Islamization from Above, Secularization from Below: Turkey and Iran as Case Studies

Research conducted in Turkey over the past decade reveals a marked decline in religious observance among the younger generation, with fewer fasting during Ramadan, attending prayers in mosques, or integrating Islam into their daily lives. This detachment from Sunni Islam is evident not only among urban youth with liberal tendencies but also among graduates of religious educational institutions. These trends occur despite President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s declared ambition to cultivate a “pious” Turkish generation. After becoming prime minister in March 2003, Erdoğan abolished some of the secularist laws enacted by the previous regime in the 1980s and 1990s, including the ban on wearing headscarves in universities, public service, and parliament.

After consolidating his position in domestic politics in the early 2010s, and especially after becoming president in August 2014, Erdoğan took decisive steps to bolster Sunni Islam’s presence in the public sphere. The Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), which was subordinated to the presidency, became one of Turkey’s central institutions under his rule. Its budget and workforce expanded significantly over the years, and it began operating in new social domains. Simultaneously, Diyanet representatives adopted more hardline positions on religious matters and increasingly opposed Western cultural influences in Turkish society. Erdoğan also initiated sweeping reforms in the Turkish education system to strengthen the role of religion. He significantly expanded the network of religious schools (imam hatip) and revised curricula across all schools to include more substantial religious content. Additionally, religious communities were granted broad responsibilities for managing social services related to education. Beyond education, Erdoğan also sought to shift Turkish public attitudes on sensitive Islamic issues. He waged a prolonged campaign against alcohol consumption and promoted a conservative approach to women’s status and family structure. Among other things, he urged young people to establish families with at least three children—a goal he framed as a national mission. In recent years, the president has intensified his rhetoric against the LGBTQ+ community.

Erdoğan’s tenure marks a profound transformation in the relationship between religion and state in Turkey, even though the country remains constitutionally secular. He implemented his vision of cultivating a pious generation through various channels while publicly displaying his own faith, notably in the Hagia Sophia, which became a symbol of Turkey’s Islamization after Erdoğan converted it back into a mosque—reversing the decision of the republic’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

However, after more than two decades of Erdoğan’s rule, evidence suggests that the younger Turkish generation—raised solely under his regime and educated according to his Islamic ideology—is not as religious as the president intended. Recent surveys clearly indicate a trend of secularization in Turkish society, particularly among the youth. This trend is evident in several ways. First, in religious sentiment, Turkish youth are more likely to identify as “modern” rather than “conservative” or “religious.” Additionally, the proportion of young people identifying as “atheists” or “non-believers” is also higher than in the general population, where such labels remain taboo, and this rate is steadily increasing. At the same time, trust in the Directorate of Religious Affairs, which remained very high until the late 2000s, has sharply declined. The Directorate’s unequivocal alignment with the president and ruling party, its rigid religious interpretations, and accusations of misusing public funds have all contributed to its diminishing reputation. Today, the Directorate ranks among the least trusted institutions.

Socially, Generation Z Turks, born in the 1990s and early 2000s, express greater tolerance toward religious minorities, women, and LGBTQ+ individuals. One of the clearest indicators of Erdoğan’s failure in social conservatism is Turkey’s demographic situation. The fertility rate has been in constant decline: from 2.38 children per woman in 2001 to 1.48 in 2024. It is doubtful whether Erdoğan’s declaration of 2025 as the “Year of the Family” will reverse this trend.

Finally, in a country where religion is also a political issue, surveys consistently show strong support for secularism: between 65% and 85% of the public support this principle. Most Turkish youth define their political identity as “Kemalist,” increasingly distancing themselves from labels such as “conservative” or “Islamist.” This renewed connection, particularly among the youth, with the secular legacy of the Turkish Republic’s founder, Atatürk, is also reflected in record-breaking number of visitors to his mausoleum.

Although it would be an overstatement to exaggerate the significance of these trends in a country where the majority of the population still identifies as religious, it is evident that Erdoğan’s years in power and his Islamist party have paradoxically led to some secularization in Turkish society, especially among the youth. This phenomenon stands in stark contrast to the situation in the 1990s when the military tried to impose secularization on Turkish society, resulting in public gravitation toward political Islam—a process that ultimately brought Erdoğan to power. It seems that after the failure of top-down secularization, it is Islamic rule that has led to secularization from below.

A similar process has also unfold in Iran, where society has experienced accelerated secularization in recent decades, alongside the diminishing status of the clergy. Public opinion surveys indicate shifting patterns of religious behavior and a decline in conservatism among Iranian citizens. For example, a 2020 survey by the Iranian polling institute ISPA found that 47.4% of Tehran’s residents do not fast during Ramadan. Public detachment from religion is also evident in non-compliance with the Islamic dress code, particularly regarding women’s obligation to wear the hijab. Since the 2022–2023 wave of protests following the death of Mahsa Amini after her arrest by the “morality police,” the number of women appearing in public without the hijab has risen tremendously. In Iran, as in Turkey, these secularization trends contrast sharply with the Islamization processes among the public in the 1970s—in response to the Shah’s accelerated secularization—ultimately leading to the Islamic Revolution.

As in Turkey, the status of the clergy in Iran has steadily declined, partly because they are identified with the Islamic regime and its failures . Once viewed as public servants advocating for social justice and opposing oppressive rulers, the clergy have, since the revolution, become part of the ruling establishment and are seen as responsible for its shortcomings. Their relatively comfortable economic status and their detachment from the everyday struggles of ordinary citizens further alienate them from the public. The regime’s efforts to impose its authority on the clerical  establishment have significantly undermined its independence, making it entirely dependent on state support and severely diminishing its status. One of the common indicators of this decline is the decrease in citizens’ participation in Friday prayers at mosques. Another manifestation of the growing hostility toward clerics has been a series of incidents in which citizens have attacked religious figures. Although such hostility is not new, it intensified against the backdrop of the 2022–2023 protests. In 2023, a new form of protest emerged, with young people approaching clerics in the street and knocking off their turbans as an expression of hostility toward both the Islamic regime and the religious establishment.

In parallel, among middle-class youth, a counterculture has emerged in recent years emphasizing the pre-Islamic Persian element in Iranian nationalism, as a challenge to the state’s institutionalized Islam. The clearest expression of this is the celebration of “Cyrus the Great Day,” commemorating the founder of the Achaemenid Empire. This practice, which began in the past decade and is not part of the official Iranian calendar, contrasts with the regime’s efforts to emphasize the Islamic religious component of Iranian identity over its Persian cultural roots. Moreover, recent protest waves in Iran featured expressions of admiration for Reza Shah, founder of the Pahlavi dynasty that ruled Iran from the 1920s until the 1979 revolution, alongside calls to restore the monarchy.

Demographically, Turkey and Iran also show similar trends in which public behavior diverges from official policies. Significant demographic shifts have taken place in Iran since the Islamic Revolution. After the revolution, the family planning program launched in 1967 to reduce population growth was suspended. In 1988, following the Iran–Iraq War, the regime recognized that uncontrolled population growth could hinder economic development and adopted a program to limit pregnancies and family size. The program was considered successful, with the birth rate falling from 3.91% in 1986 to 1.29% in 2011. However, since the early 2000s, conservative and religious circles have criticized this policy, arguing it could lead to an aging population. In July 2012, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called for a reassessment of the policy to increase the population. Despite government efforts, the declining birth rate trend has not been reversed, mainly due to social and cultural processes and economic hardships. In October 2021, the secretary of the “Center for Strategic Studies of Iran’s Population,” Saleh Ghasemi, warned that the birth rate stood at only 0.6% and was expected to reach zero within 10 to 15 years. Fertility rates dropped from 6.5 children per family in 1986 to 1.6 children today. A study by two Iranian sociologists in 2015 found a direct link between secularization and individualism processes and the declining birth rate. The 2022–2023 protest movement, led by Generation Z, reflects these changes and highlights the growing gap between the younger generation and the regime.

Professor Bernard Lewis, one of the leading Orientalists of our time, predicted over a decade ago that a day would come when Iran would become Turkey, and Turkey would become Iran—that is, Iran under clerical rule would move toward openness, while secular Turkey would drift toward Islamization. Even today, significant differences remain between the two countries. Iran is ruled by clerics who still enforce—albeit less rigorously than before—Islamic law. Turkey is still constitutionally secular and not ruled by clerics, although it has undergone an Islamization process in recent years. Despite these differences, both countries experience similar processes driven by the politicization of religion, the authorities’ failure to solve the problems of their citizens, resistance to top-down ideology, increasing autocratic tendencies, and growing distrust in state institutions. All these factors have reduced public support for the regimes and weakened religion’s appeal. Paradoxically, Islamist rule has contributed to public estrangement from religion and the religious establishment. Turkey may not have become Iran, but the Islamization trends under Erdoğan’s rule have significantly eroded public trust in religious authority, although the majority of its population (as in Iran) remains religious. The secularization processes in both countries in recent years illustrate how accelerated Islamization processes can provoke backlash and strengthen secularization and the erosion of religion’s status.