Can the Secular Kemalist Turkey, an Ally of the U.S. and NATO, Be the Hope of the Ummah?

News:

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, in his closing speech at the "AK Party 33rd Consultation and Evaluation Meeting" held in Sapanca last weekend, evaluated the effects on society and the state of the 25 years that have passed since the AK Party’s establishment on August 14, 2001. He also said that during their time in power they had opened Turkey to the world, extended a hand to every oppressed person, and had become the hope not only of 86 million people but of the entire Ummah. (Agencies, 28.06.2026)

Comment:

Although Turkey’s president’s words appear to be aimed at motivating the AK Party organization, they are not detached from the facts. For this statement coincides precisely with the time when Turkey will host the 36th Summit of NATO, the Crusader alliance, in Ankara on July 7-8.

Indeed, all resources were mobilized so that the summit in question would take place in a splendid manner and so that the heads of state attending the summit would be hosted at the highest level. The military airfield in the Etimesgut district was completely modernized in eight months, opened to civilian flights, and named Ankara Airport. Within the scope of the project, a 12.5-kilometer connection road was also built to provide direct access between Ankara Airport and the Ay Yıldız Campus. The roads and buildings along the transit route were painted. Thus, everything was made ready so that NATO leaders would be comfortable both in the air and on the ground.

Nor was that all. In order for the Crusader disbelievers to be fully satisfied, and even as if to prove that one is effectively from among them, operations were carried out under the label of "terrorism" against Muslims with a tawhidi mindset, as well as against foundations and associations. Many Muslims were detained, and access blocks were imposed on the social media accounts of imams and institutions with a significant number of followers. Thus, new sacrifices were offered to NATO, the enemy of Islam and Muslims, and the peak of humiliation was reached. In addition, meetings, demonstrations, and press statements were banned for ten days in Ankara and many surrounding cities.

All of this took place during the days when Erdoğan claimed that the AK Party was the hope of the ummah. All of this was done in Turkey, where the great majority of the population is Muslim, in an environment where opposition to the U.S. is at 92 percent and opposition to NATO is approaching 80 percent. For the Islamic ummah knows very well what a wicked structure NATO, founded by the colonialist U.S., is from the occupations and massacres in Islamic lands. It knows this very well from Kosovo to Sarajevo, from Iraq and Afghanistan to Libya, and from the unlimited support given to the genocidal Jewish entity. Despite this, Erdoğan and his party glorify NATO, take pride in being a member of it, and propagate the idea that Turkey’s security depends on NATO.

Yet in a context where even Europe, not trusting NATO, is discussing the establishment of a separate defense union, the fact that NATO will not protect a country whose people are Muslim requires no explanation. NATO’s view of Turkey today consists merely of forming a buffer zone against threats that may come from the Islamic geography and integrating its rapidly developing defense industry into the interests of the U.S. and the West. What is even more important for Muslims is that taking the disbelievers as allies and entering under their political and military structures is counted by Allah, Almighty and Majestic, among the grave sins. [وَلَنْ يَجْعَلَ اللّٰهُ لِلْكَافِرِينَ عَلَى الْمُؤمِنِينَ سَبِيلًا] “Allah will never grant the disbelievers a way over the believers.” [An-Nisa 141].

That is, Allah will not be pleased with the believers entering under the domination of the disbelievers. In the case of NATO, this is so from a military perspective.

On the other hand, the secular character of the Republic of Turkey, its Kemalist codes, and its adoption and implementation of the capitalist colonial ideology also make it impossible for it to stand side by side with the expression "the hope of the ummah." For the founding philosophy of the Republic of Turkey adopted the aim of eliminating Allah’s rule, and this secular character of the regime has not changed during the 25 years of AK Party rule.

Indeed, party spokesperson Ömer Çelik has repeatedly and very clearly said that they "strongly defend the principle of the secular state, and that this is necessary for the continuation of their regime," and has advised that secularism be taken as a model for the entire region. Just as President Erdoğan recommended secularism to the Muslims who rose up in Egypt against the Mubarak regime... Just as he approached the Islamic Syrian revolution from the right and, at the end of the day, turned it into a secular nation-state model serving America...

Gaza, abandoned to the savage oppression of the Crusader-Zionist alliance, is the starkest reality that refutes Erdoğan’s words about helping the oppressed.

The situation in Turkey is far more grave and visible to everyone. A youth surrendered to Western culture, criminal gangs spreading throughout the country, corruption, theft, cheap politicians who change parties for personal gain, a collapsed economy, an education system turned into a patchwork, law trampled underfoot, and many more are the products of the current secular-capitalist republican order.

Therefore, President Erdoğan’s statement that the AK Party is the hope of the ummah is nothing more than rhetoric and an attempt to deceive. In their current state, Erdoğan and his party may be the hope not of the ummah, but only of the arrogant Trump, whose praise they constantly receive. And that is not hope either; at most, it is a mirage.

The only hope of this Ummah is the Khilafah (Caliphate). By Allah’s permission, the Caliphate will very soon be re-established; after the humiliation it has lived through, the Islamic ummah will return once again, alive and mighty.

                            Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by                Muhammed Emin Yıldırım