How representative is Turkey?

Submitted by Chrisona (United States), Aug 13, 2002 at 22:34

I share your interest in the possibility of modernizing Islam. But when you offer Turkey as an example of this, I wonder how representative Turkey is of all Islam. Turkey strongly desires membership in the European Union and seems willing to jump through a thousand hoops to achieve EU acceptance. What reason could we have to hope that other Arab countries might follow Turkey's lead to Europe? To me, this example seems less like modernizing Islam and more like Europeanizing Turkey.

---

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".