An Analysis of Consumerist Culture and Islamic Lifestyle in Turkey

The development of the process of modernization and the integration of the capitalist system into Islamic countries has led to challenges for the Islamic lifestyle. In recent decades, this challenge has emerged in the area of the consumerist culture of the capitalist system. Turkey, as an Islamic country neighboring Europe, has faced the effects and consequences of the capitalist system and its consumerist culture. Meanwhile, the discussion of the influence of consumerist culture on the Islamic lifestyle and the transformation of Islamists and religious people in the last two decades has attracted the attention of many scholars and sociologists. Using the conceptual framework of consumerist society and a descriptive-analytical method, this paper aims to study the impact of consumerist culture on the Islamic culture and lifestyle in Turkey. Regarding the impact of consumerist culture, findings point to the commodification of religious symbols, the escalation of worldliness, and the spread of luxury and secularism among Islamist and religious classes in Turkey.