Why turkey is so different by other muslin countries?

First of all I want to say that I am a cristian who spent the last month in Turkey. I appreciated a lot everything that happened here. History and facts are my passion so I struggled to find from quora the best info that I liked about Turkey. Why it is so cool to see this country.

Because Turkey is not a Muslim country by definition.

Turkey is a secular republic, where Muslims may, perhaps have a majority.

As mentioned by Anon, after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (the founder of the nation) came about and made some drastic changes in the country in order to de-link itself from its Islamic heritage.

"The reform process was characterized by a struggle between progressives and conservatives; on one side Atatürk and his reform-minded liberal elite, on the other the broad mass of uneducated, conservative common people." [1]

Abolished religious education system & office

"Regardless, the government asserted the equality of religions and free worship rights of all Turkish citizens in their own private space to the protection of the Republic. The state protected freedom of worship while itself standing aloof of any form of religious influence.

The religious education system was replaced by a national education system on March 3, 1924, and the office of Caliphate, held by the Ottomans since 1517, was abolished on the same day. The Islamic courts and Islamic Canon Law gave way to a secular law structure based on the Swiss Civil Code."[1]

Think about that. An official seat that had been held by the same people serving the same function for 400 years was abolished in one day. How do you think people reacted to that?

Banned religious clothing

Official measures were gradually introduced to eliminate the wearing of religious clothing and other overt signs of religious affiliation.

Beginning in 1923, a series of laws progressively limited the wearing of selected items of traditional clothing. Mustafa Kemal first made the hat compulsory to the civil servants. The guidelines for the proper dressing of students and state employees (public space controlled by state) was passed during his lifetime.

After most of the relatively better educated civil servants adopted the hat with their own he gradually moved further. The Hat Law of 1925 introduced the use of Western style hats instead of the fez.

Another control on the dress was passed in 1934, banning "religion-based clothing", such as the veil and turban.

Changed the script

A cornerstone of Mustafa Kemal's achievements. He washed away the Arab influence on his people and aligned them with Europe. "Turkish was written using a Turkish form of the Arabic script for over a thousand years. It was well suited to write Ottoman Turkish which incorporated a great deal of Arabic and Persian vocabulary"[2] The old alphabet, that was written from right to left, gave way to a new system written left to right. People had to unlearn and relearn everything.

projectsource - Turkish

Basically, this one man was responsible for shaking the core of an entire nation. And he was able to do this because Turkey was beaten and defeated after the WW1.

(Some) argue that it was an attempt to reduce the population's ability to access religious resources, as well as their own thousand year history. Moreover, it must be understood that by changing an alphabet familiar to an entire people with one foreign to them reduces whatever literacy rate there was to zero over night. It is for this reason that in Turkey today, many people say that their most educated and intelligent ancestors became ignorant overnight. Furthermore, by changing the alphabet into Latin, mutual intelligibility between the various dialects was severely reduced.

If anything, Mustafa Kemal's attempts at secularizing the country involved ripping it away from its identity and thousands of years of history that included Greek, Roman, and Arab influences. And he was able to do this as soon as a centuries old system of governance prevailing in the country collapsed. Try implementing any of these changes in any existing Muslim states. There will be blood.

Banning of headscarf

This deserves a special mention because it's my favourite part of this answer. You could not enter a public building wearing a headscarf. In 2007, the then candidate for PM-ship promised to remove the headscarf ban. However, attempts to do so were blocked.

On 5 June 2008, Turkey's Constitutional Court annulled the parliament's proposed amendment intended to lift the headscarf ban, ruling that removing the ban was against the founding principles of the constitution. The highest court's decision to uphold the headscarf ban cannot be appealed.[4]

The ban has since been eased in universities.

https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-290053a85dc02c229fcb2a98597a7bbd.webp

ANKARA: Turkish army chiefs boycotted an official ceremony at the presidential palace because the president’s wife wore an Islamic headscarf. The army’s top brass were conspicuous by their absence at a banquet thrown by President Abbdullah Gul to commemorate the creation of the modern, secular Turkey in 1923. [5]

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atat%C3%BCrk%27s_Reforms#Secularism
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_alphabet#Modern_Turkish_alphabet
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ottoman_Turkish_alphabet
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headscarf_rights_in_Turkey
5. https://tribune.com.pk/story/70327/turkish-army-chiefs-boycott-ceremony-over-headscarf/

Main source: https://www.quora.com/Why-arent-most-Muslim-countries-like-Turkey