If we are to seek the subject of secularization

Secularization naturally becomes a source of serious discomfort especially among religious people. However, the secularization that disturbs Islamists or religious people is generally not the familiar kind imposed and implemented by the state and carried out through the suppression of religion. Although the corresponding political results are obtained from a secularization carried out through the state, it also gives rise, as a reaction to it, to exactly opposite developments. In places where a strict policy of laicism is applied, like Turkey, we see that from the moment of the gradual transition to democratic life a reverse process is also rapidly experienced. Whether this is taken as the return of the repressed or attributed to the nature of religion, in the end it shows a tendency toward religious opposition against a secularization carried out by the state.

The secularization that really disturbs Islamists is the worldliness that occurs spontaneously in the Muslims' way of life without state pressure, even after state pressure has greatly diminished, and not merely diminished, but after those regarded as Islamists have come to power. To say that someone from the outside is imposing this change on Muslims is no different from looking for a scapegoat. If there is a worldliness, its sole actor is again Muslims themselves.

If Muslims, after refusing to submit to the state's laicizing pressure and carrying out their opposition by putting their religious feelings to the fore, and after pushing the state's pressures back entirely, have become worldly with their own hands, is there any need to look for someone else to blame? Of course not. But here one must also ask how this worldliness was determined and what its sign is. Because, as far as can be seen, there is no decline but a rise in the rates of performing prayer, fasting, going on hajj and Umrah, and receiving religious education. There is no decrease but an increase in the visibility of religious symbols, which are regarded as objective indicators of secularization or its opposite. Despite this there is a discomfort, and it is by no means a discomfort to be dismissed. Is the spirit of some things disappearing?

Perhaps the pictures recorded along the axis of power and opposition of Islamism are also, in a way, pictures of the story of piety and worldliness. It is felt, or some images to this effect appear more frequently, that those who were found to be more pious during the period of opposition have become less pious during the period of power, and that their worldly interests have taken center stage.

If this is really the matter, nothing could be more natural. It is contrary to the nature of things for the excitement of the opposition period to continue in the same way in the period of power. Ibn Khaldun, if he were here, would regard this situation as a natural appearance of the decline of asabiyya after it has settled in power (the city). Max Weber, if he were here, would take it as the natural result of charismatic devotion, which at the beginning proceeds with great sacrifices, sincerity and excitement, starting to become routinized after a certain level of success. Routinization is a situation that befalls every successful charismatic movement at some stage. Showing success in transforming charisma into an institutionality compatible with its values is, of course, an altogether different merit.

Can the quality of devotion of those who became Muslims in Mecca in the early period of Islam, risking those tortures, humiliations and being driven from their homes and homeland, be considered the same as the quality of devotion of those who became Muslims after Islam had triumphed and become an increasingly rising power? The Qur'an points to this problem as a reality. "When God's victory and the conquest come, you will see people entering Islam in waves" (Nasr). Then people are very easily convinced by the claims of that religion which they had earlier mocked, excluded and suppressed. But that ease also gradually simplifies their expectations of that religion and makes them more worldly. In this period emerge those who claim to have strengthened this religion by attaching themselves to it and who throw it in people's faces, those who therefore demand more reward and spoils, those who let the feelings and excitement of the early days of the Muslim community drag on. Precisely for this reason, whereas in the early days one Muslim was worth ten with God's help, at this stage he is worth two. This too is a reality of the state of power of Islam, in fact of every charismatic movement.

Islamic political practice (a rule that can also be adapted to the practice of another religion or political view), however much it equips the objective world with its own symbols, cannot make a decisive move against worldliness. Because, just like piety, worldliness too is an eternal reality of this human condition. People's worldly interests and their tendency to take center stage can never be ended, nor need they be ended, for otherwise there would be no such thing as a test.

Here we must also point to the fact that the worldliness we are talking about is in fact a subjective experience. Otherwise, there is no way of determining whether people, whether their action is religious or not, do it to obtain a worldly benefit or for a purely pious purpose. Actions are by intentions. Therefore there is no objective criterion for determining whether an action, a behavior or an event is worldly or religious.

A person makes their action worldly or religious by the meaning or value they attach to what they do. In this sense, a person who does the most religious-looking action for ostentation, to please somebody, for position and office, in short for this world, is secular to the end. Of course, such an action existed in the Prophet's time too, and can exist today. Someone who, in a period of power in which the religious have weight, tries to look religious merely so that his affairs may go well, who tries to show that he fasts, attends Friday prayers or leads a conservative life, is worldly, secular to the end. Conversely, the action of a person who does his worldly job properly for God's pleasure, who tries to carry out properly a worldly task entrusted to him, moreover without giving any religious appearance, without even seeming to refer to religion, but feeling responsibility before God, is entirely religious.

Ostentation, throwing one's good deeds in people's faces, and associating partners with God nullify the deeds that look most beneficial. All three examples clearly show that even actions with a religious appearance have another level of evaluation.

In fact, in the midst of all these processes, isn't it time for everyone to turn to themselves and take stock of the intention behind their expectations? Who else but himself can impose worldliness on a Muslim?