© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2014 DOI 10.1163/22131418-00104005 Sociology of Islam 1 (2013) 188–208 brill.com/soi The Sohbet: Talking Islam in Turkey Smita Tewari Jassal Associate Professor of Anthropology, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey stj89@yahoo.com Abstract As Islam moves to the center of Turkey’s public life, an opportunity emerges to explore how Islamic knowledge is transmitted through the discursive practice of pious reading circles known in Turkish as sohbet (conversation). Constituting a ritualistic practice of Turkish Muslims who are inspired by the influential faith community leader, Fethullah Gülen, this article investigates how sohbet is practiced by a group of middle class housewives in Ankara. In so doing, the article addresses the meanings and interpretations that pious women ascribe to the reading of religiously oriented texts, and to discussions on prayer, family, and community that take place at sohbet. It also explores how new Islamic subjectivities are fashioned, how Islamic knowledge is reclaimed, and how spirituality is integrated by women into their roles as mothers and wives. Methodologically anchored upon ethnography, this article concludes that the distinctive features of sohbet in the so-called Gülen community, among other effects, facilitate social coherence, and subsequently, a greater capacity for women to synthesize their experience with modernity and tradition. Keywords new Islamic movements; Turkey; gender; Fethullah Gulen Reviving Tradition in Modern Turkey The Turkish term sohbet is derived from the Arabic suhba, the root of sahaba, which refers to the companionship and practices of socialization that were practiced between the Prophet and his companions in Islam. According to Göle (2006), “conversation [Turkish: sohbet] as a discursive practice plays a role in the creation of social bonding and a cultural mem- ory among the members of a movement” (14). As a discursive practice of * The author is grateful to the two blind reviewers for this article whose comments helped her to refine her argument. She also thanks Aftab Jassal and Erdogan Yildirim for their insightful, critical, and focused readings of earlier drafts. Questions raised by col- leagues at the Centre for Developing Societies (CSDS) Delhi, at a seminar on the theme, also helped shape the contours of this article.