One of the most toxic words in Turkey’s never-ending political wars is “sharia.” The word, which stands for “Islamic law,” has been a constant fear factor in the secularist narrative. Accordingly, the country’s “Islamists,” such as Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the incumbent AKP (Justice and Development Party), are determined to introduce sharia to a Turkey whose laws have been resolutely secular since the 1920s. They will, sooner or later, make Turkey “another Iran.”

In return, both the AKP and other “Islamists” parties in Turkey — including even the marginal Felicity Party, which uses a more explicitly Islamist rhetoric than the AKP — have always denied this accusation. They have, in fact, often taken great pains to explain that they do not oppose the secular state, but only ask for a more religion-friendly secularism, which will, for example, tolerate Islamic headscarves in public spaces. Most secularists, however, refuse to believe in these reassurances. They argue instead that the "Islamists” are doing nothing but taqiyyah, an Islamic concept which implies a strategic denial of a hidden agenda.

But hidden agendas are often impossible to prove or disprove. Therefore, the better method of foretelling Turkey's future is perhaps not to engage in endless discussions about the deepest corners of Islamist minds, but to figure out what the Turkish society really wants: Is this really a nation that is apt to re-establish Islamic law after almost a century of secular rule?

To find an answer, we can look at the recent survey The World’s Muslims: Religion, Politics and Society, published by the Pew Research Center on April 30. The extensive poll aims at mapping Muslim attitudes across the world on issues such as democracy, religious freedom, women’s rights or science and faith. One section of the study is focused on the sharia, and it shows how Muslim attitudes on this issue differ immensely from country to country.