Dr. Unal Giindoan 

The Liberalisation of the Islamists in Turkey During 1990's: 

The Debates Around the Medina Document and Civil Society Project 

This book takes snapshots from the venture of the Islamic Movement during second half of the 1990's in Turkey. It was the Civil Society Project, as proposed by Ali Bulac a prominent intellectual, which claimed to establish philosophical basis for a political and social restructuring of Turkey depending upon the basic premises of the Medina Document, which was signed among Muslims, Jews and Pagans of Medina City just after the Prophet Muhammed's migration in 622. The Project was a break from the tradi-tional understanding of Islamic politics both in Turkey and in the Muslim world. It was because of its focus on pluralism, multi-culturalism, democracy, human rights and many other liberal assumptions. This was a turning point in Turkish politics since the discussions created a liberal atmosphere among Islamist, leftist and rightists which at the end resulted in the mass acceptance of Islamic political parties by the voters since midst 1990's. The rise of first Refah Party and then AK Party owe much to this new understanding.