MG movement strives for a much larger role of Islam in the public sphere in Turkey, idealizing the religious heydays of Ottoman empire and rejecting the secular-republican (or ‘Kemalist’) downplay of overly Islamic behaviour and the role of religious institutions in public space. Thus, Kabaktepe looked for the grandest representation of Ottoman grandeur and creativity, leading his French architect, Marc Breitman, away from any Byzantine forms suggested by him, towards the main aspects of the Selimiye Mosque in Edirne, Turkey, aiming to create a similar traditional mosque complex (or ‘Külliye’) to be financially maintained by the exploitation of shops (Figure 4). Meanwhile, he dismissed any modernization or stylization of Ottoman architecture, since this had been applied by his opponents in the Netherlands, the mosque leaders associated with the Turkish Dutch Islamic Foundation (HDV) that was sponsored by the Turkish government. …
