Our team member Gökçen B. Dinç has just published “Islam in Turkish and its materiality: praising Nur Muhammad, loving Ahl Al-Bayt, remembering Karbala”. The article examines vernacular books as religious media, revealing common devotional practices surrounding Nur Muḥammad (a divine light) and the veneration of the Ahl al-Bayt across Sunni and Alevi communities, thereby challenging the assumption that the Battle of Karbala in 680 CE constitutes an exclusively Shiʿi premise. Through a material approach to religion, she maintains that these books made Muhammad and Ahl Al-Bayt “accessible,” “tangible,” and “sense-able” in the world in oral, pictorial, and scriptural forms. Emphasizing the role of Turkish language in the history of Islam, she introduces the concept of “Islam in Turkish” that captures a historically specific religiosity formed and transmitted across generations through Turkish in Anatolia and the Balkans. The article was published as part of the special dossier she co-edited for the Journal New Perspectives on Turkey, entitled “Revisiting the history of Islam in Turkey through novel approaches”.

Find the article here.