!). 

It did not take so much time to make those soldiers who thought they were insultant when they were called Turkish, as soldiers who cried “Ne mutlu Türküm diyene!’ (How happy is whom says I am a Turk!). The engineer of that short but radical way, ensured this transformation in 3 stages. In the first stage, which was during the years of “National Struggle” (1919-1922),  “religious” terms /”Muslim community”, “Islamic facts-factors”, “Islamic nation”) were used in order to mobilize Muslim population in Anatolia and Rumelia against “Düvel-I Muazzama” (Great Powers). 

In the second stage; “religious” terms left their places slowly to “political” terms. Firslty on 8^th February 1921, the word of “Türkiye” (Turkey) was placed at the headline of The Grand National Assembly. Mustafa Kemal first used the term of “Turk” as a political term on 21th October 1922 in his Decleration regarding the Great Victory. And Mustafa Kemal said to a group of teachers in October 1922: “We were living as a religious community until 3,5 years ago…We are living as a Turkish nation from that time”.

The period of “Turkish race” 

Mustafa Kemal gave a clue, of which factors that “Turkish nation” does not involve, in his speech he made in an event of “Adana Turkish Association – Craftsmen’s Association on 16^th March 1923: “Our friends said in their speeches that other facts, these and those and Armenians that dominated our Adana, occupied our arts accociations and they were in such condition that they were the owners of this country. Undoubtly that, there could not be much more unfairness and insolence! Armenians have no rights in this productive country. . This country, this homeland is yours. This country was belonged to Turks, in both past and the future. And it shall be Turkish forever…” 

While such racist approach was tried to be balanced with “Turkey’s society” in Nine Principles that announced the establishment of the People’s Side(Party) on 8^th April 1923; despite of the fact that the population exchange between Greece and Turkey was made based on religion after the Treaty of Lausanne was signed on 24^th July 1923, steps that made everyone think that there was no need for alliances of National Struggle were started to be taken. 

For example, while Hamdullah Suphi (Tanrıöver) in the negotiations of 1924 Turkish Constitution mentioned that Armenians, Rums and Jews must be deemed as “a part of Turkish nation” until they adopted te language and the culture of Turkey; Celal Nuri (İleri) asserted that “the real citizens of Turkey” are “Hanefi Muslims who speak Turkish language”. Finally, while Article 88 defining the citizenship was formulated as “In Turkey, all citizens without any discriminations of religion and race, are called “Turk-Turkish” in terms of citizenship, the paths of non-muslim minorities, especially Kurdish population, were crossed with Article 12 by saying “Those who could not read and write in Turkish language, could not be elected as deputies.”

After Sheikh Said Revolt (Rebellion), that was probably a reaction to that discrimination, was suppressed; Prime Minister İsmet Pasha announced that the regime shall continue to be insistent on being racist in his decleration published in the newspaper called Vakit on 27^th April 1925: “Nationality is our only unifier. Other factors have no influence on the Turkish majority. Our task is to make those people who are within Turkish homeland Turkish! We shall cut out those factors which could be against Turks and Turkism. Properties/Characteristics which we seek in whom will serve for the country, are firstly being Turkish and Turkist….”

One of the first works/studies of Turkish Antropology Investigation Center which was established in 1925 upon the directives of Mustafa Kemal, who was known as reviewing and examining books of racist philosophers such as Gobineau and Pittard in details for a while; was making comperative investigations on “children who have different ethnic(race) origins such as Turkish, Armenian, Rum and Jewish” by “calculating the skulls collected from Karacaahmet Graveyard”.  

Mustafa Kemal, who made a speech to the committee who came on behalf of Turkish Exercise Community on 30^th September 1926; in the Presedential Palace in Çankaya that included some terms such as “race reclamation”, “relief of race” and “elimination/screening the race”; mentioned about racism in a metaphoric form by saying “Turkish Youth! The strength you need is already imbedded in your noble blood” in his Address to Youth dated 20^th October 1927.   With the campaign carried out by university students in 1928 called “Hey citizen!Speak Turkish!”, the task of making “Turkish race” into “Turkish nationality” was accelerated.

Building “Turkish Nation”

In the First History Congress dated 2-11^th July 1932, in which the Turkish Historu Thesis of all civilizations were established by Turks in the World was brought into discussion; “the master Turkish race” was defined by Reşit Galip as follows: “it is known as charachteristics such as tall, pale skinned, straight or eagle-like nose, symmetrical lips, most of them are blue-eyed and not having slanting but vertical opening eyelids “Alpine race” (….) which has organic features as Group A blood and social features as civilization, heroism, skills of arts.”

1933 was the year, in which non-Turkish factors of the society was terrorized again with the cries of university youth as “Hey citizen! Speak Turkish!”,  after 5 years. In the year of 1934; with the Settlement Law that was entered into force in order to solve both “Kurdish Question” and settlement problems of Muslim refugees who came to Turkey by surging, Turkey was divided into 3 parts by using terms such as “race”, “breed” and “culture”. Thus, what the term “Turk” in the Article 88 of 1924 Constitution, was understood one more time.

Briefly; in 1936, when the Sun Language Theory, which says “all culture languages from Europe to Africa, even to America, are derived from Turkish as the root language!”, Ataturk’s right hand Afet İnan subjected 64 thousands of people to antropometric calculations during his doctorate study under Swiss Antropologist Pittard “in order to show that Turks are perfect representatives of brachycephalous Alpine race.”  This great “racist” study (that even in Nazi regime of Germany, there is no such a study was made) was carried out the whole support of the Prime Ministry, The Ministry of National Security, the Ministry of Health and The Ministry of Education, and calculations were made by civilized and military doctors, health officers, physical education teachers and soldiers were submitted to the use of Afet İnan as volunteer subjects.

In the Second History Congress held on 20-25^th September 1937, the topic of the report of Sadri Maksudi Arsal was “The Concept of State and Law in the History of Mankind and The Role of Turkish Race in the Development of Institutes”, notification of Hasan Reşit Tankut was called “Relations between Language and Race” and the notification of Dr. Nurettin Onur was called “A Surbey on the Origin of Turkish Race in terms of Blood Groups”. The Turkish Antropology Magazine which was published between 1925-1939 and of which “honorary owners” were Ministers of Education, was full of examples that how much effort made to prove the superiority of Turkish race.

Period of ‘Muslim Turk”

After 1945, following Germany was worn in the war, nobody had any braveness to support racist and fashist thesis due to relations established with the Western Block. Thus, racist Turks also changed their speech. They said “nationalism” rather than “Turanism”; “Turkish nation” rather than “Turkish race” and “nationalists” rather than “Grey Wolves”. They tried to spread their new thesis by means of media organs such as Millet, Orhun, Kopuz, Büyük Doğu, Hareket and by means of organizations such as Turkish Youth Organization, Cyprus Turkish Culture Association and Association of Fight Against Communism.  

Conservative intelligentsia, who gathered in the Intelligentsia Association that was established in 1970, tried to make a new definition of Turkishness. According to those intelligentsia who said “The shortest description og Turk is the Muslim who speaks Turkish”; Turkish culture is a culture which is very old and has an important part in the world history, which has traditions and common in terms of geography and which ensures the world dominance. Turks are from white race, humanist, fair, never shed blood, tolerant, secular and respectful to weaks, olds, women, family and army. The religion is the main value that “makes a nation nation”. The religion is the most important element that protects Turk from alienating to himself and from resembling the West. Islam is a religion which is merely for Turks only, because there are so many similarities with the pre-Islam culture of Turks with the Islam civilization. Those similarities are monotheism, belief in the immortality of the soul, the sense of judgement and the importance of family and ethic. Turks also rendered very big “services” to Islam. The most important one of those services was to stop Crusades. If this has not been happened, Christianism would be the “world dominant” rather than Islam! Briefly, Turk owes so many things to Islam and Islam owes to Turk. This definition became popular with the name of “Turkish-Islam Synthesis”. 

Alpaslan Türkeş, who was the leader of MHP (Nationalist Movement Party) that was established in those years, answered to the question “Are you Turkist or Islamist?” of journalists with this answer “I am Turk as Tanrı Mountains and Muslim as Hira Mountain”. I am not sure about the dates but, this answer gave some clues about the areas of Turkishness and Islam in the synthesis formula of Turkeş that the highest point of Tanrı Mountains is 7.429 meters, but Hira(Nur) Mountain is only a little hill with 281 meters.

After 1980 military coup, in a period when extraordinary conditions occurred; again Turkish-Islam Synthesis drew the ideologic horizon of pro-coup mindsets by organizing the promise of the fact that social order shall be re-established and the unity-entirety and solidarity shall be protected forever. Today, as well as the Turkishness stand of the formulation of “Turk as the Tanrı Mountain, Muslim as Hira Mountain”, it is seem that Muslim stand is getting fairly stronger.

Here you see, terms such as Turk, Turkishness, Turkish race, and Turkish nation that we use today, are the products of extremely complicated “building” processes beginning centuries ago and continued up to day without any interruption. There are strong indications about that building process continues. To assert that a built identity is superior to another identity which is probably built; indicates the lack of historical conscious to say the least. Thus, it would be better to remember this history after taking a deep breath when we swell with pride of the word “Ne Mutlu Türküm Diyene!” (How Happy is He Who Say I’m Turk!)… 

Summary of References: Reşat Genç, Kaşgarlı Mahmud’a Göre XI. Yüzyılda Türk Dünyası (Turkish World in 11^th century according to Mahmud al-Kashgari) Türk Kültürünü Araştırma Enstitüsü Yayınları, 1997; Onur Bilge Kula, “’Türkiye’ Sözcüğünün Kullanıldığı Almanca İlk Belge:Tannhauser’in ‘Haçlı Seferi Şarkısı’(“The first document in German language which the word of “Turkey” was first used: “Crussader’s Song of Tennhauser”), Tarih ve Toplum, December 1992, P. 108, p. 329; Hakan Erdem, “Osmanlı Kaynaklarından Yansıyan Türk İmaj(lar)ı”(“Turkish image(s) reflecting from Ottoman references”)  Dünyada Türk İmgesi, Kitap Yayınevi, 2005, pp.13-26;  Muzaffer Özdağ, Osmanlı Tarih ve Edebiyatında Türk Düşmanlığı” (“Turcophobia in Ottoman History and Literature”), Tarih ve Toplum, S.65, pp.9-15; François Georgeon, Türk Milliyetçiliğinin Kökenleri Yusuf Akçura (Roots/Origin of Turkish Nationalism Yusuf Akçura) (1876-1935), Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 1999; Rahmi Apak, Yetmişlik Bir Subayın Hatıraları, (Memories of a 70 year-old tenant) Türk Tarih Kurumu Yayınları, 1988, Şevket Süreyya Aydemir, Suyu Arayan Adam,(The Man who seeks for the water) Remzi Kitabevi, 1999; Şair ve Fikir Adamı Olarak Yahya Kemal, (Yayha Kemal as a poet and a philosopher)  Yayına Hazırlayan: Osman Oktay, http://www.turkocagi.org.tr/kitaplar/YahyaKemalBeyatli.pdf ; Atatürk’ün Söylev ve Demeçleri, (Ataturk’s speeches and declarations) Atatürk Araştırma Merkezi, 2006; Ahmet Yıldız, “Ne Mutlu Türküm Diyebilene”  Türk Ulusal Kimliğinin Etno Seküler Sınırları (1919-1938), (How happy is he who could say I am Turk! Ethno-secular borders of Turkish national identity)  İletişim, 2001; Nazan Maksudyan, Türklüğü Ölçmek, (Bilimkurgusal Antropoloji ve Türk Milliyetçiliğinin Irkçı Çehresi), (Calculating Turkishness (Science-fictional Antropology and Racist Face of Turkish Nationalism) Metis, 2005; Suavi Aydın "Cumhuriyet'in İdeolojik Şekillenmesinde Antropolojinin Rolü: Irkçı Paradigmanın Yükselişi ve Düşüşü"(The role of anthropology in the ideological formation of the republic: Rising and Falling of Racist Paradigm), Modern Türkiye'de Siyasi Düşünce, (Political thought in modern Turkey) Kemalizm, C.2, İletişim, 2001, s. 344-369; Etienne Copeaux, Türk Tarih Tezinden Türk-İslam Sentezine, (From Turkish History Thesis to Turkish-Islam Synthesis) Tarih Vakfı Yurt Yayınları, 1998; Bozkurt Güvenç ve diğerleri, Türk-İslam Sentezi,(Turkish-Islam Synthesis) Sarmal Yayınları, 1994; İbrahim Kafesoğlu, Türk-İslam Sentezi, ,(Turkish-Islam Synthesis)  Aydınlar Ocağı Yayınları, 1985.