Authority and Agency in Turkish State Fatwa as “Public Service”

This paper examines Turkey’s state-sponsored religious education for conservative women and its role in facilitating their individual-level ethical pursuits as Muslims. Focusing on Diyanet's presentation of the fatwa tradition as a bureaucratized “public service,” the administrative body overseeing religious affairs, it challenges the notion of Diyanet as a mere instrument of secular governance given ordinary Muslims' voluntary utilization of the fatwa. However, the paper simultaneously points out the partiality of the range of Diyanet’s Islamic authority, which springs from Turkey’s secularist past that allows for diverse interpretations of Islam to coexist. Through ethnographic data, the paper analyzes the agency of both fatwa seekers and state preachers revealed in interpersonal fatwa consultations. Illustrating how the interplay of bureaucratic structures and Islamic tradition formulates the agency of those involved in the Diyanet fatwa service, the paper delineates the range and modality of the authoritative state involvement in ordinary Muslims’ religious lives.