Abstract
<jats:p>This chapter uses the history of modern Hungary’s first Muslim congregation to explore the fate of Turanism—the imperialist ideology of pre-1918 Hungary—in the socio-political framework of the post-war Hungarian nation-state. When Hungarian imperialist thought emerged around the turn of the century, its proponents established links with certain elements of Orientalism. The result was the ideology of Turanism. The chief distinguishing feature of Turanism was that Hungarian nationalists claimed membership in a global community of—and indeed, kinship with—Asiatic Muslims. The Gül Baba Islamic Congregation, of which László was a founder and active member, was a legacy of these pre-1918 visions of Hungarian imperial glory, and a result of the joint policies of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.</jats:p>