Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
Religious insignia

On 30 August 1925, Atatürk's view on religious insignia used outside places of worship was introduced in his Kastamonu speech. This speech also had another position. He said:

In the face of knowledge, science, and of the whole extent of radiant civilization, I cannot accept the presence in Turkey's civilized community of people primitive enough to seek material and spiritual benefits in the guidance of sheiks. The Turkish republic cannot be a country of sheiks, dervishes, and disciples. The best, the truest order is the order of civilization. To be a man it is enough to carry out the requirements of civilization. The leaders of dervish orders will understand the truth of my words, and will themselves close down their lodges and admit that their disciplines have grown up.

On 2 September, the government issued a decree closing down all Sufi orders, the tekkes and other religious ideological lodges. Atatürk ordered the dervish lodges to be converted to museums, such as Mevlana Museum in Konya. The institutional expression of religious ideologies became illegal in Turkey; a politically neutral form of any religious ideology, functioning as social associations, was permitted to exist.
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