By A.Tarık Çelenk, Turkish Writer
Islam today?
When we were young, our elders used to describe the reason for the collapse of the Ottoman Empire as alienation from Islam. No matter what anyone says, the crisis of the Islamic world, which started with the stagnation of the Ottoman Empire, continues to deepen today. Although this crisis is understood with its military and political appearance at first, it feels like a civilization crisis inside to our bones.
The sad thing is that some of the material and spiritual leaders of the Islamic world continue to pretend to be dead, deny, takfir or heroism (hamaset) in the face of this situation. They almost do not care about the lost human resources and future generations. Unfortunately, they continue to be respected by the majority of the society. Such sources still complain that the Shari’a is not fully implemented, that the Islamic caliphate and state have not been fully established, or that most of the people cannot become their followers. Physical and social realities do not prefer to confront unless they threaten the power of such environments. What happens is to the values and future of the Islamic world.
However, from the time of the Prophet A.S. to the 16th century, there were many good things to be said about humanity and conscience in the Islamic world. In the Islamic world, the richness of thought belonging to those centuries and the information architecture that will establish thinking no longer exist. The raw provincial and tribal culture, which has developed since the modern era in Islamic sociology, manifested itself especially in the dominant umera and ulama. Most of the Islamic countries in the world, which have energy resources and riches, are struggling in the fields of education, human rights and thought. The social ground continues to look for evil in the other instead of holding a mirror to itself.
The Muslim intelligentsia, which led the field of thought until the 16th century, had some movements from the 19th century until today, but it was not enough. At least, we have difficulties in producing the appropriate intelligentsia that will follow and codify the West, let alone being followed, today, which follows the theories of knowledge from us.
We need to see that the source of all practical troubles is doctrinal. The problem with the basic doctrine is in the information architecture of the relations & positioning between Revelation and reason or in other words Beyan (Quran and sunnah), Burhan (Determinal-Physical/mathematical world) and Irfan (discovery-spiritual saving); belief, thought and practice is manifested in practice as not being able to be defined correctly.
I think it would be more conscientious to try to understand the alienation of the young generation, who see the most practices of today’s umera and ulama and who want to associate themselves with the current developed world, from the understanding of corporate religion, instead of the understanding that they already have discord in their hearts and they have gone astray. The content of this article is about the historical consequence of these pursuits.
In order to facilitate the reader’s work, the topics are continued with subheadings, interesting confrontations and examples from daily practices. It has been tried to give references and references without being too tight. I particularly recommend this article to young people who like to think and question, to conscientious religious people and to readers who have corporate religion questions.
Only Fiqh & Kalam and Islam
“After all this, (O mankind), if you are in doubt about the truth of what We have revealed to you, ask those who read the revealed texts in previous ages!” Dolphin 10/94
Unfortunately, the commentators and researchers of the Islamic world, who preferred to stay on the borders of fiqh [1] and kalam, were not very interested in archeology, although in the holy books, the last holy book being the Qur’an, extraordinary events in the ancient period were often emphasized. They accepted this field as a colonial science when there were Rum 9 and Umran 82, leaving the field dangerously to spiritualists and UFO researchers.
I visited the son of a well-known Naqsh sheikh who took refuge in our country from the Syrian civil war with a friend of mine. He was a madrasa scholar. His and his family’s literary and large library was impressive. From the floor to himself, “Can there be life or life in space?” When I asked him, first of all, he showed me his Kurdish and Arabic books consisting of the fields of fiqh and kalam that covered the walls of the whole hall. He threw it away, saying, “There is no such thing in these books, since there is no such thing.”
It was years ago. He was in ecopolitical activity. An elder from the Old Rightist community, who was prominent in foundation activities, was influenced by Ecopolitics studies, but he had some hesitations in his mind. He had asked me: Tariq, you are doing good things, but where is Islam in that? should you explain?
According to Seyit Kutba, because Greek philosophy and logic, Iranian thought and mythology, Jewish superstitions and Christian metaphysics were mixed in the Qur’an over time, “true Islam” was moved away. Today, most of the views in the Islamic world are in this center. At the same time, ignoring the ancient common heritage of humanity and squeezing religion between the patterns of a Salafist understanding strengthens the understanding. Are we going to ignore the legacy of the messengers (nabis) of Allah, who gave messages in different disciplines, exceeding hundreds of thousands other than the last Prophet, even if they were degenerated?
Why do we not care about the ideas of Muslim philosophers?
“In this new phase that mankind has come to, it has gained vitality and urgency to find and mobilize that perfect mind and reasoning power that does not separate science from wisdom and faith (p.10).” Roger Garaudy
Rene Geunon (1886-1951) was, to me, the Ghazali of the 20th Century. After receiving a good education, the French philosopher settled in Egypt after experiencing Catholic, occult, spiritual and Far East experiences and became attached to Abdurrahman Eliş El-kebir, the sheikh of the Şazeliye sect, he died there too.
The accumulation of truth-seeking in Geunon, his experiences in the physics and metaphysical world, his answers on different subjects from Theosophy to Blavatsky, from Atlantis to the symbolism of the Cross, his criticisms from the ancient world to the post-modern world, and his decision on Islamic mysticism were an invaluable treasure for the answers to our basic questions. “The Sovereignty of Quantity and Signs of the Age” was important to me. Sacrificing the last copy I have, I sent the book to a friend of mine, who is the manager of one of the foundations, which claims to live Islam completely. When I called him excitedly and asked about his impression of the book. “I did not even look at this book because there is no Islam in this book.” I think he understood akaid, fiqh, kalam and mysticism from Islam. It happened to my book. In a way, this situation was also a description of our understanding of Islam.
No one cared that Garaudy studied philosophy at the Sorbonne, earned a doctorate from the USSR Academy of Sciences, and became a world-class philosopher. It was important for political Islam that only a heavy cannon had joined the ranks.
In fact, what matters is Rene Geunon‘s theosophical, occultist and philosopher; It was Roger Garaudy’s belief and submission to the God of the last scripture, in the light of his own experiences, as a materialist philosopher. That was the main point to understand. However, there was so much need for a correct understanding of these experiences in the Islamic world.
Is everything as we know it?
In the same way, a friend of mine sent a message accusing the Shia sect of takfir (blaming it with blasphemy). I reminded him that Caferi Sadik, the important mujtahid imam of the Shia, is an important link in the Naqshbandi chain. Caferi Sadik was deeply involved in the subject of esotericism, and was considered an authority on dream interpretation and spiritual hierarchy explanations. He was in the first founding circle of both Nakshi and Shiite. His son Ismail was also the founder of the esoteric Ismaili sect of Shia. I also expressed the similarities of our current understanding of Sufism with the issues of Seyitlik, the spiritual realm management hierarchy (owner of time-polarity-gavsity) and innocence, which are an integral part of Kurdish Naqshbandiyya.
In this sense, we can say that the Sunni populist understanding of Sufism and the understanding of the innocent imam and mujtahid that Shia has built since Caferi Sadik quite overlap.
Sheikh Esad Erbili is generally known as a member of the lineage of the Erenköy Naqshbandi community and as someone who was persecuted in the Menemen case. Not many people wonder about his depth of negotiation with European occultism, his unique perspective in the course and his duties in the Second Constitutional Monarchy. Elmalılı Hamdi Yazır, who lived in the same period, can only interpret the true religion, the Qur’an, and the II. He comes to the fore with Abdülhamit’s fatwa. Not many people know and wonder that Elmalılı Efendi first learned French to interpret and then published a translation of P. Janet’s history of philosophy.
Influence of Pagan Symbols
We were discussing the individuation and liberalization of Christianity in the West with Sara, an American, from whom I tried to take academic language and philosophy courses [2] . Of course, when discussing Christianity, we could not discuss the influence of paganism [3] . The subject was based on the Muslim Red Crescent and the widespread moon symbolism on the flags of nation states. This worried me a little.
A familiar symbol that comes to mind when evaluating the influence of paganism in Judaism and Islam; The most prominent goddess in the pagan-pagan culture of pre-Islamic Arab societies (ignorance period) was the Moon goddess [4] . It was understandable that tribal-nomadic nations such as the Arabs produced goddesses such as the moon and the sun during the pagan period. In fact, even the states that became Muslims along with Islam attributed their cosmology to holiness this month. NSare used in symbols. This metaphorical approach was an interesting approach to understanding the cultural effects of paganism that have reached us today, focusing on the Islamic world.
It is still a matter of debate whether the history of humanity developed with a linear acceleration or whether it progressed intellectually on the remnants of superior civilizations. Nothing before the 7th century BC has been clarified. For this, it seems that there is a need for the development of underwater archeology or the discovery of new “Göbekli Tepes”.
Are Awliyas and Philosophers Cure for All Troubles?
In our history, we know that the people who are known as spiritualists from time to time are on the side of many decision makers from Sultan Avcı Mehmet to Abdülaziz and Abdülhamit. However, the patronage of these individuals could not stop the rapid collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the physical realm.
We assume that the majority of the society, including us, the sheikhs and people of adequacy, have open spiritual lives, and that they can sometimes be aware of the invisible world at the level of direct observation. For this reason, we take their opinions and suggestions very seriously in our daily life and career life. Although it may be considered reasonable for this business to stay around, it is no longer reasonable for competent religious decision makers to make binding guidance on international relations, recent history and political agenda issues, including security.
Since our childhood, we have always sought morality and truth. But where; We searched for it in ideologies, right-wing, nationalism, Islamism, prayer, sheikhs, dervish lodges, intellectuals, philosophers or philosophy.
When we became disillusioned with ideologies, we turned to religion, became Islamist, and it didn’t work. This remained rather dry, we went in search of the perfect man and the way. We have benefited from them in terms of morality and maturity. We saw that they also exhibit serious human weaknesses in some aspects, we turned to intellectuals and philosophers. With al-Ghazali‘s irony, the philosophers’ inconsistency on fundamental issues of existence was clear. However, there were also very suitable roadmaps and methods for questioning compatible with human dignity and “how we should think”.
Problems of Our Sufism
It is a separate discussion topic how much the spiritual belief, pleasure or resilience of the people of gnosis or Sufism have caused other determinal reality and philosophy to be neglected. It is stated that the awe of the intuitive observation made by the true Sufis through discovery will prevent interference in someone else’s or other’s business. However, unfortunately, this is not the case in the popular cult understanding.
Years ago, a dervish whom we visited frequently when we were at university stated that his sheikh would declare his Mahdiness as soon as possible and that the Antichrist would appear soon. The only condition for transcending the gate of spirituality was the sheikh, who was represented in his person, and his unconditional surrender to his own Naqshbandi gate. Under these circumstances, a group of fellow cadets who believed in him invited their regiment commanders to join the Mahdi, and when the commander offered them to leave the place and to save themselves with a small disciplinary penalty, they refused. They were expelled from military students and remained without a scholarship. The same dervish and an ex-military student who was expelled from among them saved an Armenian uncle who was about to commit suicide on the Yedikule train tracks and later brought him back to life as a dervish. Years later, the authorized dervish declared his independence and indirectly declared his Messiahship.
Although it is difficult to explain the institutional aspect of Sufism in the life of the Prophet, the moral individual practices in his life are quite congruent. The institutional understanding of Sufism, which emerged a few centuries after the Hijrah, did not find much response in the Arab temperament and sociology, but it was highly adopted in Turkish, Persian, Indian and Kurdish societies.
In the initiation [5] , which is based on the vocal- Qadiri and silent- Nakshi dhikr tradition, Hz. Ebubekir-silent and Hz. It is claimed that the spiritual hierarchy was shaped by the basic sect structures, which are connected to the lineages extending to Ali-vocally, and the cosmological hierarchy (polarity-gavslik) doctrine of Imam Cafer Sadik, one of the founders of Shiism.
It is undeniable that Sufi and cult structures have served the moral maturation of people, the consolidation of social infrastructure, culture, art and aesthetics in the Islamic world for centuries. However, the messianic-apocalyptic dilemmas that fell over time, the beliefs of the renewer of religion (disputed hadith) sent once in a century, and the practical identification of the Sheikh as the Shiite innocent imam have always remained as question marks.
It is undeniable that the development of Sufi methodology, rituals and institutions were influenced by ancient cultures such as Shaman, Mazdek, Indian and Egyptian throughout the process. Contrary to the predecessors, this situation is a situation that should not be denied in terms of the oneness of humanity and the ancient heritage of the Prophet, but only to be understood. The subject is a subject that needs to be understood in detail. For the purpose of this article, as in the first practical example given above, the problem is that of discovery, intuition, spiritual intoxication, or intuition, of setting the correct boundary to physical or social reality.
While Catholic sects established universities such as Georgetown or Yale, which were founded by Jesuits or Franciscans, and high schools such as Saint Joseph or Saint Benoit, sects and foundations in the Islamic world did not gain the ability to establish such institutions.
In the Middle Ages, the libraries of the monasteries affiliated to the Vatican had rich bibliographies ranging from pagan to Islamic sources. These laid the groundwork for the Renaissance and the schools in question. However, we cannot say that the libraries of the madrasahs, which constitute the sources of shariah education of the sects, have a richness and tolerance in this context.
Our experiences of sheikhs and lodges, the reality we live in, have provided us with tangible and livable clues about the existence of an other world far beyond our perceptions. This situation has led us to the misconception that these competent people can also have the common sense of guiding in technical and social fields.
The developments experienced in recent years, the dilemmas of the sects on issues such as the problem of conscience, the ignorance of some of the lessons such as murakaba, their inability to raise mature people and their politicization have started to make their place in the existence equation a matter of debate. [6]
Pursuing the Answers of the Ulema?
What is the meaning of life? What are the differences between non existence and nothingness? What is truth, is it possible that truth to break down? What are the limits of individual will? How can we make sense of eternal will? In the Islamic world, does religion consist entirely of sharia, mysticism and kalam? Is it possible to distinguish between zahir and esoteric? Where are the movements and methods such as occultism, spiritualism, mysticism (spiritualism), esotericism, mysticism, heterodoxy (internalism) in religion or do they lead to truth (in my opinion, tawhid)? What is the right balance in terms of reason, transmission and intuition (discovery)?
With another example, are all kinds of events in the reality of life, from birth to death, in scientific cause-effect relationships (property-witness-public realm)[7] or as angels responsible for all natural events (malakut-unseen-order realm)? we will define. More importantly, how can the relationship between these two realms be established in the knowledge model?
With a simpler modeling; We left a glass of water in the sun and micro-organisms grew in it in 1-2 days. In the reproduction of these micro-organisms; Are only cause-effect relationships, determinal laws valid? Is the freedom of our own will completely free in the universal will, as Mutazilah says? What is the role of the metaphysical realm-angels in ending the life of living things with cause-effect relationships such as death? Will man’s adventure of changing nature end when he is enslaved by the biotechnological world-digital revolution invented by man, how can the nature of creation return to its essence? How could the issue of faith/belief be preserved in the digital universe of the future with the understanding of mysticism and fiqh adorned with the logic of the predecessor town madrasah? Most clergy, environmental problems, Why do such matters not deal with the wounds of the consciences of others or others?
The lack of interest in the answers to all these questions leads us to the point that the epistemology of knowledge and belief in the Islamic world is not yet fully understood or desired to be solved.
Do you deal with this type of mortal business?
For years, I have thought about why British researchers, especially from the 18th century, travel from Antarctica to the North Pole and even examine microorganisms. Except for a few people, no one has been curious about the microorganisms in Antarctica or even the archaeological remains in Anatolia. It is not possible to attribute this difference in vision to the fact that it is only due to the Greek understanding of cosmology and physics on which Europe is based.
The clergy and opinion leaders, who were limited to Medieval Fiqh and Theology, and who grew up in some of today’s madrasas with some predecessor sauce, seem to be incapable of conveying the Islamic world and thought in a global sense. In this sense, this tradition is not formed when the next one surpasses the previous one, but when the previous one blocks the next. While expressing this, adding that I defend the tradition of Fiqh, Kalam and Sufism outside of the Salafist understanding; In this mental framework, what is outside of us in the universe (in space) and challenging matters such as ancient history, archeology, philosophy will never come into the field of view of this understanding of Islam and will continue to leave plenty of questions.
Awareness of Former Muslims
As it is known, the search for answers to the above-mentioned questions on the axis of existence goes back to the 8th century in the Islamic world. In time, Christian and Jewish thinkers also benefited from the path opened by the efforts of the thinkers of the Islamic world.
A fundamental question was how the texts of the holy book, the Qur’an, and the hadiths, which had not yet recovered in the inter-tribal political turmoil, should be understood in different cultures in the new conquering geographies. Because it would not be easy to manage this geography where Hermetic Egypt-Harran, Gnostic (lore) Sassanid-Iran, Ancient Jewish, Hellenistic and Syriac-Chaldean cultures were intertwined.
The discussion that the verses of the Qur’an and hadith discourse can only be understood within the framework of Arab tribal culture, language, grammar, and syntax carries us from these days to those days.
When looked at, the grandchildren of Muawiya and Yazid were not as cruel as they were. As the Umayyads and Abbasids spread, they implemented the policy of Roman peace (Pax Romana). While settling in new geographies, they respected the established culture and values, based on generating consent. In the meantime, they have always regarded the beliefs and cultures of the Shia opponents as an administrative threat. In this respect, they often sought remedies against Sassanid gnosticism or manicheism. Their governments could not accept them as partners.
In this sense, it was quite reasonable for the caliph Me’mun to prefer the Mutezile sect. It is not known whether it was after Me’mun met Aristotle in his dream, but the rulers always encouraged those who tried to build an information system and a methodology of thought around the ideas and models of Aristotle, the model of Greek reason and logic manifested in an evidential (determinal-cause-effect) way.
The Effort to Islamize Ancient Knowledge
Aside from the interests and incentives of those in power, there was an urgent need for an epistemology to model the existence-based relationship between Reason, Revelation and even Knowledge in the light of the Qur’an and hadiths. Emphasizing mind and matter, Aristotle‘s works were the most suitable for translations and commentaries on Beytül-hikme.
Aristotle‘s classifications of physics and metaphysics and his understanding of logic seemed indispensable for Muslim philosophers and their successors who tried to build a theory of knowledge and method for the relationship between Reason and Revelation.
Aristotle‘s assumption of the eternity of matter challenged Muslim and later Christian and Jewish philosophers. From time to time, this is the eternity of the soul or unity in existence (a different understanding of pantheism), the claim that the creation of the World is not the basis of faith [8] , the theory of eternal creation [9], or accepting the universe as something that takes its existence from God rather than assuming it as essence [10].– although it was tried to overcome it with existence from existence, it was not very convincing for the people of the Book (monotheistic religions). In fact, al-Ghazali accused the philosophers not of the method they applied and their view of pure determinism, but of the unfoundedness of their conception of the Realm of Being, which was the basis of their views. These were issues such as the eternity of the world, that Allah will not deal with individuals, and that the resurrection will be with the soul, not the body. In addition, Ghazali examines nature through observation. He considered philosophers superior to theologians in terms of classification and logic of sciences. In this direction, over time, theology in madrasas intertwined with philosophy.
Farabi, El Kindi and Ibn Rushd (Averos) were very successful in the commentary of Aristotle. So much so that Thomas Aquinas, who approached the knowledge dilemma in Catholic Christian theology through Aristotle. He was greatly influenced by Avicenna and Ibn Rushd despite his opposition. Although he was excommunicated for a while, he was later declared a saint. A similar influence and process was seen in the Jewish philosopher Meymunides‘ construction of Jewish knowledge theology in Andalusia. In addition to Aristotle‘s rational knowledge theories, ancient Harran hermeticism also had profound effects on the gnostic and metaphysical approaches of these Islamic philosophers.
Especially since the beginning of the 20th century, Muslim philosophers have made efforts to Islamize the secular knowledge of the modern era. They focused on the necessity of constructing a new information system by understanding and codifying the determinism of the West. Raci Faruki[11], who especially took on the issue of Islamization of knowledge, should be mentioned here. We can mention BİSAV (Science and Art Foundation), which dealt with this issue institutionally in Turkey, which was later closed, and ISAR, whose activities continue.
Greek Isn’t Just Greek
Beyond these discussions, we must admit that the perception of the world and existence of the ancient Greek philosophers has never evolved on its own. It was highly influenced by the ancient Egypt, Harran[12] and Sassanid-Indian culture, especially via Alexandria, through wars or maritime trade. At the beginning of these is the belief-assumption of the eternity of the world or matter[13]. The influence of the hermetic Egyptian tradition is also evident in prominent Greek thinkers, such as Plato, Thales, and Pythagoras, who partially advocated gnostic-gnostic views.
There are basic reflections of mythology and epics in the formation of Greek thought. First of all, there was chaos in the universe in Greek mythology, Gaia, the God born from Chaos, gives birth to other Gods. This approach, in a way, forms the basis of a rational conception of the world based on eternal matter, cause and effect relationships.
Transition from Mythology to Physics
With the Miletus school, the transition from Greek mythology to Greek thought began. We can also call this the transition from Cosmogony (the meaning of universe creation) to Cosmology (the study of the working universe) or from linking natural events to mystical forces to cause-effect relationships – causality – to the laws of physics. We can say that Greek mythology is still in the Western world of culture, art and belief even today.
He attributes natural events, mythological or pagan belief to a hierarchical order, spirituality, entirely to mystical powers. Miletus school, on the other hand, put this hierarchical order aside and adopts an egalitarian cause and effect relations attributed to causation. The political components that made up the Miletus school were autonomous city-states governed by democracy. The Spartans were absent in this component.
However, we must also accept that the foundations of today’s Western modernity, profane (non-religious) and technical world were laid with the ancient Hellenic rationalism led by Aristotle. Muslim philosophers who gave importance to rational reality such as Andalusia-focused Ibn Rushd, Razi and Farabi also contributed to this.
Roger Bacon (d.1292), who is considered one of the first pioneers of experimental science, was greatly influenced by the English Franciscan philosopher Andalusian thought and guided by the principles he gained from Andalusia [15]. As we stated from the University of Paris, he was spreading the Andalusian point of view to Europe with Thomas Aquinas. He was doing this with his robe and headdress, which would later be used in universities. Roger Bacon [16] advocated trying to understand nature and adapting to it.
Look What These Heretics Do In The Dark Middle Ages
Western historians called the Middle Ages the Dark Ages in the 19th century, but in contradiction, the monasteries and monks of the medieval Papacy were like the basins of an intellectual ancient library. This resource formed the basis of the Renaissance movement when it received the support of families who organized the finance and banking system, such as the Medici families of the west. As of today, unfortunately, we cannot often talk about the ancient library resources of madrasahs or the believers who financed them.
However, another Bacon who would come after him, Francis Bacon (d.1626), would not have been so merciful in his view of nature. The British philosopher F. Bacon, who had important effects on the formation of the Enlightenment paradigm, was dreaming of a society that would constitute the last line of human domination over nature. In fact, the English philosopher and mathematician Newton‘s (d.1727) understanding of physics modeled with pure mathematics without any reason was reinforcing the Enlightenment, or in other words the profane (non-religious) age. Metaphysics would no longer be talked about as a subject matter, but as a question of knowledge after this time.
Islamic Philosophers Were Not Against the Spiritual Realm
Contrary to popular belief, Islamic philosophers, based on Aristotle‘s material-centered and physics-based world design, also made models in the sense of metaphysical wisdom such as the universal mind, inspiration, and spirit. In fact, Ibn Sina was accused of going to extremes in this area.
Under the influence of Avicenna, Fahreddin Razi and his follower Siraceddin al-Urmevi (d.1283) developed knowledge models that balance without denying the understanding of Transplantation, Reason and Irfani (mystical) knowledge. The thesis of Ibn Bace, who followed the path of Farabi, is interesting that the bliss achieved through the mysticism of Ghazali is actually pleasure, and that real happiness can be reached with the mind. Later, Ibn Khaldun also followed the path and methods of Farabi and Ibn Bace.
One of the well-known fundamental questions is whether we have a tradition of thought. The Hellenistic tradition of thought was formed and continued as a school. Thales (ca.6th century) Miletus school, Plato’s Symposium (Feast) or Aristotle‘s High School. In our case, it is like Toledo in Andalusia or Beytül-hikme in Baghdad. We cannot say that this tradition ended with the looting of Andalusia by the Catholics and Baghdad by the Mongols.
The existence of philosophy in the Ottoman thought tradition and madrasas within the framework of an Islamic search for existence and classification continued until the 16th century. Here we can remind names such as Davut Kayserili, Kadı Siracettin, Kınalızade Ali, Taşköprülüzade Ahmet.
I wish Fatih could be understood
Mehmet the Conqueror had created independent discussion platforms on the philosophy-theology-mysticism relationship called tehafüt[17]. We can see that Fatih was highly influenced by Ibn Rushd.
Katip Çelebi (d.1657), one of the Ottoman scholars of the 17th century, points out some negative attitudes towards Philosophy in the Ottoman Empire. According to Kâtip Çelebi, real scholars who reconciled religion and philosophy gained fame in the period from the foundation of the Ottoman Empire to the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent (1520-1566). However, on the other hand, Fatih[18] had built eight madrasahs called Medâris-i Semâniye , and had the teaching of Haşiye-i Tecrid and Şerh-i Mevâkıf recorded in his charter. However, in later periods, these courses were abolished in madrasahs[19]. While evaluating madrasas, we should not lose sight of their dependence on the political and social structures of their time.
Katip Celebi has extremely worked and tried
Katip Çelebi stated that there was a negative point of view towards mental sciences in the early periods of Islam, but that it should not be concluded that they are against religion based on this idea, and that in later periods, the importance of each science was realized and the tradition of philosophy and the religious sciences were combined with a methodological integrity and originality. He states that great scholars have been brought together. Gazzali, Fahreddin Razi, Îcî, Şîrâzî, Kudbuddîn Râzî, Taftezânî, Cürcânî and Devvânî are some of these great scholars. This understanding, which preserves the parallelism between religious sciences and philosophical sciences in the Ottoman education system, was decisive until the period of Kanuni, but later, by some religious scholars, mental sciences were excluded from the education system by saying “these lessons are philosophical sciences”. These efforts were largely successful and indifference to these sciences arose among the Ottoman ulama (Katip Çelebi, 1993: 9; Kutluer, 2000: 81). However, in his work, Katip Çelebî emphasizes that providing a methodological integrity based on “burhan” between religious and philosophical sciences is of vital importance in overcoming the bottleneck in the field of thought, science and education in the country (Kutluer, 2000: 81-82). Therefore, according to Katip Çelebî, the reason for the intellectual crisis experienced at that time was the departure from the requirements of the harmony that should be between mental and transmitted sciences (Kutluer, 2005b: 217).
Please Let’s Not Forget Jabiri in Our Age
Muhammad Abid al-Jabrii (d. 2010), an important recent Islamic thinker, says that if the Islamic world had not abandoned the tradition of Ibn Rushd and continued, it would not have experienced the current crisis. According to Jabiri, the West created the paradigm with Ibn Rushd and rebuilt the principles of the theory of knowledge, while the Islamic world prefers the viewpoint of Avicenna and Ghazali and determines that it is experiencing the current crisis. However, Jabiri never advocated the construction of an unconventional theory of knowledge – epistemology. He just advocated breaking this method, the “predecessor Arab mind”. Moreover, he argues that the cultural heritage of humanity, which has been ignored by the classical fiqh and kalam tradition, should be embraced without hesitation. The emphasis of Ibn Rushd on understanding or believing the relationship between the Unseen (invisible) and Shahada (“apparent”) realms from their own and independent perspectives is important. Because Ibn Rushd criticized Ibn Sina and his followers very harshly for explaining the world of the Unseen by using philosophy as a method. Ibn Rushd advocated keeping philosophy independent of religion. In this sense, Ibn Rushd stated that the Aristotelian philosophy of Being fell short of explaining creation and God in the absence of the concepts of time and motion.
Ghazali similarly argued that the methods of philosophers were incapable and baseless in explaining religious truths. The most important common point of al-Ghazali and Ibn Rushd was the unequivocal consensus on applying to Revelation where all the possibilities of the mind were used and its power was exhausted.
Considering Jabiri’s point of view, the superiority of the Andalusian philosophical tradition was that philosophy was founded on the discipline of mathematics and medicine, which was studied for a certain period of time. In the East, philosophy was based on the tradition of kalam. We should not neglect to mention the Ikhwan Safa school of thought/platform [20] , which started its activities in secret in Basra during this period (Xth century) . The Ikhwan movement categorized the spiritual realm as well as the material realm and modeled the relationship between them from the outward to the inward. They were accused of Shiism and Ismailism because of their similarities with the Shiite Ismaili sect, which also greatly influenced Sufism. Avicenna and Ghazali were greatly influenced by this movement.
Instead of Results
Since the 16th century, the Islamic world has not been able to produce Averroes, Farabis and Ghazali who will rebuild Islamic thought. Perhaps the political, social and economic grounds, or more importantly, the mentality, in which people like them could come to life, could never be formed.
Although the efforts of spiritual leaders and intellectuals such as Shah Veliyullah Dehlevi, Said Nursi, Elmalı Hamdi Yazır and Ferit Kam were noted in history, these and similar ones could not produce an original thesis beyond being a sincere effort.
The general consensus is that the development and competence in Islamic thought ended with the fall of Andalusia. R. Garaudy attributes this to the injustices, ill-treatment of others, and intimidation of Islamic intellectuals by the ruling caliphs under the influence of conservative Maliki fuqaha. Thus, the social structure remained unprotected, and the Almoravid and Catholic occupations were successful.
One of the dilemmas of the Islamic world is that Aristotelian logic and philosophical understanding have not been overcome. There are no ambiguities [21] , transitions or gray areas in the Aristotelian realm of ambiguity. Everything is either white or black. In a way, Aristotelian logic is philosophical Daltonism-color blindness. [22]
Ibn Khaldun said that geography is destiny, perhaps he said it incompletely. The organizational form of political administration stands before us as another issue that determines the destiny. While the Islamic world ruled with Kalam, Fiqh and Sufism for centuries, it could not develop a moral philosophy along with them, and it always neglected the conscience.
Aristotle‘s controversial definition of Metaphysics disappeared, as we have noted, since physics was defined by mathematical modelling. There was now a mechanical understanding of the universe and the flow of life. Along with Einstein, Heisenberg, and the philosopher Bergson, the mechanical and mathematical model of the universe was transitioning to the ever-changing Quantum universe model, in which subatomic particles were replaced. Inevitably, this new definition was taking its place again, as Bergson put it, “Metaphysics”.
Even in Darülfünun, the first university model established in the early 1900s in the Ottoman Empire, unfortunately, the Ptolemy (2nd Century) theorem, which defended the thesis that the Earth remained fixed, was taught, not the Galileo theorem (16th century) that the Earth rotates around its axis. It is rumored that even today, in some of our madrasas, the law of slavery is taught in volumes. Unfortunately, we cannot say that there are many scholars who can interpret and codify the tradition, especially in our country and in the Islamic world in general.
Today’s understanding of Kalam and Fiqh is that history is frozen. It is about the lack of continuity regarding the past and the future. In this sense, provincial Salafism has relatively spread into the understanding of Sufism and sects. However, this was not the case in philosophy and mysticism during the Islamic renaissance period in Andalusia and Baghdad.
Islamism in the world failed to experience democracy. While some ulema described democracy as blasphemy and preferred to keep silent and use it in practice, an intellectual and conceptual connection with democracy was never dreamed of. Islamism has practically become a second-hand instrument of the new paradigm of modernity, in which brutal power struggles are unprincipled, in which physics and nature are reduced to a mathematical model. The decline and reform processes led by the Ottoman Empire for the last 200 years were never considered as an intellectual, conscientious and moral problem. Apart from the viewpoint of some scholars regarding the struggle for fiqh, Islam has always been viewed as a concrete power struggle in the world and in the relevant countries. Religions, communities and sects that became Islamist aspire to domination. They broke with tradition without realizing it.
It is one of the fundamental mistakes that the progress or regression in the Islamic world is indexed entirely according to the dominance of military and political power. The focus of the idea of reform in thought has locked us in our own dilemma. The fact that the reform efforts in our universe of thought are based on refusal, denial or persuading the other has created a separate dilemma.
Prof. Ahmet Kuru states, in his book that Muslim merchants supported Muslim scholars and philosophers until the 11th century, but after the state became centralized, the merchants lost their autonomy, so that the ulema remained completely dependent on the state, which was the reason for the decline in intellectual and commercial life [23]. In this sense, it becomes very difficult to say that the wealthy and ulama of the Islamic world are true bourgeois and intellectuals.
As a summary of the article, it may be appropriate to list the following determinations for those who feel addressed;
- Islamic information architecture (epistemology) studies, which were striving until the 15th century, should be continued and improved.
- Accordingly, the Islamic thought methodology and the construction of a new paradigm for all humanity should be established.
- By enriching Kalam, Fiqh and Sufism with this infrastructure, a moral philosophy and a definition of Conscience should be developed for all humanity and creatures.
- All religious education institutions should be updated so that they are open to all kinds of philosophical movements from the ancient period to the post-modern period and have the ability to comment.
- Policies that would give the impression of recruiting followers to relevant political movements or communities from these institutions that would be open to universal competition standards should be avoided. These structures should be left autonomous and no world-class expenditure should be avoided.
It will take much longer to reproduce the issues in question, to elaborate them in academic language or to translate them into a book. This article has been written to tinker with consciences and minds, even if only with the titles and related summaries.
Photo: Masjid Pogung Dalangan
[1] Fiqh was once the name of all sciences. With the description of Imam Azam, it was knowing what was for and against a person.
[2] Larry Siedentop – inventing “Individual” The Origins of Western Liberalism
[3] Paganism is a form of belief that has its origins in the ancient nature religions of the world and is the general name of these religions. People who belong to these religions are called pagans. (wikipedia)
[4] AL- Deity, Lunar Godness
[5] Spiritual savings-transfer
[6] http://faraszade.com/turk-tasavvufunun-bugunku-meselesi/
[7] Necmeddin-i Dâye, who, like Ibnu’l-Arabi, said that the outward of the world is property and the inward a kingdom, defined the kingdom as “the thing that makes things come into being” and by citing the verse that means “The kingdom of everything is in His hand” (Yasin 36/83). He stated that the truth of things is the attribute of trusteeship of Allah Almighty and that everything is permanent with it.
[8] According to one view, it is not possible to find a clear text in the Qur’an and Sunnah that the universe was created out of nothing/afterward. This result was obtained by interpreting some verses and hadiths. The Qur’an clearly states that the creator of the world is Allah, which both philosophers and theologians accept.
[9] IR Ibn Rushd, like philosophers argue that there are realms with God at the same time. Universe IR initial perpetrator (Allah) is actual. So seeing that I first offender (God) is eternal in this case his action should be sworn in.
[10] Ahmet Yaşar Ocak, “Life of Thought (14th-17th Centuries)”, p.189. Sheikh Bedreddin Varidat represents mysticism that has become philosophical with his work. In his work, he approaches the subjects with mystical interpretations on the basic issues of Islamic philosophy and kalam, such as Allah, prophecy, the hereafter, heaven, hell, spirit, angel, and the nature of the universe, with rational philosopher attitudes. According to him, God and the universe are identical. The universe consists of God’s manifestation in the material world; is eternal and eternal. What is called the soul is nothing but the ability of the human body to live. The concepts of Heaven and Hell should not be understood as things that are in the material world, as it is thought, and Angel is a name given to various natural forces. Ocak, “Life of Thought (14th-17th Centuries)”, p. 190.
[11] He was born on January 21, 1921 in Jaffa, Palestine. He completed his primary and secondary education at Saint Joseph College. He earned a master’s degree in philosophy from Indiana universities in 1949 and Harvard in 1951. He completed his doctoral thesis on “Metaphysics and Epistemology of Value” at Indiana University in 1952. Later, he studied at Azhar University for three years in the field of shari’a sciences. T of eşebbüs in other important international results in diameter International Institute of Islamic Thought in 1981, was the provider. Fârûkī played a leading role in determining the research programs of this institute, which became a major center of Islamic studies in North America, especially towards the “Islamization of knowledge”.
[12] Harran has come to the forefront with the works of many scholars in philosophical schools in the region, which had a deep-rooted cultural structure such as Pagan, Sin, Star-Planet Cult, Sabianism, Gnosticism and Daysanism before the Islamic faith.
[13] In their book The Hiram Key, Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas describe that Ancient Egypt had a very important place in the origins of Freemasonry. According to the authors, the most important idea inherited from Ancient Egypt to modern masons is the idea of a “universe that exists by itself and evolves by chance”. The authors explain these great mistakes of the Egyptians as follows: “The ancient Egyptians believed that matter had always existed; for them it was illogical to think that a Creator could make something out of absolutely nothing.”
In their view, matter had a power within itself, this world was formed by the birth of order out of chaos… This chaotic state was called “Nun” and just like the Sumerians’ definition… it was a dark, sunless, watery depth, this depth itself triggered the beginning of order. had ordered. This hidden power within the substance of chaos was not conscious of its own existence; it was a possibility, a potential combined with the randomness of disorder.
[14] The seventh grandson of Adam, known as King Toth in Egypt, Hermes in Ancient Greece, and the Prophet Idris in Islam, has left significant influences on these cultures and religions for thousands of years.
[15] Islam in Andalusia, Timaş publications R. Garaudy
[16] According to Rager Bacon’s understanding, there are obstacles to truth. He argued that these obstacles were causes of ignorance. He expressed this in his Opus Majus . These obstacles can be listed as follows:
- devotion to authority
- scholastic tradition
- Lack of education
- Attitudes of people to hide their ignorance.
Bacon also argues that loyalty to authority and overconfidence are the greatest dangers to scientific knowledge.
[17] The tradition of Ottoman thought is a combination of philosophy, theology and mysticism. The fact that Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror had Molla Câmî dictated a treatise evaluating the views of philosophers, theologians and mystics, whom he described as “groups seeking the truth”, shows the existence of these three sciences in Ottoman thought (Öngören, 2007: 542).
[18] As a remarkable point, Fatih Sultan Mehmet carried 4 books that he always used and always used with him in his cönk (handbag) that he always carried with him for a lifetime. These books are in the Nur-u Osmaniyye Library in their original form.
- İbn-i Sina – el- İşarat = Founder and top text of the Evil Eye method.
- Gazzali – Tehafüt-ü Felasife = Strong Ash’ari criticism text to the evil eye method.
- Sühreverdi – Wisdom-i Israk = Wisdom-i Israk, in which the tradition of Israkiyye, which proposes to combine observation and theoretical tradition, is explained.
- Konevi – Miftah’ul Gayb = Miftah’ul Gayb, the peak text of the akbari tradition, which reinterprets the theoretical tradition by taking the tradition of observation as its center.
Mevlana represents the heart of Konya, Urmevi represents the mind and Konevi represents the conscience.
[19] After the establishment of the Süleymaniye madrasahs, from 1557 to 1908, until the IInd Constitutional Monarchy period, the madrasahs went through periods of stagnation, decline and collapse. However, in Medresetü’l-Vaizîn, a specialized madrasa established after the Tanzimat Reform Era and established to train preachers, in addition to courses such as tafsir, hadith, fiqh, theology, usûl-i fiqh, philosophy, logic, psychology Ethics, metaphysics, history of philosophy, Islamic philosophy courses were also included, these courses were given by Mehmet Ali Aynî.[20] This group used all kinds of religious, philosophical, and scientific knowledge it could reach, with an unbiased approach. For them, the Torah and the Bible are as important as the Qur’an in being the basis of their thoughts. In religious knowledge, Mr. Prophet or Hz. Just as the word of Ali is important, the words of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle in philosophy, of Pythagoras and Euclid in mathematics and geometry, and of Ptolemy in geography are of great importance. – Islamic Encyclopedia Ikhwan-i Safa
[21] Orientalist Thomas Bauer ‘s thesis is that Western modernity’s “obsession” with certainty is increasingly destroying the culture of ambivalence; In this process, Islam solidified by being “theologized”. Bauer argues that, ultimately, whether Salafist, fundamentalist or reformist, Islamism and Western modernism’s understandings of Islam become similar.
[22] See A.M. Al-Meraire Aristotle‘s Prisoners, Epistemic Institute Press, Los Angeles, 1984
[23] Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment: A Global and Historical Comparison (Cambridge University Press, 2019) greek
