Chapter six explores the religious roots of the “secular” state and the emergence of a sacred-synthesis between the religious and the national in late Ottoman and early republican Turkey. It argues that by widening the timeframe to include these precursors to Kemalist politics, it becomes clear that the ostensible “success” of the Kemalist reforms in the Turkish case represents only one “moment” in a more gradual process of state formation that produced a sacred-synthesis between the religious and the national that would be instrumentalized for decades to come. The chapter focuses specifically Institutional changes in education and law that were set into motion during the reign of Sultan cAbdulḥamīd II (1876-1909) and were continued subsequently under the rule of the Committee for Union and Progress (CUP), arguing that they are essential to understanding contemporary religion-state power arrangements in Turkey. The chapter argues that Late Ottoman reform strategies ultimately caused the religious establishment to cultivate the seeds of its own demise. These changes progressed incrementally but were, cumulatively speaking, transformative forces of state building.