Religion and politics : emergence of fundamentalism in Muslim societies - the Turkish case

Abstract

It is a well known fact that religion is one of the substantial and major determinants which shapes or at least influences human behaviour. As an institution religion is something intensely personal but also unavoidably social at the same time. In other words religion is one of the basic socialization institutions or agents that reflects people's patterned social experiences. Therefore religion or religiously patterned human behaviours, which are closely interwoven with other social phenomenas, are the important field of inquiry for social scientists, whether they are sociologists, anthropologists, economists or political scientists.