Features of the Turkish Islamic Movement in Orhan Pamuk’s SNOW

Researching and studying the Islamic movement in Turkey has developed significantly in recent decades; next to different theoretical departures and methodologies used by scholars to better analyse and decipher the dimensions of Turkey’s Islamic movement, its actors as well its plurality in terms of action and ideology, there still exists the challenge of how to study and teach this (or make it accessible to a greater audience) in a way that is accurate, fruitful and also attractive. Orhan Pamuk’s novel SNOW can be used as an excellent key to the understanding of the various aspects and dimensions of the Islamic movement in contemporary Turkey, as he has created a number of characters that genuinely express the plurality of Islam and the Islamic movement in Turkish politics and society (apart from the characters who express worldviews and stances other than or opposite to Islamic ones): the young Islamist who shoots the secular Principal of the Education Institute, the two young men who study at the Islamic school, the Sheikh who comforts his audience, the man called “Blue” who is considered an Islamist terrorist by the police and tries to avoid arrest, the local active politician Muhtar, as well as the young girls who wear headscarves. The main purpose of this paper is to show that these characters express and voice vividly and accurately the variety and plurality within the Turkish Islamic movement. Moreover, Orhan Pamuk’s shaping of his Islamic characters (their words, beliefs and actions) can be seen clearly as a typology of the Turkish Islamic movement, comparable to typologies suggested by political and social scientists.