At the Nexus of Nationalism and Islamism: Seyyid Ahmet Arvasi and the Intellectual History of Conservative Nationalism

Abstract

This paper offers an analysis of the work of Seyyid Ahmet Arvasi (1932-1988); a highly influential yet understudied ultranationalist intellectual, whose synthesis of Turkish nationalism and Islamism provided the ideological framework for the current Islamist-nationalist ruling alliance in Turkish politics. A prolific author, poet, scholar, and propagandist, Arvasi's Türk-İslam Ülküsü ​ (​Turkish-Islamic Ideal​) was integral to the formulation of conservative nationalism; a form of cultural and religious nationalism which frames national and religious identity as indivisible and mutually constitutive. However, despite Arvasi's significant contribution to the evolution of conservative nationalism, he remains a relatively obscure intellectual outside of ultranationalist circles, and his work is largely ignored in contemporary histories of political ideology. This study reexamines Ahmet Arvasi's work in tandem with the inception of conservative nationalism and the ascendancy of extremist politics, and concludes that his ideological legacy was fundamental to the consolidation of a right-wing bloc perennially represented by Islamists and nationalists.