In terms of his beliefs, did Ataturk have Islam for religion?
I do not mean to ask if he was a Muslim in the sense that his parents were. I am asking about his beliefs.
I realize that he may not have been yet still strived to appear Muslim since coming out outright as a non-Muslim may have been too risky. He was a politician, coup leader and revolutionary so it’s unlikely he burned bridges unless he had a good reason to.
Still, what can be said of Ataturk’s religious beliefs?
“I have no religion, and at times I wish all religions at the bottom of the sea. He is a weak ruler who needs religion to uphold his government; it is as if he would catch his people in a trap. My people are going to learn the principles of democracy, the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go. Let them worship as they will; every man can follow his own conscience, provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him against the liberty of his fellow-men.”
Mustafa Kemal paid lip service to Islam and Kemalism took a far more accommodating and practical political approach to the faith of the common people than the Leninism/Stalinism of his contemporaries in the USSR, but at best he seems to have been weakly agnostic on matters of faith. Another quote:
"Religion is an important institution. A nation without religion cannot survive. Yet it is also very important to note that religion is a link between Allah and the individual believer. The brokerage of the pious cannot be permitted. Those who use religion for their own benefit are detestable. We are against such a situation and will not allow it. Those who use religion in such a manner have fooled our people; it is against just such people that we have fought and will continue to fight. Know that whatever conforms to reason, logic, and the advantages and needs of our people conforms equally to Islam. If our religion did not conform to reason and logic, it would not be the perfect religion, the final religion. "
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was born and raised as a well educated muslim. But his views about religion is pure agnostic. Solid evidence about Ataturk being agnostic is clear in his statement that he made in the senate in 1937: “We get our inspirations not from the dogmas of the books which are believed to be sent from heavens, but from the life itself.”
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk was born and raised as a well educated muslim. But his views about religion is pure agnostic. Solid evidence about Ataturk being agnostic is clear in his statement that he made in the senate in 1937: “We get our inspirations not from the dogmas of the books which are believed to be sent from heavens, but from the life itself.”
As I understand it, Turkey had a pretty strong secularist tradition, amongst the elite, anyway, long before Kemal took power. He came from that background, he was not a total innovator in his secularism. (Kemal, I think, was his actual name. Both Mustapha and Ataturk were honorifics.)
Close, but nope. Mustafa was actually the name he was born with. Kemal was a later adopted/bestowed name. Atatürk was the honorific.
You won the Battle of Ankara, so I guess you know best. 