'The Past Has Indeed Not Passed': Recalling the Ostentatious Ottoman Past and Performing the Turkish-Islamic Narrative in DİTİB Mosques in Germany

Abstract

This study contends that D & Idot;T & Idot;B (Diyanet & Idot;& scedil;leri T & uuml;rk & Idot;slam Birli & gbreve;i, Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs) mosques in Germany are urban-religious spaces where a religion-based nationhood that evokes an ostentatious Ottoman past is reproduced through the mosque community. Drawing on Henri Lefebvre's spatial triad on the 'production of space', it examines how urban-religious spaces activate Turkish-Islamic narratives through spatial practices of the mosque community, the architectural representations of mosques, and their representational symbols for Turkish people. The study, based on interviews, fieldwork, and participant observation at the Cologne Central Mosque and the Berlin Martyrdom (& Scedil;ehitlik) Mosque, concludes that although D & Idot;T & Idot;B mosques locate Turkishness in religiosity, the mosque community reappropriates their Turkishness in contradictory ways, thus making them active political subjects of ideological narratives rather than passive recipients.