Charismatic Leaders Quotes
At the time, Muslim clerics had a great deal of influence and in many cases legal control over all facets of Turkish society much as exists in other Islamic societies today. They even controlled what was taught in the schools. Remarkably, without bloodshed, Ataturk broke both the power and the influence of the clerics on all official and public activities. Many Turkish Muslims even developed a type of reformed Islam with the relationship between the individual and the clerics one of parity much like Protestant churches in the West. At the same time there was a more orthodox part of the population and while they sent their children to religious schools, they also attended public schools so even the orthodox Muslims in Turkey learned science and modern subjects which are still not taught in most Islamic schools and madrassas.
He decided to let the statue lie and not revive the image of Xerxes and instead simply proceed with the administration and governance of what was then occupied Persia. He maintained most of the Persian laws and customs including much that came from Xerxes but did not elevate the personality of the great king. However, it was not Alexander’s technique to govern by cults of personalities he and his associates erected few symbols of their own aggrandizement until after Alexander’s death when some of his associates adopted the more traditional approach to things.
