Bir Muhacirin Günlüğü

Gökhan Bacık’ın yazısı okunası bir yazı. Pek çok önemli noktaya değiniyor ama pek çok açıdan da problemli;

• Öncelikle en son pragrafına katılmamak mümkün değil. Cemaati sürece kadar taşıyan yapı reforme edilmezse pek çok insanın Cemaatle ve dahi Hizmet’le olan bağının kopması kaçınılmaz olacaktır. Burada pek çok insan gibi ben de Cemaat ve Hizmet kavramlarının iki ayrı şey olduğunu düşünüyorum. Benim hiçbir yapıyla ilgim yok, bundan sonra münferit takılacağım gibi bildiri yayınlayan Bülent Keneş, Ahmet Bozkuş gibi pek çok arkadaş Cemaatle yani yukarıdan aşağıya hiyerarşik Cemaat yapısıyla bağlarını koparsalar da, Hizmet ideallerini halen koruyorlar. İçinde yetiştikleri dost/arkadaş çevresinden, kardeşlik ortamından kopmak gibi bir niyetleri yok.

• Cemaat içinde yetişen çoğu gazetecinin stotukodan yana olduğunu iddiasi bence gerçeği yansıtmıyor. Çoğu nitelikli insan gibi gazeteciler de, yerine alternatif bir sistem gelene kadar stotukonun devam etmesinin daha hayırlı olacağını düşünüyorlar sadece. Hizmet’le gerçekten gönül bağı olan hiç kimse Hizmet Hareketinin dağılıp gitmesini arzulamıyor. Soğuk Savas döneminde olusturulmuş örgütlenme sistemi yavaş yavaş değişse de Gökhan Bacık gibi meseleye uzaktan bakan arkadaşları tatmin edecek kadar hızlı değil. Bu arkadaşlar akşam yattım, sabah kalktım değiştim türü bir reform bekliyorlar. Sosyal hareketlerde, hele hele dünyaya mal olmus bir hareketin kısa zamanda yeniden yapılanmaya çalışması, hareketin dağılıp gitmesiyle neticelenebilir. DW Muhammed Nation of Islam’ı bu şekilde Sunni çizgiye çekmeye calıştı, ama neticesinde küçük bir gurupla ayrılıp gitmek zorunda kaldı. Bir sohbet sırasında kızı Leyla Hanım da keşke yapmayı planladığı reformları daha uzun bir zamana yaysaydı diye hayıflanmıştı. Küçük bir kayığın yönünü bir kürek hareketiyle değiştirebilirsiniz ama koca bir gemiden o şekilde bir manevra beklenmez.

• Sosyolojik açıdan herhangi bir olgu yada şahıs değerlendirilirken artı ve eksi yönleri ile birlikte değerlendirilir. Pozitif yönleri bir tarafa, olumsuz yönleri diğer tarafa yazılır ve meseleye bütüncül bakılır. Bir insanın, yada gurubun sadece olumsuz yönlerine odaklanırsanız melek gibi bir insanı şeytan gibi de resmedebilirsiniz. Hocaefendi hakkında kalem oynatan arkadaşlar, onun 80 yıllık ömrünü, davasını, ilmi birikimini, başarılarını nazara alarak bunu yapmak zorundalar. Hocaefendi’den bahsederken sıradan bir siyasi parti lideri gibi yada küçük bir derneğin başkanı gibi değerlendirmek bence haksızlık ve dahi saygısızlıktır. Neticede Gülen ilmiyle, takvasıyla, dava şuuruyla, aksiyon becerisiyle bütün ömrünü davasına vakfetmiş, hayatı ile davasını özdeştirmiş bir Hak Dostu; en az yirmi yabancı dile çevrilmiş yetmiş kusur eserin müellefi bir mütefekkir; Türkiye’de ve dünyanın dört bir yanında 2000’e yakın okul, yurt, universite, kültür merkezi açarak dünya çapında bir eğitim/öğretim/aydınlanma seferberliği başlatıp, milyonlarca gencin iyi eğitim almasına vesile olmus bir hareketin lideri, çok iyi bir şair, Türkiye’de ve dünyanın değişik yerlerinde farklı dinlerden/kültülerden insanın kaynaşmasını sağlamış engin gönüllü bir hoşgörü ve dialog kahramanıdır. Bütün bu özelliklerini göz ardı ederek, hesap versin, istifa etsin, vizyonu devleti ele geçirmekti gibi ifadeler en nazikçe ifadesiyle vefasızlık ve de saygısızlıktır.

• Geçmişteki hadiseleri değerlendirirken ayak ayak üstüne atarak buyurgan bir tavırla, şunu şöyle yapsaydınız, bunu da böyle yapsaydınız diye ahkam kesmenin kimseye faydası olmaz. Çok biliyorsan buyur sen de dene boyunun ölçüsünü al derler insana. Milyonlarca insanı, ömurlerini vakfedecek bir davaya inandırıp, mobilize ederek, dünyanın dört bir yanında örgütlemek ve bunu yaparken, maksimum verim, sıfır hata, sıfır su-i istimal beklemek dogru değildir. Hocaefendi’nin basardığınğ bugün bütün imkanlarını kullanarak Türk Develtinin başarması mümkün değildir.

• “Gülen’in önceliği hiçbir zaman cemaatin sivil boyutu olmamıştır” varsayımı yeminli Cemaat düşmanları tarafından her zaman dillendirilse de, Cemaatin içinden çıkmış ve objektif olmaya çalıştığını iddia eden bir akademisyenden duymak gerçekten talihsiz olmuştur. Bu iddianin hiçbir temeli yoktur. Hizmet Hareketinin amacı hiçbir zaman devleti ele geçirmek olmamıştır. Yetmiş kusur eserinde ve binlerce saatlik vaazında Gülen’in, bu varsayımı doğrulayacak bir ifedesi yoktur. Hizmet’e gönül vermiş insanların amacı ne Türkiye’de, ne de gidilen ülkelerde hiçbir zaman ele geçirmek, bütünüyle kontrol altına almak değil, temsil yoluyla ıslah etmek olmuştur. Bugün durmadan telin edilen mahrem örgütlenmenin amacı ordunun, yargının, brokrasinin ele geçirilmesi değil, tam tersine Cumhuriyet kurulalı beri devleti tekelinde tutan faşist/jokaben kiliğe karşı mütedeyyin Anadolu halkının haklarının korunması olmuştur. En temel hakları elinden alınmış, hiçbir şekilde kimliğini muhafaza ederek devlette var olmasına fırsat verilmemiş dindar halkın en masum şekilde kendini savunmasıdır o mahrem yapı. Kendini devrim muhafızları olarak konumlandırmış, ülkeyi saysız kez kana bulamış, onbinlerce faili meçhulu olan, ordudan çalınan cephanelerle paralel gayri nizami ordu kuran bir “mahrem yapıya” karşı savunma mekanizması olarak kurulmuştur o mahrem yapı. Bu mesele başka bir yazıya konu olacak kadar uzun. Cumhuriyetin kuruluşunu, Türk derin devletini ve devleti kuran jakoben ideolojiyi göz ardı ederek sadece Hizmet’in mahrem yapısını dile dolamak hiç de hakkaniyetli değildir. Dünya çapında 2000 okul, üniversıte, hastane, kültür merkezi, onca basın organı, basım evi, dialog hizmetleri, yardımlaşma dernekleri, kültür şölenleri, ortaya konulan binlerce ilmi eser, aldıkları terbiye ve eğitimle hayatları olumlu manada 180 derece değişmiş her dilden, her dinden, her ırktan milyonlarca öğrenci Gülen icin ikincil öneme haizdir gibi bir ifadenin hiçbir kıymeti yoktur.

• Bacık’in tedbir konusunda söylediklerine katılmamak elde değil. Malesef şuuraltımıza yerlesmiş bu olgu, soğuk savaş döneminden bakiye kalmış kötü bir alışkanlık gibi bir türlü peşimizi bırakmıyor. Hizmet sayesinde köyünden kasabasından çıkmış, dünyanın en iyi üniversitelerinde eğitim almış ve bugün de halen Hizmet’de koşturmaya devam eden binlerce akademisyen arkadaşımız kendilerini ve ABD’de açmış oldukları kurumları Hizmet’le ilişkilendirmek istemiyorlar.

• Kişilerden hesab vermelerini beklemek, yeniçeriler gibi adeta kelle istemek manasızdır. Hepimiz zamanın ve şartların çoçuğuyuz. Kırk yaşında bildiklerimizi, yirmi yaşında biliyor olsaydık, kırk yaşındaki olgunluğumuza yimi yaşında erişmiş olasydık hayatımız çok daha farklı olurdu, öyle değil mi? Bu süreçte öğrendiklerimizi 2013’de biliyor olsaydık hiç birimiz o gün davrandığımız gibi davranmazdık. İngilizce’de ölmüş atı kırbaclamanın faydası yoktur diye bir tabir var, dönüp dönüp geçmis hataların hesabını sormak anlamsız. Bu süreç hepimizi özellikle de Türkiye’dekileri değirmen gibi öğüttü, çiğnedi, yoğurdu ve olgunlaştırdı. Önemli olan bütün bu olanlardan ders alarak, Hizmet Hareketinin dünyadaki örgütlenmesini yeniden yapılandırmak. Bence yapılması gereken şey; yerelleşmek, kurumsallaşmak ve şeffaflaşmak. Birbirinden bağımsız yerel kurumlar, ülkeler bazında ve global çapta çatı kuruluşlarla birbirine bağlanıp, koordinasyonları sağlanabilir. Bülent Keneş’in bu konuda yayınladığı rapora müracat edilebiliir.

• Gökhan Bacık, Ahmet Kuru gibi arkadaşların Cemaat müntesipleri tarafından aşırı tepki görmesinin asıl sebebi bence ortaya koydukları eleştirilerden ziyade, devam edegelen sosyal soykırıma karşı duyarsız kalmaları ve ortaya çıkan tablonun bütün sorumluluğunu Gülen’e ve Cemaat’e yıkmaya çalışmaları. Cemaat’i konu edindikleri yazılarında sanki Cemaat dört dörtlük Demokratik bir ülkede neşet etmiş gibi, Kemalist faşizmi, Türk Derin Devletini/Ergenekon’u, Siyasal İslamcı’ların ahlaksızlığını göz ardı ederek yaklaşıyorlar mevzulara. Bazı arkadaşları Gülen’i kusursuz görüyorlar diye eleştirirken, aslında kendileri de Gülen’den kendi kafalarında 2020’in Batı standartlarına göre oluşturdukları ideal bir CEO performansı bekliyorlar. Gülen bütün hatalarına, kusurlarına rağmen Türk ve dünya tarihine adını yazdırmış olan bir kameti bala, büyük bir mütefekkir, müthiş bir ilmi deha, yetenekli bir şair, Martin Luther King çapında bir sivil toplum hareket lideri, Mevlana çapında bir hoşgörü kahramanı, global ölçekte bir eğitim/öğretim/aydınlanma seferberliğinin öncüsü ve malesef aynı zamanda tarihte eşine az rastlanır şekilde iftiraların, karalamaların, hakaretlerin, küfürlerin hedefi olmuş bir mazlumdur. Liderlik ettiği galobal ölçekli Harekette tek bir aile ferdinin bile iltimas görmesine müsade etmemişken, Türkiye’deki bütün aile fertleri tutuklu bir insandır. Bütün ömrünü hiç bozmadan, Cemaatin genişleyen imkanlarından hiç etkilenmeden, aynı günlük planını muhafaza ederek, okulların beşinci katında ve Bacık/Kuru gibi arkadşaların muhtemelen çok kere misafir olduğu mütevazi bir Dergahtaö talebelerinin arasında geçirmiş bir Hak Dostudur Gülen Hocaefendi. Cemaat’in sivil kanadı onun için ikincil plandaydı, amacı devleti ele geçirmekti gibi varsayımlar, Elijah Muhammed gibi bir kalt lideriyle kıyaslamalar gerçekten sizce de çok büyük ayıp olmuyor mu?

The Quran is the Holy Book of 1.5 billion Muslims on the earth. All Muslims believe that it is the verbatim word of God revealed to Muhammed (571-632), the last Messenger sent to humanity. In this book, we will make an effort to analyze different aspects of the Quran from the perspective of twenty-first-century minds. No doubt that the last quarter of the twentieth century and the twenty-first century are quite different than the rest of human history. The result of thousands of years of technological advancement took a significant turn with the invention of computers and later with the internet in the 1990s.

As the peak of the enlightenment era, the twentieth century was the era of skepticism. The influence of Darwinism on natural sciences, Marxism on humanitarian sciences, and Freudism on the metaphysical belief system kindled an atheist movement that was not seen before in human history.[1] “Enlightened men” started not to believe anything that they don’t see with their eyes. They wanted to test everything in the labs and asked for proof before they believe in anything. Materialism, rationalism, and capitalism/communism defined the last two centuries. The concept of metaphysics has been confined into the theology departments of the universities and behind the walls of temples. Although psychology originally meant the study of the soul, today it is perceived as the study of mind and brain. The concept of soul is long forgotten in academic circles.

The effects of science and technology on the human psyche have been manifesting on the millennials differently. As life expectancy is getting longer, their attention spans are getting shorter. Virtual reality has been replacing reality. Social interactions are on social media more than in person today. Individualism of the last century is transforming to virtualism, religiosity is changing to spiritualism, and rationalism is losing against fantasy. Movie themes are turning into cults. The border between reality and fantasy is disappearing. “More Americans now say they are spiritual but not religious. According to a Pew survey, the ratio of Americans who define themselves as religious but not spiritual decreased from 59% to 48% within five years from 2012 to 2017 and the ratio of the people who describe themselves as spiritual but not religious has risen from 19% to 27%.[2] Internet addiction is just one of the psychological diseases modern lifestyle contributed to contemporary men.

Today the biggest reality of life, the death is hidden from social life. In the past, men lived intimately with death in their daily lives, but today we rarely see and experience death. It is just numbers on the news, statistics in the books, a phone call, or maybe just a condolence for us. Whenever we see actual death around us, we run to the psychologists in order to cope with it, forget it, and keep enjoying our lives. Contemporary men think less about the purpose of life. In schools, colleges, social life, political spheres, we rarely talk about the meaning of existence.

So in this context, what is the relevance of the Quran for the twenty-first-century men? Can a fourteen-hundred-year-old book still be relevant today? Christianity and Judaism have dealt with the problem of relevance through compartmentalization. In the Christian and Judaist believers’ paradigm, matters of science and matters of faith have been separated from each other. However, this pragmatic solution seems not to be working anymore. Today, more and more youth are leaving the church and joining the ranks of atheism or spiritual deism. Where does the Quran stand at the crossroads of rationalism, faith, and spiritualism? What kind of a book is the Quran? To whom does it address?

           A Brief Story of the Quran

Islamic sources narrate that the Quran was started to be revealed to Prophet Muhammed in the year of 609 in Mecca when he was forty years old. Mecca was a small city with the major shrine in the Arabian Peninsula, Kaaba. The society was quite backward and barbaric. The only religion was idol worshiping. Kaaba which believed to be built by Prophet Abraham and his son Ishmael was a center for hundreds of tribal idols and a center of pilgrimage for Arabs. In the strictly tribal society, Muhammed was coming from a noble lineage, yet he became an orphan as his father died before he was born, and his mother died when he was six years old. He grew up first with his grandfather and then with his uncle after his grandfather died. He became a successful merchant like all the other wealthy families do and got married at the age of twenty-five with Khadija who was much older than him. Muhammed didn’t follow the religion of his society but individually followed the religion of Abraham. From time to time he used to retreat from society to a nearby cave for several days.

The sources tell us that one night as he was meditating in a cave that sees Mecca, the Archangel Gabriel appeared to him and told him to recite. He said he was illiterate. Yet the Angel repeated the comment three times and then recited him the first five verses of the Quran, “Recite in the name of your Lord who created – Created man from a clinging substance. Recite, and your Lord is the Most Generous – Who taught by the pen – Taught man that which he knew not” (96:1-5). One of the remarkable aspects of the Quran is that although the Quran was the first and the most magnificent written book of the Arabic language, the Prophet was illiterate. This is confirmed by the Quran itself as well as many Prophetic traditions called Hadith collections that were compiled much later after the death of the Prophet. Two verses talk about this, “Those who follow the Messenger, the Prophet who can neither read nor write (7:157), and “Neither did you (O Muhammad) read any book before it (this Quran), nor did you write any book (whatsoever) with your right hand” (29:48).

            In the following 23 years, until shortly before Muhammed’s death, the revelation came down bits by bits. When a group of verses was revealed, he would recite it to the community and the scribes among his followers would record it on different objects available at the time such as parchments, animal skins, wooden tablets, or bones. The order of the verses or chapters were arbitrary, and Prophet would tell the scribes the verse numbers and to which chapter the verses belonged. In a narration, “once the Prophet was asked, ‘O Messenger of God, how does the revelation come to thee?’ He replied, ‘Sometimes it comes like the ringing of a bell, and that is the hardest on me, then it leaves me, and I retain what is said. And sometimes the angle approaches me in a human form and speaks to me, and I retain what he said.”[3] Shortly after his death, all the revelations were compiled as a book according to the verse and chapter order the Prophet provided at the time of revelation. “The unique format of the Quran allows each surah (chapter) to function as an autonomous unit. There are no chronologies or narratives that span multiple surahs. Each surah stands as an independent unit even if the meaning if this or that verse in a particular surah is clarified in another surah with similar verses. This fact is the basis for commenting on the Quran through the text of the Quran, a method used in some well-known commentaries.”

             Although, the location, Islam emerged was a remote location in the seventh century Arabia, in the middle of dessert; Quran makes this bold claim that it was a book sent to the entire humanity, “And We have not sent you, (O Muhammad), except as a mercy to the worlds” (21:107). From the very beginning, the message was meant to be for the entire humankind rather than the tribe of Muhammad. “In fact, the Quran addresses entire human beings as ‘Ya ayyuhan Nas’ (O Humankind) directly 306 times and indirectly more than two thousand times in its over 6,000 verses. In contrast, the Quran specifically addresses Muslim men and women, as ‘Ya ayyuhal Muslimun/Muslimat/ Muslimatun/etc’ by name only 49 times.”[5]

For believers or unbelievers, it is obvious that the Quran is not an ordinary book. It is mystical. It is beautiful. It is controversial. It is melodic but not a song. It is poetic but not a poem, nor is it prose. It is very clear and easy to understand but at the same time quite ambiguous and cryptic. It speaks about itself, unlike any other book. It is highly assertive and challenging. It brings the past to the future and future to the past. It addresses not only the believers as its audience but also to the entire humanity. It is very logical and rational but at the same time sentimental. It is a book of guidance, a book of the remembrance, a book of the stories of the previous messengers, a book of law and social justice, a book of inner peace, a book of healing and inspiration, a book of the hereafter, and a book of the visible world and unseen.[6]

 The Quran as a Book of Reasoning

The most significant feature of the Quran from the perspective of twenty-first-century intellectuals is its rationality. Probably that is the reason why many well-educated men in the West are intrigued by the Quran. It sounds somewhat ironic for a book of metaphysics that asks for faith to unseen and tells us about life after death. Because, by definition, religious books are associated with dogma and not rationality. Yet the Quran is quite an exception in this regard.

There are more than one hundred verses that demand its readers to reflect, to compare, to contrast, to observe, to question, to test etc. Many other verses ask, “do you not reflect?” (7:184). One of the characteristics of the Quran is that it narrates all sorts of parables including animals and past nations. Those parables generally end with statements like “Such are the similitudes which We propound to men, that they may reflect,” (59:21).

There are dozens of verses that confront its readers to contemplate. Several verses such as “The example of [this] worldly life is but like rain which We have sent down from the sky that the plants of the earth absorb – [those] from which men and livestock eat – until, when the earth has taken on its adornment and is beautified and its people suppose that they have capability over it, there comes to it Our command by night or by day, and We make it as a harvest as if it had not flourished yesterday. Thus, do We explain in detail the signs for a people who give thought. (10:24)” draw readers’ attention to the life cycle and different aspects of nature on the earth and asks for contemplation.

When reading the Quran, one finds himself questioning natural phenomena, arguing with himself and the author, and even testing a hypothesis. In many verses, the Quran poses open-ended questions and challenges its readers to ponder upon it and came up with their own answers. One of the most favorite questions of the twenty-first-century atheists, ‘why has God created evil’ is asked from the mouth of angels in the Quran. “When your Lord said to the angels, “Indeed, I (God) will make upon the earth a successive authority. “They said, “Will You place upon it one who causes corruption therein and sheds blood, while we declare Your praise and sanctify You?” (2:30). One expects to get a clear answer to this crucial question, yet Quran leaves it there with an even more intriguing answer, “Allah said, “Indeed, I know that which you do not know.” One automatically asks himself what is it that angels didn’t know, and Allah knew? The following verses give a hint about the purpose of life that Allah wanted to create a being superior to the angles in intellect. The anecdote ends with another interesting statement, “Did I not tell you that I know the unseen [aspects] of the heavens and the earth? And I know what you reveal and what you have concealed” (2:34). Here again one wonders what might be that the angels revealed and what they concealed about the nature of human beings. Jeffrey Lang a math professor from the University of Kansas answers this question in his book from his perspective “Even Angels Asked” as, the angels revealed the evil side of the humankind but they concealed the all the beauty came into existence in the hands and minds of the men, love, compassion, creativity, and his intellect in glorifying God.

The Quran keeps talking about signs. The word ‘ayah’ (verse) in Arabic literally means evidence, sign, or miracle. It equates verses of the Quran to signs and/or miracles from God. It pleads its readers again and again to observe the signs of God in his creation saying “He will show you His Signs and you will recognize them” (27:93). Some of the signs it brings to our attention as evidence for His existence and might are; “the creation of the heavens and earth and what He has dispersed throughout them of creatures”(42:29), “a sign for them is the dead earth” (36:33), “the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the difference of your languages and colors. Verily, in that are indeed signs for men of sound knowledge” (30:22). One of the most interesting signs the Quran gives us is “And among His Signs is this, that He created for you mates from among yourselves, that ye may dwell in tranquility with them, and He has put love and mercy between your (hearts): verily in that are Signs for those who reflect” (30:21). This verse tells us about one of the most basic aspects of humans that, human beings are meant to be social.

The Quran Promoting Itself

Another very distinctive feature of the Quran is it promotes itself as if is it is talking about another book. Throughout the Quran, there are hundreds of verses describing, referring, praising, and vouching for the Quran. Probably, among all the other books written since the beginning of human history, the Quran is unique in this regard. Dozens of the chapters start with discussing the origin or the purpose of the Quran. Chapters 2, 7, 10, 13, 31, 32, 36, 39, and 40 are just a few of those chapters. “Jelaleddin Suyuti who is considered one of the greatest scholars of the Quran, in his book Al-Itkan fi Ulumul Quran, provides a list of forty-six titles that the Quran gives itself.”[7]

The second chapter starts with the verse, “This is the Book about which there is no doubt, a guidance for those conscious of Allah.” Like a preface of a contemporary book, the following verses goes into discussing about who will benefit from it and who won’t, “Who believe in the unseen, establish prayer, and spend out of what We have provided for them, And who believe in what has been revealed to you, [O Muhammad], and what was revealed before you, and of the Hereafter, they are certain [in faith]. Those are upon [right] guidance from their Lord, and it is those who are the successful” (2:3-5). In the other chapters, it refers itself as the Book (al-Kitab), a guidance for the ones who are conscious of Allah (Huda lil-Muttaqin), the Clear Book (al-Kitab Mubin), the Wise Book (al-Kitab Hakim), the Criterion (al-Furqan), a guidance and mercy for the doers of good (Rahmat el-lil-Muhsinin), a revelation about which there is no doubt, a Book whose verses are perfected and then presented in detail from [one who is] Wise and Acquainted. The Chapter 14, Ibrahim starts with “[This is] a Book which We have revealed to you, [O Muhammad], that you might bring mankind out of darknesses into the light by permission of their Lord – to the path of the Exalted in Might, the Praiseworthy.” This argument repeats consistently throughout the Quran as if it strives to convince its readers. If we didn’t know, we could have thought that the publishing company was trying a new marketing strategy for the promotion of their best seller candidate.

Also, there are four verses in the Quran claiming that it is inimitable and challenges its opponents to create something like it. “Say: ‘If all mankind and the jinn would come together to produce the like of this Quran, they could not produce its like even though they exerted all and their strength in aiding one another” (Quran 17:88). “Reflecting upon the inimitability of the Quran has led many to conclude that the nature of the Quranic Arabic is among the greatest miracles of Islam. To those who say it is a human fabrication, the text says, “Then bring a surah like it, if you are truthful.”[8]

Where Does the Quran Stand with Science?

As mentioned above, religious texts are generally texts of metaphysics and they are at odds with the scientific laws and findings. Judaism and Christianity solved this problem with compartmentalizing the two spheres, some sort of dual approach to the issue. That is because there are several verses in the Old Testament that conflict with the scientific findings of the last two centuries. “The description of the creation in the first chapter of the Bible is a masterpiece of inaccuracy from a scientific point of view.”[9]

On the other hand, the Quran claims to be the word of God and the Islamic view of nature is quite similar to the Quran as another manifestation of God’s power.“There are three great and universal things which make known to us our Sustainer. One is the book of the universe. Another is the Seal of the Prophets (Peace and blessings be upon him), the supreme sign of the book of the universe. The other is the Qur’an of Mighty Stature.  The Quran is the pre-eternal translator of the mighty Book of the Universe; the post-eternal interpreter of the various tongues reciting the verses of creation; the commentator of the book of the Worlds of the Seen and the Unseen”[10]

Therefore, by default, the Quran claims that there cannot be any conflicts with the proven facts of science and nature. We should also remember that the Quran is not a scientific book. Trying to explain all the verses with scientific themes will be pointless.

There are many books and papers explaining the remarkable harmony of the verses of the Quran and the scientific findings of the twenty-first-century. In this chapter, I will point out just a few verses and explain the most notable aspect of the Quran in this regard. Maurice Bucaille’s The Bible, The Quran and Science is a good reference book in this regard.

The most significant verse that is in conformity with the contemporary science is “And heaven, We built it with might, and We extend it wide (51:47). This verse clearly talks about the expansion of the universe, which is a scientific fact as a result that was discovered in the twentieth century. The Big Bang theory is now the only theory that is proven today in regards to the beginning of the universe and as a result of the initial explosion, the universe is still expanding. Other verses mentioning the initial creation of the universe also confirm the fact that the universe is not eternal and it was established at a certain time frame in the past.

Another very significant conformity of the Quran with modern science is, in the first verses revealed it talks about the embryo as a ‘clinging thing’ in the form of a leech, “He created man from a clinging form” (96:2). Also, another popular example is that of embryonic development, for which (23:12-14) are usually cited as proof of the presence of recently discovered scientific data in the Quran, “And certainly did We create man from an extract of clay. Then We placed him as a sperm-drop in a firm lodging. Then We made the sperm-drop into a clinging clot, and We made the clot into a lump [of flesh], and We made [from] the lump, bones, and We covered the bones with flesh; then We developed him into another creation. So blessed is Allah, the best of creators.”

However, the most outstanding aspect of the Quran’s conformity with science is that as a book that was revealed fourteen centuries ago it doesn’t include any statements that are outdated. It is only natural and expected that a fourteen hundred-year-old book would reflect some beliefs of its time which are false. For example, although it talks about the creation extensively it doesn’t make a statement such as ‘existence is created out of for elements, fire, dirt, light, and air,’ which was the belief for many centuries in human history. Or it doesn’t mention the earth is the center of the universe as most of the historical science books believed.

Universal Values in the Quran

Albeit the Quran was revealed in a remote part of the world in the seventh century Arabia, away from the civilization centers of its time, it contains many universal values that resonate with the problems of the twenty-first century. It is maybe the first book that declares the equality of men regardless of their color, ethnicity, sex, or social status. The verse “O mankind, indeed We have created you from male and female and made you peoples and tribes that you may know one another. Indeed, the noblest of you in the sight of Allah is the most righteous of you. Indeed, Allah is Knowing and Acquainted” (49:13) clearly states this fact. Also, two other verses “Mankind was one community and Allah sent Prophets with glad tidings and warnings, and with them, He sent the Scripture in truth to judge between people in matters wherein they differed” (2:213) and “The creation of the heavens and the earth, and the difference of your languages and colors. Verily, in that are indeed signs for men of sound knowledge” (30:22) state that humanity is one before God and the differences in color, tongue, ethnicity, culture, and religion are a just result of Allah’s will and design. The Prophetic tradition which states “All mankind is from Adam and Eve, an Arab has no superiority over a non-Arab, nor a non-Arab has any superiority over an Arab; also a white has no superiority over black, nor a black has any superiority over white except by piety and good action”[11] confirms this universal approach of the Quran.

The view of the Quran on nature and the environment is exceptional by the twenty-first century standards. The philosophers of the enlightenment era envisioned the earth as brute and inert. “If matter exists in a brute and inert form, then the only reason for its existence must be that of its service to man. Robert Boyle, a leading mechanical philosopher elaborated on the view that man was created to possess and to rule over nature. If matter is in itself devoid of value, then we can treat it as an object. We can study it and subject it to the entire range of our analytical apparatus without it making any moral demands.”[12] The Quran also states that the plants, animals, and the entire universe was designed to serve humankind,[13] yet its view of nature and animals are quite different. “There is not a moving (living) creature on earth, nor a bird that flies with its two wings, but are communities like you” (6:38) clearly tells us that animals are also sensitive creatures of the Creator and essential part of the life cycle on the earth. Thus, we have no right to abuse them. Also, the verse “Eat and drink from the provision of Allah, and do not commit abuse on the earth, spreading corruption” (2:60) forbids us to abuse not only animals but also plants and natural resources as well. Many verses in the Quran portray animals as conscious beings such as; ants communicating with each other (27:18), a crow teaching the son of Adam how to bury his brother (5:30), God inspiring honeybee how to build his brilliant dwelling and how to find its way collecting nectar (16:68-69), a bird reporting to Prophet Solomon (27:20) etc. These verses and many Prophetic traditions talking about animal rights are quite relevant in the twenty-first century where animals are reduced to insensible, brute objects by the food industry.

Another aspect of the Quran that distinguishes it from other holy texts is its inclusiveness. Many verses make it clear that Allah’s guidance is universal and not only restricted to the followers of the Prophet Mohammed. “Whosoever believes in God and the Last Day and works righteousness shall have their reward with their Lord. No fear shall come upon them, nor shall they grieve” (2:62, 5:69) repeated twice in the Quran. According to the Quran, any monotheistic religion that is dictating the universal moral values can be described as “Islam.” Prophet’s saying, “Whoever says: there is no god but Allah enters Paradise” also reinforces that notion. The verse “Indeed, the believers, Jews, Sabians, and Christians, whoever truly believes in God and the Last Day and does good, there will be no fear for them, nor will they grieve”(5:69) teaches us there is no reason for us to fight over religion. The Quran also declares that the concepts of good and evil are beyond religion and even the disbelievers will be rewarded for the good they do in their lives.[14]

Today there are several wars and conflicts in the world. Men are shedding blood over who believes in what. The Quran’s approach to religious diversity is most apparent in the verses “There shall be no compulsion in the religion” (2:256) and “To you be your religion and to me my religion” (109:1-6).

This section can be the subject of another book by itself. Among many other approaches of the Quran to contemporary issues, the last one I want to mention in this section is one of the universal maxims of law. Contrary to the original sin concept in the Bible, the Quran clearly declares that no man is responsible for another man’s crime. The verse “No bearer of burdens shall bear the burden of another” (39:7) sets one of the basic articles of the Islamic legal system as well as the universal law.

When reading the Quran in the twenty-first century, one will come across some controversial issues. There is a limited number of verses about judicial rulings, women’s rights, and slavery that needs to be understood in the historical context. The first and foremost function of the Quran is calling its audience to submit to God, remind him of the purpose of his creation in the first place, and the meaning of the existence as we know it. Although the Quran is a fascinating book in many aspects, it is not a book that is meant by God to spark a short cut in humanity’s historic struggle and gradual progress. When approaching these verses, we have to consider the fact that the norms of the twenty-first century were not valid for thousands of years since the creation of the men. Yet the Quran does not deny the progress in social issues. In many cases, some of the verses abrogated some of the previous verses and the Prophet and his followers interpreted those verses according to the norms of changing time. Today’s Islamic academia needs to produce updated exegesis of those verses based upon the norms of this age within the holistic philosophy of the Quran.

[1] “Mathematical Challenges to Darwin’s Theory of Evolution,” Steven Myer, David Gelernter, David Berlinski, discussing David Gelernter’s paper Giving Up Darwin, accessed December 20, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=noj4phMT9OE&t=11s

[2] “More Americans now say they are spiritual but not religious,” PEW Research Center- FACTANK, accessed December 19, 2019. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/06/more-americans-now-say-theyre-spiritual-but-not-religious/

[3] Al-Bukhari 1.2 (no 2); Malik 15.4 (no 479).

[4] Muhammad M. al-Azami, “The Islamic View of The Quran,” quoted from: Joseph Lumbard, Caner Dagli, Maria M Dakake, Seyyid H Nasr, The Study Quran, The Quran in Translation (New York, HarperCollins Publishers, 2015), 1613.

[5] “Quran’s Message for Humanity,” Islamicty.org, accessed December 19, 2019. https://www.islamicity.org/6509/qurans-message-for-humanity/

[6] Ryan Uysaler, “How to Approach Quran?,” The First Paper.

[7] Joseph Lumbard, “What is the Quran According to Quran- Part I,” accessed December 20, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoT7l67V-qI

[8] Jospeh Lumbard, “The Quran in Translation,” quoted from: Joseph Lumbard, Caner Dagli, Maria M Dakake, Seyyid H Nasr, The Study Quran, The Quran in Translation (New York, HarperCollins Publishers, 2015), 1601.

[9] Maurice Bucaille, “The Bible The Quran and Science,” (Paris, Seghers, 1977), 22.

[10] Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, “The Words,” The Nineteenth Word. http://www.erisale.com/?locale=en&bookId=201&pageNo=396#content.en.201.243

[11] “The Farewell Sermon of The Prophet”, from Al-Jahiz in the Kitāb al-Bayān wa-al-Tabyīn.

[12] Wael B. Hallaq, “The Impossible State,” (New York, Columbia University Press, 2013), 77-78.

[13] “We have honored the children of Adam and carried them by land and sea; We have provided good sustenance for them and favored them specially above many of those We have created” (17:70).

[14] “So, whoever does an atom’s weight of good will see it, and whoever does an atom’s weight of evil will see it” (Quran 99:7-8).

In this paper I want to study the ayahs regarding iman and kufr in the Quran. In Turkey, the developments in the last couple of years have shaken the very foundations of the classic ‘Ahl al-Sunnah aqidah’ in the eyes of many Muslims. Recently, in a popular Turkish YouTube Channel broadcasting from exile (due to the fact that most of opposition channels were seized or closed by the government), the topic was; “according to Alh al-Sunnah aqidah, an unbeliever, atheist or Christian who has dedicated his/her whole life to helping others and lived a righteous life will go to the hell because he/she doesn’t have faith and on the other side a corrupt person, an oppressor, a thief, a rapist will eventually go to paradise because he/she has faith, how should we understand this with the fairness of Allah who is the Most Just?”[1]

Although this question is not new in Islamic history, many Muslims in Turkey are encountering this dilemma for the first time in their lives. Both practicing Muslims and majority of the seculars used to associate faith with virtues such as humbleness, truthfulness, decency, compassion, and most importantly justice. Yet lately, political Islamists have proven exact opposite of this belief. Once they possessed full power, they became the oppressors themselves. Albeit, the oppressed, becoming the worst kind of oppressor is a usual theme in history, a few years ago it was unimaginable that oppressed Islamists who fought several decades for democracy, justice, human rights, rule of the law and anti-corruption would become so corrupt and ruthless in such a short time.

So, what does the Quran say about faith and people of salvation and how does it describe the unbelievers who will be the dwellers of the hell? Can a person, who is committing major sins stay as a Muslim or what is the status of an atheist who is doing good deeds? This was one of the major breaking points between Kharijites, Mu’tazila and Ahl al-Sunnah (basically Ash’aris and Maturidis). The Kharijites thought anybody who commits a grave sin is doomed for eternally in the hell, on the other hand, Ahl al-Sunnah believed sins, no matter how big they are, would not make somebody an unbeliever. Sherman Jackson narrates an anecdote in his book, Islam & The Problem of Black Suffering between Hasan al-Basri and one of his followers Wasil bin Ata who is later labeled as Mu’tazila, the one who has separated himself or disassociated himself.

“The traditional story is that the famed protoorthodox master al-Hasan al-Basri (d. 100/728) was once presiding over a study circle in the mosque at Basra when a man approached and asked him the settle the controversy over the fate of miscreant believers. According to the man, some for examples, certain groups of Kharijites- held that those who committed grave sins were doomed to Hell eternally; others such as the Murji’ites, held that as long as one was a believer in one’s heart, one’s misdeeds would bring no harm in afterlife, just as the good deeds of unbelievers would bring no benefit. Before al-Hasan al-Basri could gather his thoughts, a student of his, Wasil b. Ata (d. 131/748) arose and interjected: “I do not say that those who commit grave sins are believers or unbelievers in the absolute; rather, they occupy a status between these two statutes, being neither believer or unbeliever. Wasil then got up, withdrew from al-Basri’s circle, and proceeded to another part of the mosque.”[2]

So, how does the Quran describe iman and kufr? In the Quran, faith is always associated with action. From the very beginning, in the second surah, al-Barakah, believers are addressed as “Who believe in the unseen, establish prayer, and spend out of what We have provided for them” (Quran: 2/3). The expression “who have believed and done righteous deeds” is a repeating theme in the Quran.[3] From those ayahs, we can conclude that righteous deeds are a condition for iman.

In the Surah al-Furqan, while the Quran is describing different features of believers, it also negatively describes them not committing major sins, “And those who do not invoke with Allah another deity or kill the soul which Allah has forbidden [to be killed], except by right, and do not commit unlawful sexual intercourse. And whoever should do that will meet a penalty. Multiplied for him is the punishment on the Day of Resurrection, and he will abide therein humiliated” (Quran: 25:68-69). It is noteworthy that, the ayah mentions two majors sins, killing an innocent soul and committing adultery right after associating partners to Allah, which is obvious disbelief in the order from most grave to less grave. That’s why Mu’tazila believes that if somebody commits a grave sin, while he/she claims to be a believer, he/she will be ascribed to a status between the two statuses of iman and kufr.

I think this opinion makes more sense with the following ayahs, “Except for those who repent, believe and do righteous work. For them Allah will replace their evil deeds with good. And ever is Allah Forgiving and Merciful. And he who repents and does righteousness does indeed turn to Allah with [accepted] repentance.” Here, the salvation of a major sinner is conditioned to repentance and doing righteous deeds. In the Quran, the word chosen for repentance is also remarkable. “The word conveys this concept (repentance) in Arabic is tawbah and the verbal form is ta’ba/yata’bu, the literal meaning of which is “to turn”; thus when one repents one is said to turn unto God, or ta’ba ila’Llah. But this phrase also indicates that one has returned from sin to God. Or from sinfulness to godliness, which relates the Quranic conception of the human being as inherently good, rather than stained by original sin.”[4]

However, al-Sunnah scholars have consensus upon that a person should be considered Muslim as long as he claims to be Muslim, no matter how great the sin he/she commits.[5] Their concern is understandable as well. When you start to label people as kafir because of the sins they commit, it will be hard to draw a line. Once you open this door, it goes back to Kharijite creed or their reincarnation in our age as ISIS mentality.

If we go back to the first part of our question; what will be the status of unbelievers who spend their whole life righteously doing good deeds? We see many people in the life of the Prophet (PBUH) who can be considered in this category; of whom the most paramount in his life is His uncle, Abu Talib. There are many ayahs that make it clear that if somebody denies the existence and oneness of Allah Almighty, he will be judged as a kafir in the hereafter. Christians, Jews, and other monotheistic believers are also considered kafir if they deny Allah’s Messenger. “Indeed, those who disbelieve in Allah and His messengers and wish to discriminate between Allah and His messengers and say, we believe in some and disbelieve in others, and wish to adopt a way in between, those are the disbelievers, truly. And We have prepared for the disbelievers a humiliating punishment” (Quran 5:150-151).

Also, the ayah “And whoever does righteous deeds, whether male or female, while being a believer – those will enter Paradise and will not be wronged, [even as much as] the speck on a date seed” (Quran 4:124) clearly tells us iman is a condition for salvation in the hereafter. The repeating ayahs 2:62 and 5:69 also says the same thing. Here again, most of the classic and contemporary scholars think that it is important how well and under what conditions they get to know the Messenger of Allah is important. Yet, there are also several ayahs stating that righteousness and any good deeds will not be left unrewarded regardless of who does them. “So, whoever does an atom’s weight of good will see it, and whoever does an atom’s weight of evil will see it” (Quran 99:7-8).

Here have to point out another very important ayah “O you who have believed, believe in Allah and His Messenger and the Book that He sent down upon His Messenger and the Scripture which He sent down before. And whoever disbelieves in Allah, His angels, His books, His messengers, and the Last Day has certainly gone far astray” (Quran: 4:136). This ayah also tells us that iman is not a solid-state, rather it can increase or decrease.  The ayah 49:14 also points out this fact.

From those ayahs my conclusion will be;

i-                 Iman is a condition for salvation.

ii-               Iman and kufr are not absolute states. As the hadith says “one can leave his house in the morning as a believer and returns in the evening as an unbeliever” (Abu Davud).

iii-              Grave sins can diminish or destroy iman.

iv-              Those who commit grave sins (especially violating the rights of others) should not be so sure of their iman.

v-               All good deeds of unbelievers will be rewarded.

vi-              Contemporary scholars must revisit the Ahl al-Sunnah notion that we should consider somebody a believer no matter what kind of zulm they commit. This notion has caused in history and has been causing today that Muslim communities turn a blind eye to the state terror as long as the rulers claim to be Muslims.

vii-            Believers should stop supporting politicians or community leaders just because they claim to be good Muslims, regardless of their actions.

The case of hypocrites must be the subject of another paper. I believe they are called hypocrites because their status rapidly changes based on their interests. I want to finish with a quote from Bediuzzaman Said Nursi, “Within each sin is a path leading to unbelief. Unless that sin is swiftly obliterated by seeking God’s pardon, it will grow a worm into a snake that gnaws on the heart.”[6] Allahu a’lam

 

[1] Erkam Tufan- 30 Minutes, “A Muslims who does evil will go to paradise and an unbeliever who does good will go to hell?” accessed November 20, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RQc5fnXdmQ

[2] On the movement of “Kharijites,” Encyclopedia of Islam, 5:1074-77; W. M. Watt, “The Formative Period of Islamic Thought” (Edinburg: Edinburg University Press, 1973), quoted in Sherman A. Jackson, “Islam and the Problem of Black Suffering” (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 47-48.

[3] Quran: 2/82, 3/114, 16/97, 18/30, 19/96, 4/124, 98/7, 25/70, etc.

[4] Joseph Lumbard, “The Quran in Translation.” Quoted from: Joseph Lumbard, Caner Dagli, Maria M Dakake, Seyyid H Nasr, The Study Quran, The Quran in Translation (New York, HarperCollins Publishers, 2015),1604.

[5] Sacit Arvasi, “Kotuluk Yapan Musluman Cennete, Iyilik Yapan Kafir Cehenneme mi?” accessed on December 1, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDx6fdS0Wz0

[6] Bedizuzzaman Said Nursi, “Flashes,” Second Flash. Accessed on December 1, 2019. http://www.erisale.com/index.jsp?locale=en#content.en.203.22

It is obvious that the Quran is not an ordinary book. It is mystical. It is beautiful. It is controversial. It is melodic but not a song. It is poetic but not a poem, nor is it prose. It is very clear and easy to understand but at the same time quite ambiguous and cryptic. It speaks about itself, unlike any other book. It is highly assertive and challenging. It brings the past to the future and future to the past. It addresses not only the believers as its audience but also to the entire humanity. It is very logical and rational but at the same time sentimental. It is a book of guidance, a book of the remembrance , a book of the stories of the previous messengers, a book of law and social justice, a book of inner peace, a book of healing and inspiration, a book of the hereafter, and a book of the visible world and unseen, etc.

As Bediuzzaman Said Nursi says Quran gets younger and fresher as the time gets older. It answers the three fundamental questions to which all the philosophers tried to answer but have been unsuccessful; where did we come from, why did we come, and to where are we going? It is a book beyond cultures and ages. It relates to and astonishes modern twenty-first-century minds, as much as it did seventh-century minds of a forsaken land. But it is certainly not a simple book that can be read from cover to cover like a best-seller novel. Each chapter is as if a self-standing Quran. That is why Imam Shafi says “if God had only revealed Surah al-Asr, it would have been sufficient for the guidance of all humankind.”[1] But at the same time chapters are connected to one another because many terms are described in other chapters, and details of stories are explained in the other chapters. Therefore, surahs are independent but also interconnected at the same time. And the most interesting aspect is the Messenger who recited it, was illiterate and it was completed over a span of twenty-three years.

But how should we approach the Quran today, and introduce it to the people in the West, and most importantly how should we teach it to our children who are growing up in the West? As we were growing up in Turkey, we learned how to read Quran with traditional methods (and unfortunately sometimes along with corporal punishment) at a very early age but we didn’t have any clue what it was saying. In fact, reading translations was discouraged. And when I read it in Turkish for the first time, I understood why. As a teenager, it lost all its glory and magic in my eyes in translation. I couldn’t understand it. It was repetitive, ambiguous, and boring. Yet, I didn’t lose my faith in it, because reciting and listening it, was giving my soul tranquility. When specific ayahs were explained separately, they were making sense, but it was almost impossible to read its translation from cover to cover. So, it is very important how we introduce it to our children and to the Western audience who look at the world from a very materialistic perspective. They won’t be as faithful as we have been when they feel it is not appealing to them.

Handing a copy of the Quran to a non-Muslim and expect him/her to read and understand it, is not realistic. Although many converts convert just by reading a translation, most of the people won’t have that kind of patience or dialectic mind that will tune in to Quran’s cognitive wit. I found Michael Sells’ introduction to his “Approaching the Quran” very helpful except the parts where he dived into Islamic history. His emphasis on the pre-Islamic Arab poetry gives a notion that the Quran is merely a masterpiece of Arabic poetry. Also, I found his reference to the invention of a camel saddle quite odd.[2] It seemed to me that somehow Sells tries to explain the advancement of the Islamic civilization with a new saddle which the Bedouins invented in the seventh century. But other than those two issues his explanation of the delicacies of the language of the Quran was quite remarkable. I also greatly benefited from Joseph Lumbard’s “What is Quran According to Quran” [3] series and his “Quran in the Translation”[4] article. Lumbard introduces the Quran in its own voice and lets Quran speak for itself. His explanation of inimitability of the Quran and its syntactic features such as iltifat through pronouns and tenses were something all first-time readers of the Quran should be aware of. He demonstrated how specific words in Quran can carry different meanings and all those meanings can be valid at the same time in the example of ayah 2:177.[5] Although it is one of my favorite ayahs and I recite it quite often, I hadn’t seen this subtlety before nor was it pointed out in any of the translations I read.

I think the major factors that need to be considered in approaching the Quran in the West are; i-Orientalism, ii-Islamophobia, and iii- Historical context of the ayahs, and iv- Controversial ayahs.  Average peoples’ paradigms are loaded with biases established by the media over decades even centuries. During the middle ages, when Islamic civilization was on the rise, Islam’s image in the Christian world was a mixture of admiration and envy. Unfortunately, during those centuries Islamic world didn’t make any effort to introduce Islam to the West through anything other than wars. During those centuries, Christianity’s image in the East was not any different than the Islam’s image in the West during and after the Renaissance; which was basically ‘infidel nations with backward, barbaric customs.’ During the colonization age this image was reinforced further due to the internal conflicts in the Islamic geography.

The first translations of the Quran to the European languages were quite prejudiced and full of misconceptions. The scholars generally lacked adequate level of Arabic and Islamic history. For example, “George Sale (1697-1734), a solicitor by profession who never left his native country, was the first layman to translate the Quran into English. Judging by his lack of formal education in Arabic, and the fact that there was little Arabic in his library, especially on the Quran, it is difficult, according to Denison Ross, who introduced the 1909 edition of Sale’s translation, to assume that Sale’s mastery of the Arabic language would have enabled him to translate directly.”[6] Later, during the second half of the 20^th century Islam was mostly mentioned in the West with Palestinian-Israeli conflict. That orientalist image was also tainted with terrorism because of the plane hijackings, Iranian revolution, and finally September 11. Today, as the Muslims living in the West, we have a huge responsibility to save Islam’s image in the West that was hijacked by Al-Qaida and Islamic State. I think Islamic studies and scholarship play the key role in this respect.

The historical context of the ayahs is very important in understanding and explaining the Quran for the Western audiences as well as for us, Muslims. It is a common mistake for most of us that we often judge historical events and facts through today’s standards. We tend to forget that the concepts such as Democracy and human rights are pretty new in the humanity’s history, less than a century old. Slavery, patriarchy, corporal and capital punishments were the realities of humanity for thousands of years. Although the Quran is a book of guidance it was not revealed to force an artificial progress in humanity’s socio-economic evolution. Yet it does not deny progress in social issues. Just like Quran itself abrogated some of its verdicts as in the case of alcohol, other verdicts might be abrogated due to the socio-economic changes in time. We see examples of this in the life of the Prophet and Khalifs. This is an important issue that needs to be discussed in the Western Quran scholarship.

I personally have a terrible memory of one of the most controversial ayahs, an-Nisa:34[7]. In a presentation I made in a community college about Islam, I was asked if this verse is abrogated today or not. I was young and unprepared for the question and my English was poor at the time, and I answered the question in a way I wouldn’t do today. Over the years I came to conclusion that Quran is like DNA. We have the same DNA in all our cells, all over our body, but some sections of this DNA are functional and other sections are inactive based upon the location of a cell in the body. Just like that some of the ayahs might have been valid in certain places at a certain time in the history, but they might be inapplicable today. Whether hadd ayahs should be seen in this regard or not, is a matter, contemporary fiqh scholars should decide.

Said Nursi says in his Letters, in interpreting a dream he saw before the First World War, “I awoke and I understood that there was going to be a great explosion and upheaval, and that following it the walls surrounding the Qur’an would be destroyed. The Qur’an would then defend itself directly. It was going to be attacked and its miraculousness would be its steel armor.”[8] I believe we don’t need to defend Quran or apologies for it, we just need to let Quran speak for itself.

[1] Recite Quran, Tefsir Ibn Kathir/Al Asr, accessed on October 12,2019, http://www.recitequran.com/tafsir/en.ibn-kathir/103:1

[2] Michael Sells, Approaching the Quran The Early Revelations (Ashland, Oregon: White Cloud Press, 2001), 7.

[3] Joseph Lumbard, “What is Quran According to Quran,” accessed October 10, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoT7l67V-qI&t=311s

[4] Joseph Lumbard, Caner Dagli, Maria M Dakake, Seyyid H Nasr, The Study Quran, The Quran in Translation (New York, HarperCollins Publishers, 2015),

[5]Bakarah 277: It is not piety to turn your faces to the east and the west. Rather, piety is he who believes in God, the Last Day, the angels, the Book, and the prophets; and who gives wealth, despite loving it (or out of love for God), to kinsfolk, orphans, the indigent, the traveler, beggars…

[6] Muhammad A. Haleem, Exploring the Quran Context and Impact (London-New York: I.B. Tauris, 2017), 255.

[7] An-Nisa 34: Men are in charge of women by [right of] what Allah has given one over the other and what they spend [for maintenance] from their wealth. So righteous women are devoutly obedient, guarding in [the husband’s] absence what Allah would have them guard. But those [wives] from whom you fear arrogance – [first] advise them; [then if they persist], forsake them in bed; and [finally], strike them. But if they obey you [once more], seek no means against them. Indeed, Allah is ever Exalted and Grand

[8] Said Nursi, Letters. Letters, 28th Letter, accessed October 9 2009, http://www.erisale.com/index.jsp?locale=en#content.en.202.424

Mu’tazila

            Although it is the primary criterion that differentiates us from animals, reason is a  burdensome thing, a curse as much as it is a gift. In some cases ignorance is truly a bliss. Maybe that is what Allah is trying to teach us with the ayeh “If We had sent down this Qur’an upon a mountain, you would have seen it humbled and coming apart from fear of Allah” (Hasr 21). Monotheism or tawhid is pretty straight forward and reasonable concept, up until one starts to contemplate about the essence of the Creator. The difficulty is essentially stemming from trying to comprehend infinite with the finite tools of senses and reason. In a weak hadith it says “Reflect deeply upon the creation, but do not reflect upon the essence of the Creator. Verily, his essence cannot be known other than to believe in it.”[1]

In Turkey, it is pretty common to have children memorize the statement: “We are Hanefi in practice and Maturidi in akidah.” Everybody generally knows what being a Hanefi is about but very few people know what Maturidi is. An ordinary Muslim with average religious knowledge doesn’t really question or care about the matters that differentiates Maturidism from Ash’arism, or Mu’tazila. I have specifically chosen this topic because I have been wondering these details for a long time.

Mu’tazila is a movement that goes back to the beginning of the second century after the Prophet (PBUH). As it is told, Wasil bin Ata, a follower of Hasan al-Basri (d. 110-728) left the latter’s circle upon a confrontation. During one of the gatherings a man asked from Hasan al-Basri to clarify the status of a sinner in Islam. He said Kharijites think a sinner is doomed for hell forever, whereas others like Murji’tes think, his sins will not harm his faith, just like an unbeliever’s good deeds will not help him in the hereafter. Before Hasan al-Basri could answer the man, Wasil bin Ata stood up and said “a sinner who commited a grave sin is neither a believer nor unbeliever, his status is somewhere in between.” And later, he walked away and left Hasan al-Basri’s circle for good. It is told that the term Mu’tazila comes from the word “i’tizalah,” meaning, he separated (from us).

From the very beginning, Mu’tazila movement was associated with rationalism. In the story, before Hasan al-Basri could answer the question based upon his knowledge of the orthodox tradition at the time, Wasil used his reason to answer it, not even wondering what Quran or Hadith would say about the issue. So, the basic characteristic of Mu’tazila is that it chooses reason over tradition. We don’t know whether Wasil was influenced by Greek Philosophy or not; but, rationalism started to influence Islamic thought after Greek classics were started to be translated into Arabic during the reign of the second Abbasid Khalifa al-Mansur (d. 158-775).

Eleventh century Mu’tazila scholar, Qadi Abd al-Jabbar explains why one should choose reason upon Quran, Hadith, and “ijma,” general consensus:

Some might find this ranking strange and think that the sources should be limited to Quran, Sunnah, and Unanimous Consensus (ijma). Or they might think that reason, as a source of knowledge, should come after (these sources). But this is not true. For God The Exalted only addressed the people of reason (ahl al-aql). And it is on the basis of reason that we know the Quran to be authoritative; likewise with the Sunnah and Unanimous Consensus. Thus, the reason is the primary source (al-asl). And we only speak of Quran being primary inasmuch as it alerts us to the dictates of reason.[2]

As good as this sounds, it dismisses the fact that reason is limited and restricted to several variables such as time, place, age, intelligence, culture, and most importantly the prior knowledge of persons.

            Therefore, Mu’tazila tried to explain expressions in the Quran which didn’t make sense to them, such as God’s eyes or hands, by allegorical interpretations (tawil), that they should mean God’s knowledge and generosity. They also dismissed any hadith which they deemed to be unreasonable as fake and considered any “ahadi” hadith authentic which made sense to them, regardless of authenticity of the hadith’s chain.

            Sherman Jackson enumerates Five Principals (al-usul al-khams) that constitutes the articles of Mu’tazila as the following:

1- Monotheism (tawhid) emphasizes the impossibility of coeternals. On the basis of this doctrine, Mu’tazila denied that God had attributes, since these attributes have to be coeternal with God.

2- Divine omnibenevolence (adl) was the basis on which the Mu’tazila affirmed human efficiency, since a just God could neither sponsor human evil nor reward and punish people for actions over which they exercised no effective control

3- Divine promise and threat (al-wa’d wa al-wa’id) was the basis on which repentant believers were said to be bound to be rewarded and unrepentant believers were bound to be punished in the afterlife.

4- The status between the two states (al-mazilah bayna al-manazilatayn) applied to miscreant believers.

5- The duty to command right and forbid wrong (al-amr bi’l ma’ruf wa’n nahy ani’l-munkar) translated into a certain commitment to socio-political activism.[3]

Among these five principals the first two especially the second one, divine omnibenevolence (adl) was the main characteristic that Mu’tazila associated themselves with. Although they often called themselves as the community of al-tawhed wal-adl, they helt al-adl, as the main attribute over the other attributes. The main distinction between Mu’tazila and the other movements which were born as a reaction to Mu’tazila rationalism was also arising from this characteristic. Mu’tazilah deemed God’s omnibenevolence (adl) as His primary attribute, whereas Ash’arites, Maturidis, and Traditionalists deemed his omnipotence (qudrah) as His primary attribute.

“If God has power over all things, how can we explain that humans are also under the impression that they have power over their own actions? Do humans have power (qudra) to carry out their own actions, or is God the force actualizing this power? And if God solely possesses this power, why does the human earn God’s blame for bad actions and His reward for good ones?”[4] In order to resolve this contradiction they took al-adl as their reference point. And that was the main point that they distinguished themselves from ortodox Islam. Their approach was a reaction to the predeterminism,  jabriya. “They attributed creatures the power to carry out their own acts. They argued that if humans did not have the power to choose and create their own acts, there would be no point to the rewards and punishments promised by God to humans in the next life. They claimed that God was a just God and that it was inconceivable that God would reward or punish humans for acts over which they had no power or control.”[5]

Their understanding of God’s omnibenevolence, al-adl is quite problematic just like their approach to reason. They assume God must be good and exonerated from all evil, ignoring the fact that the concepts of good and evil are also relative concepts, depending on time, place, culture, and knowledge, in the same sense like reason. For example killing a person unrighteously is wrong and evil, but killing an animal in order to benefit from its products is not. What constitutes which one is evil, and which one is not other than God’s decree? They try to explain Quranic terminology such as God’s hands or eyes with allegorical expressions, because God’s is beyond our imagination but when it comes to God’s omnibenevolence they hold God accountable for humanistic understanding of good and evil.

Because of this “They are accused of being dualists and of having their origin in Zoroastrianism because, in terms of their interpretation of goodness and badness, they believe that God is absolutely good and therefore cannot be the source of evil, and that there shall be a source for evil, which is other than God.” [6]

Mu’tazila had a bizarre understanding of tawhid, the Oneness of God. They thought, deeming the attributes of God such as his knowledge and speech as eternal, would mean ascribing eternity to other things than Allah, thus it would constitute shirq.  So they introduced the concept of created Quran, again contradicting to the orthodox Islam which deemed Quran as Allah’s eternal speech. In a sense Mu’tazila was a movement of extremes. Here one can easily see the conflict in their ideas. On one hand, they ascribe qudra to humans to carry out their own actions, on the other hand they refrain from believing God’s speech and knowledge was eternal with him. Instead they would say His attributes were part of His essence and cannot be perceived as separate from his zhath.

It is unfortunate that the first thought crime persecution of Islamic history took place on such a superficial argument; whether Quran was the eternal speech of Allah or was it created later. If they knew time was a relative thing, and it was created itself by God, and God was above and beyond time, they would probably not insist on a created Quran in time. “At the political level, the espousal of the Mu’tazila cause by al-Ma’mun, which in 827 and 833, instituted the notorious Mihnah to test the adherence of religious judges (qadis) to the Mu’tazila maxim of the created Quran,.”[7] For fifteen years (833-848) many scholars were questioned and tortured by inquisitions run by Mu’tazila “qadis.”

The most famous scholar who stood up against this intellectual tyranny was Imam Abu Hanbal (d. 855). He was the most influential jurist at the time whose teachings later constituted the school of Hanbali in practice. He is also considered as the founding father of Traditionalist movement in terms of aqidah. He was imprisoned and tortured for several years. Because of his uncompromising stance against the tyranny of the state, he became a monumental personality in Islamic history. His case is another peculiarity of the Islamic History that Sunni Islam always enjoined to be obedient to the state, and whomever had courage to stood up against oppressive governments were pelted as ahl al fitna during their lifetimes and were venerated much later, generally they passed away.

Mu’tazilah became the dominant school of thought at the early stages of Abbasid Caliphate and stood that way over a century, generally associated with Hanafi. Ash’arism and Maturidism came into being concurrently in the different parts of Islamic Empire as a reaction to Mu’tazila. Ash’arism was established by one of the Mu’tazilah followers, Abu al-Hasan al-Ash’ari (d. 936). Its foundation is also associated with an anecdote between Al-Ash’ari and his teacher, famous Mu’tazila scholar Al-Jubbai (d. 915). According to the anecdote, As-Ashari asked his teacher about the fate of three brothers:

One being a believer, the other being an infidel and still another being a child who is not obligated of Divine injunctions and asked him, “what is their aftermath?” al-Jubbai answered, “The believer would be in the men of rank and file and the infidel would be in the men of doom and perdition and the child would be in the men of salvation”. Al-Ash’ari went on asking further, “Could the child be among the men of rank and file” ? Naturally al-Jubbai’s answer was negative, upon hearing it, al-Ash’ari interrogated ‘why’. Al-Jubbai asserted that the believer had earned this status while the child had not. Al-Ashari made a pertinent remark saying that the death of the child in his early age was not of his choice, he died as God willed him to die. Al-Jubbai answered that God knew the fate of the child that he would grow as a sinner and He, therefore , deemed it fit in his well-being to let him die in the childhood. Al-Ash’ari, then, remarked that the infidel would ask God as to why He did not care for his well-being even after having the knowledge of his fate of growing as an infidel and did not let him die as a child. Al-Jubbai was then silent.[8]

            As the story indicates, Ash’aris as well as Maturidis reject the notion of dictating humanistic concept of morality onto God. God is not only omnipotent, in the sense of having qudrah, that He can do whatever he wills; but also He is not bound to any humanocentric moralistic boundaries, that he can choose to punish or reward whomever He wishes. According to Ash’aris and Maturidis an action is not good or evil in its essence but should be valued according to the Divine revelation. For example swine meat is not haram because it disgusting, but it is disgusting because Allah designated it to be disgusted.

            Another anecdote between Mu’tazila scholar, Qadi Abd al-Jabbar and one of the major Ash’ari scholars Abu Ishaq al-Isfara’ini is noteworthy:

Said Abd al-Jabbar: “Glorified be He Who is above commuting evil.” Said al-Isfara’ini: “Glory be He in whose dominion nothing occurs without His permission.” Said Abd al-Jabbar: “Does our Lord will that He be disobeyed?” Said al-Isfara’ini: “Could our Lord be disobeyed against His will?” Said Abd al-Jabbar: “If He denies me guidance and decrees my perdition, does He commit a good or evil act?” Said al-Isfara’ini: “If He denies you something that belongs to you, then He commits an evil act. But if He denies you something that belongs to Him, He simply singles out for His mercy whomsoever He pleases.”[9]

            However Ash’aris and Maturidis did not deny free-will at all. In order to explain humans’ evil acts without challenging God’s omnipotence, they introduced the concept of kasb. “With kasb, in other words, God grants only a specific power for a specific action at a specific instant, namely the instant at which a human being wills an act.”[10] Basically, when a human commits an evil act, the will so thus the responsibility belongs to the human and God creates the action.

Not far from Ash’ari in aqidah, but far in distance, Maturidism was established by Abu Mansur al-Maturidi (d. 944) in Samarkand. Although Al-Ash’ari and Imam Maturidi were contemporaries there is no indication that they met each other. Considering the communication resources at the time, it is hard to think that Ash’ari thought would reach Samarkand concurrently. In a sense Maturidism can be considered a middle way between Mu’tazila and Ash’arism. The main characteristic that differentiates Maturidism from Ash’arism is their emphasis of God’s wisdom, hikmah. God’s unlimited wisdom plays the same role as God’s justice plays for Mu’tazila in restricting God’s omnipotence. According to Maturidis God can create evil as long as it suits his eternal wisdom.

Although Ash’arism and Maturidism emerged as a reaction to Mu’tazilas’ hardcore rationalism, it is impossible to say that these movements were lacking reason. Rather than denying rationalism or reason they are just alternative ways of thinking about God’s omnipotence and humans’ free will. It is amazing to see how intellectually vibrant was the Islamic geography during the tenth to twelfth centuries despite of political upheavals. I believe how and why the Islamic civilization lost this vibrancy and started to decline in intellectualism and sciences should be analyzed thoroughly.

Bibliography

[1] Daily Hadith Online, “Think about wonders in creation, but not Allah’s essence,” Accessed December 16 2018, https://abuaminaelias.com/dailyhadithonline/2017/02/14/hadith-on-reflection-think-about-wonders-in-creation-but-not-allahs-essence/

[2] Qadi al-Jabbar, Fadl al i’tizar wa tabaqat al-mu’tazila, ed F. Sayyid (Tunus: al-Dar- al-Tunusiyah li Nasrg, 1974), 139; quoted in Sherman A. Jackson, Islam and the Problem of Black Suffering (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 49.

[3] Jackson, Islam and the Problem of Black Suffering, 50.

[4] Griffel, Frank. al-Ghazali’s Philosophical Theology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009, 124.

[5] Khan, Dewan. Mu’tazilaism: An Introduction to Rationality in Islam, “International Journal of Engineering and Applied Sciences”, Volume-4, Issue-10, October 2017.

[6] M. Kamal, “Mu’tazilah: the rise of Islamic rationalism,” Australian Rationalist 62 (Autumn 2003), 27.

[7] Fakhry, Majid. Islamic Philosophy A Beginner’s Guide. Oxford: One World Publications, 1997, 57.

[8] Ataur Rahman. “Contribution of Al-Ash’ari to Islamic Thought and His Influence on the Later Ilm al-Kelam.” (PhD Diss., Aligarh Muslim University, 2002), IX.

[9] Al Subki, Tabaqat al-Safi’iya, 4:261-62, also al-Taftazani, Sharh, 82; quoted in Sherman A. Jackson, Islam and the Problem of Black Suffering , 49.

[10] Jackson, Sherman. Islam and The Problem of Black Suffering, 89.

WHAT IS ISLAMIC STATE?

 

Introduction

At this age, undoubtedly, Islam as a faith is going through a pivotal epoch since its beginning fourteen centuries ago. After the collapse of the last Muslim Empire (Muslim Empire rather than ‘Islamic’ Empire since that very term, ‘Islamic’ will be the focus of this paper) and abolition of the Kalifate which was established after the Prophet (PBUH) and lasted thirteen centuries without interruption, umma got scattered all over the place as a sheep herd attacked by a pack of wolves. Almost all of the Muslim lands were colonized by Western powers except the cradle of the Ottoman Empire, Anatolia. Although Turkey was not colonized militarily, it was colonized culturally just like the rest of the Muslim nations. This cultural colonization deeply traumatized Muslim nations. Their bond with their histories and thus with the glorious Islamic Civilization has been broken; they have lost their identities and could not come up with a new identity yet.

Almost in all Muslim nations, societies are broken into two segments; culturally Westernized minorities and conservative masses who see the West as the source of all sorts of evil for their misfortunes. As one segment is looking up to the Western civilization as a salvation and a solution for all their socio-economic problems, the conservative masses are hoping to bring back ‘the Sharia’  in order to revitalize their glorious history. They are striving to establish their utopic ‘Islamic’ states so that they can teach the descendants of the barbaric Crusaders what true civilization really is. “But you killed the Indians” is a political joke in Turkish. When politicians are criticized for human right abuses, instead of taking responsibility; they point out to the Western civilization accusing them the genocide of the Native Indians.

In this paper, I will try to shed some light on the Muslim majority nations’ soul-searching and what is meant by the adjective ‘Islamic’ as it is used prevalently today. I will try to answer the question; “is it possible to establish an ‘Islamic state’ that will be governed by the Divine Law, Sharia.” I also want to tackle the questions, what makes a specific judicial ruling ‘Islamic’ and what makes a state “Islamic.” I will look at the constitutions of “Islamic” Republics of Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan and elaborate whether they are living up to their ‘Islamic’ reputations.

 

A Nation Looking for Its Identity: Turkey

Turkey is unique among the Muslim majority countries that it was never colonized. As the Ottoman Empire ended in 1923, completing its natural lifespan way beyond what Ibn Khaldun determined for empires, a new promising state was established with the participation of all segments of society. However, that hope didn’t last long. As soon as Kemal Ataturk secured his power over the parliament, he took Turkey to a different route. In the first constitution voted by the parliament in 1921, the religion of the state was written as Islam. Also, the language of the constitution was more inclusive towards Kurds, the second largest ethnicity that constitutes 15-20% of the population. However, with a revision in 1928, the statement of “religion of the Turkish Republic is Islam” has been removed from the constitution.

The new Turkish Republic turned out to be an autocracy with French-style secularism which forced European lifestyle as well as the European legal codes in their entirety to the conservative Muslim society. As Asli Bali summarizes in her talk at Yale Law School, that French laicism is based upon the notion of protecting politics from the influence of religion; as opposed to the Anglo-Saxon secularism which aims to protect religious freedom from government’s influence.[1] The laicism adopted by the Turkish government was even stricter than French-style secularism whereas the government established a state department in order to unify and control all the religious affairs in the nation and undertook crafting a limited version of Islam as the nation’s religion. The government also abolished all the religious orders and tariqas, assuming their properties. By law, adhan was forced to be called in Turkish from 1932 to 1950. Also, European dress style was enforced to the government workers by law. There is still a statute today as a remnant of those days that mandates public workers to wear fedora hats, which of course is not enforced. House Bill 671 which was adopted in 1925 reads; “All Representatives of the House and all other federal and local government workers are mandated to wear fedora which was recognized by the Turkish Nation. Nation’s official headwear is fedora and all other hats are prohibited.” In the following years, dozens of people were executed by the revolutionary courts for violating this law. With another law niqab and burqa was prohibited.

In 1928, the alphabet was also changed from Arabic to Latin. The Arabic alphabet was being used by Turks since the tenth century when they first encountered and converted to Islam in Middle Asia. Another government agency was formed in order to ‘purify’ Turkish language by getting rid of Arabic and Persian oriented words from Ottoman Turkish by making up new words. This meant that new generations would not be able to read any of the literature that was created by two great civilizations, Seljuks and Ottomans which was accumulated over a millennium. This top-down so-called modernization efforts, unfortunately, caused the Turkish nation lost its cultural memory and fractured the society to its core, as seculars and conservatives, as educated and uneducated. Up until the 1980s, for the majority of conservative masses, education meant losing all your religious and cultural values.

Out of the war-worn conservative Muslim masses, a modernized, secular, Western-educated, elitist minority emerged with the reins of the government in their hands.  For this secular minority, religion was the symbol of backwardness and its role was supposed to be restricted to merely to the cultural sphere and utilized as needed; such as in funeral ceremonies or patriotic speeches. Then, in the 1950s, the Turkish state was forced to try Democracy due to the international contexture, in the search of allies against the threat from the Soviet Union. Then, came the secularist military interventions, once every decade, shocking conservative Muslim majority who clung to the dreams of glorious times of the Ottoman Empire. Although 1924 constitution was discarded and two new versions were made after 1960 and 1980 military coups and numerous of revisions were adopted, this Jacobin, secularist ideology, encrypted into the culture of the government and bureaucracy carried out until to this day and guarded by the military.

For the Turkish secularists on the far left (it is rather flat-out fascism but named as left in Turkish politics), Ataturk is a God-sent savior and if Turkey could go back to 1930s, where all the religious orders and tariqas were banned, all the problems of the society would be solved. For them, religion and Ottoman Empire symbolizes backwardness. As Nicholas Danforth describes it, “Mustafa Kemal Ataturk built his new national republic on a vigorous rejection of the Ottoman past. He condemned the Ottoman sultans as foreign interlopers, accusing them of promoting religious bigotry, suppressing their people’s Turkish identity and cravenly collaborating with European powers. Completely ignoring the Ottoman past, Ataturk gave his

people a glorious and invented history of Central Asian Turks to serve as a basis for their national pride.”[2]

Yet Republicans didn’t refrain using the legacy of Ottoman Empire in their nation-building efforts, especially its glorious era until the seventeen century before its stagnation and downfall. They associated anything that was to be proud of in the Ottoman era with its Turkish roots and Turkishness and any of its sins with its ties to religion and the influence of European powers and minorities in the Empire. “Then, beginning in the 1990s, a newly pious, newly democratic Turkey ‘reconnected’ with its Ottoman ‘roots’, finally embracing the national history Ataturk had denied them. This trend culminated, of course, in the full-blown, Islamically rooted Ottoman nostalgia – not to say Ottomania – of today.”[3]

Turkish secularists are okay with Islam as long as it stays as a cultural motif in the lower end of the society and within the walls of historical mosques and funeral ceremonies, but Islam as a religion that shapes the morals of the society and the law of the land, it is evil. It is “the Sharia;” stoning people to death, chopping off hands and heads, marrying nine-year-old girls to old men, etc… Turkish left is also quite nationalistic rather racist. Up until the 1980s, the government did not recognize an ethnicity as Kurds or a language as Kurdish, not in Turkey nor in the bordering states. Writing, speaking, singing in Kurdish was banned and punished harshly. Up until this day, there is no public education in Kurdish for 15 million Kurds in Turkey and private education is very limited due to the government’s pressure.

This very ideology created today’s Turkish political Islam as a reaction to itself. Although political Islam claims to be the exact opposite of Turkish secularism, it shares the same features as its nemesis, Kemalism.

Turkish Political Islam: Justice and Development Party (AKP)

Justice and Development Party (AKP) was established in 2002 by Recep Tayyip Erdogan and a group of politicians as an offshoot of the Saadet Party which was the only political Islamist Party at the time. Saadet Party, previously known as Refah Party and Milli Selamet Party was established in the 1960s by Necmettin Erbakan (d. 2011) who was the founder of political Islam in Turkey. Erdogan started his political career in the 1980s when he was working at the Istanbul’s public bus company. He is a graduate of ‘Imam Hatip’ High Schools which were established by the “secular” state back in 1951 in order to train imams for the state mosques. From 1933 to 1949 all divinity education at the secondary level and college level was banned in the country. So, Erdogan’s religious knowledge is limited to what he has learned at the high school. His college education is the subject of a big controversy in Turkey. Because a college degree is one of the conditions of the presidency according to the constitution and up until now Erdogan couldn’t present his original diploma nor are there any witnesses that he ever attended college. It was revealed that copies of diplomas provided to the National Board of Election at various elections are different from each other and obviously forged.[4]

Erdogan and his friends left the Saadet Party in the aftermath of 1997 military intervention. At the time, Erdogan was the mayor of Istanbul and served a three month jail time for a religio-nationalist poem he had recited at a rally. February 28 intervention was named after a series of resolutions which Erbakan’s government was forced to sign at the National Security Assembly on February 28, 1997. As a result, Erbakan’s Party had to resign from government, tens of thousands of people deemed as ‘irticacı’ (backward) were purged from government and academic posts, and hijab was prohibited at the colleges. As Erdogan and his friends were founding AKP, they denounced political Islam and sought cooperation from other segments of the society such as Gulen Movement,[5] liberals, moderate seculars, Alevites, Kurds and other minorities who have been a victim of the hardcore Kemalist ideology engraved in the arteries of the state.

Within the six months, after its inception, AKP surprisingly won 2002 elections with enough votes to form the government. For the first two terms, AKP managed to maintain its mainstream stance keeping the support of its allies most notably Gulen Movement’s and provided a significant boost in areas of human rights, rule of the law, press freedom, economic growth, and Turkey’s long European Union membership dream. However, after the victory of the third parliamentary elections in 2011, Erdogan’s discourse changed significantly leaning more towards his political Islamist past. He started to use populist speeches, constantly using expressions of ‘us’ and ‘them;’ us being the conservative Muslim majority and them being the seculars, Western powers, Israel, Vatican, Crusaders, imperialists, and everything that has a negative connotation in the public memory.

With these arguments, he managed to keep his popularity and even got himself the Presidency amid the biggest corruption allegations in the history of Turkey involving his four ministers, his son, and himself. On December 17, 2013, Turkey woke up with the news of arrests of dozens of people including sons of four cabinet ministers, municipal mayors, president of largest state bank and bosses of construction tycoons due to corruption charges:

 

Turkish police have arrested the sons of three cabinet ministers and at least 34 others in orchestrated raids that appeared to represent the biggest assault on the authority of the prime minister. The detentions went to the heart of the Erdoğan administration and included leading businessmen known to be close to the government and officials said to be engaged in suspected corruption, bribery and tender-rigging. According to Turkish media reports, the sons of the interior minister, the economics minister and the environment and city planning minister were among those detained. Other detainees included the head of the state-controlled Halkbank, the mayor of an Istanbul district considered to be a stronghold of the ruling AK party as well as the three construction sector tycoons, Ali Agaoglu, Osman Agca, and Emrullah Turanli. Agaoglu has recently made headlines with controversial mega-projects and works for the notoriously opaque state housing agency (Toki).[6]

 

Erdogan’s government immediately fired the police chiefs, prosecutors, and judges who were doing the investigations and named the operations as a coup attempt to the democratically elected government. He also waged a war on Gulen Movement, his biggest ally for the first two terms, naming its members as the ‘parallel state’ within the state. The government started to seize the Movement’s schools, its media outlets, and properties of businessmen who were supporters of the Movement and also AKP up until very recently.

On July 15, 2016, Turkey took another turn towards dictatorship after the so-called coup attempt. Turkey had seen many coups and coup attempts before, but this one was quite awkward. During the prime time around 10:00 pm while everybody was watching their favorite TV shows, a few tanks occupied and stopped the traffic at the Bosporus Bridge in front of the cameras. Then some war jets started to fly low and make noise in Ankara and Istanbul. A squad of soldiers occupied State’s National TV station and the news anchor read a short statement that the Turkish military took control of the government. It is alleged that Military Chief was taken hostage at a military base. One military helicopter attacked and bombed a police station. A war jet bombed the yard of Erdogan’s palace and killed scores of people who were waiting outside. Erdogan was at his summer vacation in South Turkey. Around midnight he appeared on TVs through a Whatsup connection and immediately accused Gulen Movement as the perpetrators and called all his supporters to take the streets. At the same time, all around the country, athans started to be called and they continued non-stop until the next day. A total of 6000-7000 soldiers, mostly privates and military academy students were sent to the streets whereas remaining the 99% of the army didn’t take any part in the pseudo-coup attempt, 276 people died in the turmoil, and more than 3,000 injured. The Congressional Committee that was established to investigate the coup attempt has been dismissed within a few months without questioning the top officials who played major roles on both sides. Since then more than half a million people have been interrogated, more than 150,000 have been purged from public service without any chance to find jobs in the private sector because of the government’s pressure. Passports of more than one million people have been revoked with no reason. Tens of thousands of people have been fleeing through illegal routes since then.

“ARRESTS: Some 160,000 people were detained (pre-trial detentions can take years) for questioning, of which over 77,000 were formally arrested for alleged links to terror organizations, including Gulen’s network and outlawed Kurdish rebels. Those arrested include military personnel, police, journalists, lawmakers, judges and prosecutors. According to Justice Ministry figures, close to 35,000 people put on trial for links to Gulen’s network have been convicted so far. Around 14,000 others were acquitted.

PURGES: More than 130,000 people have been purged from the public service through emergency government decrees. Those dismissed include tens of thousands of teachers and close to 6,000 academics. Around 1,300 people were re-instated to jobs by a commission that was set up to review cases but 18,000 other appeals were rejected.

MILITARY: Some 170 generals and around 7,000 other senior military officers were arrested as part of the crackdown. At least 58 generals and 629 senior officers have been convicted to life terms in prison so far in trials against military officers, according to Justice Ministry figures. Eight generals were acquitted.

MEDIA: At least 143 journalists or media workers are currently behind bars, most accused of links to Gulen or Kurdish rebels, according to the Turkish Journalists Syndicate. Using emergency decrees, the government closed down around 200 media organizations, including newspapers, periodicals, radio stations and television channels.

POLITICIANS: Ten legislators from Turkey’s pro-Kurdish political party, including former co-chairs Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag, are in prison on terror charges for alleged links to Kurdish militants. Enis Berberoglu, a legislator from the main opposition Republican People’s Party, is in prison convicted of espionage for giving an opposition newspaper images allegedly showing Turkey’s intelligence agency trucking weapons into Syria.

ACTIVISTS: Human rights activist and businessman Osman Kavala is in jail pending trial, accused of seeking to overthrow the government and having alleged links to Gulen. Eleven prominent activists were arrested last year at their hotel on an island off of Istanbul while on training. They were eventually released from jail pending the outcome of their trial for supporting terror groups. Among them was Taner Kilic, Amnesty International’s former Turkey chairman, who was released earlier this month.”[7]

 

Political Islam in Turkey is a reaction to Kemalist fascism. It defines itself with its adversaries rather than its own values and constantly needs foes to stay relevant. At a very pragmatist level, it is always anti-something; anti-Kemalist, anti-Israel, anti-American, anti-Europe, anti-Vatican, etc. They are anti-Israel yet Turkey’s trade volume (both exports and imports) with Israel steadily grew and tripled in the last 15 years during AKP governments.[8] Erdogan’s sons’ fleet transporting goods and Kurdish petrol to Israel played a big role in this trade volume. It is Islam is anti-European, yet AKP celebrated the launch of reinvigoration of accession process to the European Union in 2012 with pompous ceremonies. It is anti-Vatican, yet the first guest of Erdogan’s famous 1150-room palace was The Pope himself. It is anti-American, but Turkey is a part of NATO, hosting several American bases in Turkey, and depends heavily on the American arms in its defense. But the base of AKP zealously believes that the US was behind the 2016 coup attempt and wants to topple down Erdogan and destroy the country. Every increase in Dollar-Lira indexes is attributed to US attacks on the Turkish economy, rather than the bad economy management on the government’s side. It is anti-Zionist, but Erdogan meets with pro-Israel lobbies almost every year during his visits to the US.

It is really hard to describe Turkish Islamists relationship with Islam. It should definitely be the subject of a book. After the 2013 corruption cases erupted, its voters’ view of AKP can be described with the motto at the time, “they steal, but they do the job.” After the corruption allegations broke out, one of the prominent scholars of fiqh in Turkey and also a strong supporter of Erdogan, Hayrettin Karaman wrote in his column that corruption cannot be considered as theft.[9] Corruption, nepotism, crackdown against minorities, wasting public resources on lavish government palaces/vehicles/planes, extra-judicial kidnapping/killings[10] of dissidents (especially the members of Gulen Movement) has increased at a rampant rate since the 2016 coup attempt. Another prominent scholar of Ottoman History and Erdogan’ supporter, Ahmet Akgunduz, who is also the Dean of Rotterdam Islamic College in the Netherlands was saying, “Everybody steals, the previous governments were stealing 80 percent and working 20, AKP is stealing 20 percent and working 80.”[11] Ahmet Akgunduz also gave another fatwa on TV for the killing of Gulen Movement followers that it is permissible (jaiz), because with the coup attempt they revolted against the state. He was basing his fatwa on the ayah “And if two factions among the believers should fight, then make settlement between the two. But if one of them oppresses the other, then fight against the one that oppresses until it returns to the ordinance of Allah” (Quran: 49:9)[12].

Since Islamist AKP came to power in 2002 (they had denounced political Islam at the time but they rolled back in 2011 after they won their third term), the only visible change was abolishing of the hijab ban in the universities in 2012 and hijabi woman became more and more visible in the government jobs. There is no need to say that all those women along with their male counterparts who have been taking government post are hardcore Erdogan fanatics. Policy-wise, there has been no structural change that can be considered Islamic. The National Lottery is still being administered by the State. Salaries of the imams are still being paid from taxes collected from all segments of the public including seculars, Alevites, Jews, Christians, and atheists. Those taxes also include revenues from National Lottery and taxes from thousands of brothels all around the country. State Department of Religious Affairs and Friday hutbas became an AKP mouthpiece. Press freedom has been diminished; as all the media outlets have been bought out by Islamist oligarchs who accumulated inconceivable amounts of wealth with the AKP’s rise to the power. Gulen Movements dozens of media outlets, including the most selling paper in the country, Zaman had already been seized in 2015. Freedom House graded Turkey as ‘Not Free” since 2018.

“Indeed, under President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey has become the world’s biggest jailer of journalists with more than 150 imprisoned since the failed coup attempt in July 2016. They have been charged with terrorism offenses as a result of articles they have written, posts they have shared on social media or opinions they expressed. Several, such as Ahmet Altan (a world-renowned writer), have received life sentences.

More than 180 media outlets have been shut down and an estimated 2,500 journalists and other media workers have lost their jobs. Unsurprisingly this year’s World Press Freedom Index placed Turkey 157 out of 180 countries, sandwiched between Rwanda and Kazakhstan. Perhaps more surprising is the fact that of all the imprisoned journalists in the world, one third are languishing in Turkish prisons.”[13]

Therefore it is really hard to say what is Islamic about Turkish Political Islamists other than their anti-Kemalist, anti-American, anti-Israel statements and millions of dollars spent for mosques along with Erdogan’s propaganda in Turkey and all around the world. Continuous populist utterances and playing to virtual internal traitors and external enemies cloud people’s judgment and prevent them to see the country is at the edge of total destruction. Masses keep believing Erdogan, as long as he shows up for the Friday prayers in front of cameras and recites some Quran from time to time. The current constitution was made by the military after the 1980 coup d’état which states The Republic of Turkey is a secular state and it was built upon the principals of Ataturk. The army is still in the hands of ultra-secular, ultra-nationalist clique, especially after the purges of tens of thousands of officers who might have any links to Gulen Movement or seculars who don’t share the same hardcore Kemalist ideology.

Patrick Gaffney describes not only AKP’s Islamism but also the general political Islamist ideology all across the Muslim majority countries as ‘popular Islam.’ “Furthermore, the heavy emphasis of Islamicists on the refuting of the godless, alien, unjust, and immoral contents of so many modern “isms” points to another perceived deficiency of the movement, namely, its penchant for negativism. While it has proven capable of opposing programs and denying legitimacy to regimes, it has never succeeded in elaborating concrete and constructive alternatives upon which Islamic activists themselves could agree. In part, surely, this shortcoming stems from the unresolved contradictions within the movement itself.”[14] Popular Islam or political Islamism to me is an ideology rather than the religion itself. It is statist and nationalistic. The most popular saying used in order to promote patriotism in Muslim majority countries is the saying of ‘Hubbul-watan min al-iman.’ This saying is generally related as a hadith. However, when I searched for it I found out it was a saying of Abdul Wahab Hasbullah, an Indonesian scholar (d. 1971). Unfortunately, it is used extensively both by politicians and scholars as a hadith. The concept of umma, one of the basic concepts of Islam is entirely ignored by Islamists. For instance “Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan has dodged a question on the reported detention of as many as two million Muslims in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang, saying he “didn’t know much” about the issue.”[15] For Turkish Islamists, umma starts and ends with Palestine inasmuch as it increases their votes. None of those so called Islamist governments take any action to stop the starvation in Yemen.

Contemporary Islamic States

Today in the world, there are many states that call themselves ‘Islamic’ in their constitutions. Obviously, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Pakistan are the most famous or rather notorious ones about their Islamism due to their size, influence and how they apply Islam to their legal systems. Others include Malaysia, Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, UAE, and the other Gulf States.

 

The first article of Saudi Arabia’s constitution states “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is a sovereign Arab Islamic State,” and “Constitution of the State is The Holy Qur’an and the Prophet’s Sunnah (traditions).” And the fifth article states that the system of the government will be monarchial and “The dynasty right shall be confined to the sons of the Founder, King Abdul Aziz bin Abdul Rahman Al Saud (Ibn Saud), and the sons of sons. The most eligible among them shall be invited, through the process of “bai’ah.” To me, from the very beginning, it is full of contradictions. It reads it is an Islamic Arab state. Islam is not exclusive to Arabs, it is beyond ethnicities. If a state claims to be ‘Islamic,’ it should be open to all Muslims and all the subjects of Allah and give each and every one of them equal rights. From this perspective United States seems to be more ‘Islamic’ because it doesn’t choose an ethnicity over another inasmuch as to its citizens. From this regard, if US constitution had given equal rights to every human being regardless of their citizenship, it could have been ideally ‘Islamic.’ Saudi constitution says the Quran and the Prophet’s Sunna is the constitution within the constitution. If the Quran and Sunna is the real constitution why do they have another constitution? It says government will be monarchial and right of the rule will be given to the progenies of Ibn Saud. Yet, the Quran and Sunna don’t prefer a governance model for the UMMA and definitely, it doesn’t give the right to rule to the decedents of Ibn Saud. The Saudi government might be applying some cherry-pick laws from classical sharia books but the basic structure and main principles of the Saudi State obviously have nothing to do with Islam. Article 6 reads “Citizens shall pledge allegiance to the King on the basis of the Book of God and the Prophet’s Sunnah, as well as on the principle of “hearing is obeying” both in prosperity and adversity, in situations pleasant and unpleasant.” Again here it doesn’t say what makes the King the rightful ruler for the believers according to the Quran or the Sunna. Thus I think any sort of monarchy cannot be directly associated with Islam and called ‘Islamic” because the monarch will lack legitimacy from Quran’s perspective. In Islam rulers, be it elected politicians or monarchs are neither the shadow of the God nor the representatives of the Prophet.

Islamic Republic of Iran’s constitution is no different than the Saudi constitution. The introduction part of the constitution states that “The constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran is a declaration of the social, cultural, political, and economic foundations of the Iranian society based on Islamic principles and norms that reflect the heartfelt desire of the Islamic community.” However, it goes into discussing the Iranian revolution in depth, venerating Imam Khomeini all over the text. It is quite an irony that nobody questions the conflict between being Islamic and of/and about Iran. Islam is universal and divine, and there is nothing neither universal nor divine about the Iranian Uprising. It was a socia-political uprising against an oppressor and as in many cases, the oppressed became the oppressor once they gained the power. It says “After experiencing the anti-despotic constitutional uprising and the anti-colonial uprising for the nationalization of oil, the Muslim nation of Iran learned the invaluable lesson that the specific and essential reason for the failure of these uprisings was the non-doctrinal quality of the struggles.” Islam is likened here to a doctrine that is needed for the uprising to succeed against the Shah.

In the introduction part, it reads “The catalyst for the nation’s united movement was Imam Khomeini’s objection to an American scheme, “the White Revolution,” which was a step toward strengthening the foundations of tyranny and increasing Iran’s political, cultural, and economic dependency on world imperialism.” The ideology in these lines is the same ideology behind the Turkish Islamism; it is reactionary and defensive, it is defining itself with its enemy, and constantly needs an enemy to stay relevant. Under the title of Islamic Government it discusses, “The struggle continued on this path until finally the discontent and intense anger of the people as a result of internal pressure and state suppression on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the exposure of these actions at the international level through the actions of the clerics and the students, seriously weakened the foundations of the regime.” The following sections are titled as “The Anger of the People,” “The Price Paid by The Nation.” It is more like an indoctrination booklet rather than a constitution which in the essence should define the rights of it subjects and boundaries of the government.

Under the section of ‘The Form of Governance is Islam,’ it barely touches the concept of umma, “Specifically, it strives to expand international relations with other Islamic movements and people in order to pave the way for the formation of a single, universal community, in accordance with the Qur’anic verse, “Verily, this Brotherhood of yours is a single Brotherhood, and I am your Lord and Cherisher: therefore Serve Me (and no other),” yet even the language of these sections is quite hostile. You cannot see the concept of compassion anywhere in the text. Thus it is quite autocratic, placing the ‘Guardian Council’ to the core of the government to safe keep the revolutionary ideology, pretty much same with the Turkish constitution. But from other perspectives such as women’s rights or minority rights, I should say I found it much more lenient than the Turkish constitution. If allows speaking and education in local languages, something that is not recognized in the Turkish constitution. Also, its emphasis on the rights of women is applaudable.

Pakistan’s constitution is quite lengthy; it is 138 pages as opposed to 38 pages and 26 pages to Iran’s and Saudi Arabia’s constitutions respectively. Again it states the religion of the state as Islam in the second article. It is obvious that it was affected by British laws. It emphasizes human rights and equality under the law. However, its statist nature is quite obvious. Article 5 talks about how the loyalty to the state is every citizen’s duty and “Obedience to the Constitution and law is the inviolable obligation of every citizen wherever he may be and of every other person for the time being within Pakistan.” Interestingly article 6 talks about high treason which is always a loose cannon. Article 31 discusses how the Islamic way of life should be implemented in the community. It also establishes a Sharia along with the Supreme Court which will make sure all the laws and regulations of the State are in conformity with the Sharia. It states the power and function of the court as “If any law or provision of law is held by the Court to be repugnant to the Injunctions of Islam,- (a) the President in the case of a law with respect to a matter in the Federal Legislative List or the Concurrent Legislative List, or the Governor in the case of a law with respect to a matter not enumerated in either of those Lists, shall take steps to amend the law so as to bring such law or provision into conformity with the Injunctions of Islam; and (b)such law or provision shall, to the extent to which it is held to be so repugnant, cease to have effect on the day on which the decision of the Court takes effect.” If this court functions as it is described in the article it is quite possible that it will collide with the parliament and the Supreme Court. Among these three states, I think Pakistan’s constitution seems to be the most liberal and inspired from Islamic principles as well as British Bill of Rights.

 

Conclusion

In his book The Impossible State, Wael Hallaq discusses the characteristics of the modern nation-state in the context of law versus morality relations. Hallaq identifies five basic features of the modern state as “1-its constitution as a historical experience that is fairly specific and local, 2-its sovereignty and metaphysics to which it has given rise, 3-its legislative monopoly and related feature of monopoly over so-called legitimate violence, 4-its bureaucratic machinery, and 5-its cultural-hegemonic engagement in the social order, including its production of national subject.”[16] He discusses that modern state deems itself, as the ultimate sovereign and lawmaker and expects ultimate loyalty and sacrifice from its citizens. However, in an ideal ‘Islamic State’ that is founded on the Islamic principles, the ultimate loyalty should only be to Allah. Subjects of Allah should not owe any devotion or loyalty to any ruler, politician, or constitution. The Quran and Sunna ordain believers to respect the rulers and governments as long as they are in conformity with the Islamic principles permeated from the Quran and Sunna.

Hallaq idealizes the Muslim Empires in the history with respect to the independence of the judiciary from the executive branch which I don’t entirely agree. Because in the Ottoman Empire Seyhulislams were appointed by the Sultans and they were forced to issue fatwas quite often. Those fatwas were generally putting the State’s and statesmen’s rights before the induvial rights. The maxims of “Private harm is borne in order to repel public harm” and “A severe harm is to be removed by way of a lesser harm” are always used to curb individual rights of its subjects. These maxims were the source of the fatwa that made the execution of brothers of ascending Sultans permissible, even if they are infants. But we can say, the judiciary in the Ottoman Empire and previous Muslim Empires were relatively more independent than the modern state.  Yet Hallaq makes an excellent point that lawmaking is one of the functions of the modern nation-state and cannot be entirely independent of the executive branch of the same state and be delegated to scholars like it used to be in the first centuries of Islam. Nation State is a sovereign entity of its own with its own interests. So, the judiciary of nation-states will always favor the state’s interests over its citizens’ rights.

The contemporary concept of ‘Islamic State’ is a nation-state in essence and it can never be considered as ‘Islamic.’ Because it is local, it is limited to its citizens, and it is statist expecting ultimate loyalty from its citizens whereas Islam is universal, it regards the entire umma rather than the citizens of one state, and it deems the ultimate loyalty is only to Allah. Therefore, political Islamists are running after a shadow. As we have seen in Turkey, as soon as they come to power, they transform from the oppressed to the oppressor. Because, it is not the Islam or the Islamic principles they are after, they are simply after the power, and knowingly or unknowingly they are using Islam in their adventure.

 

 

 

Bibliography

 

[1] Asli Bali, “Ataturk’s Legacy: Negotiating Laiklik [secularism] in Modern Turkey.” Accessed on May 9, 2019. https://law.yale.edu/yls-today/yale-law-school-videos/asli-bali-ataturks-legacy-negotiating-laiklik-secularism-modern-turkey

[2] Danforth, Nicholas. “Multi-purpose Empire: Ottoman History in Republican Turkey.” Middle Eastern Studies, 50:4, published May 30, 2014.

[3] Danforth, Nicholas. “Multi-Purpose Empire: Ottoman History in Republican Turkey.” Middle Eastern Studies, 50:4, published May 30, 2014.

[4] Cengiz Candar, “Is Erdogan’s University Diploma Forged?,” Al Monitor, published on June 15, 2016.

https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2016/06/turkey-controversy-erdogan-university-diploma.html

[5] Gulen Movement is a non-political, social movement and a world-wide network of schools/universities and cultural centers focusing on education, entrepreneurship, and interfaith-intercultural dialogue. It was founded in the 1960’s by Fethullah Gulen, a self exiled scholar living in Pensilvania since 1999. It used to be the most influential sect in the Turkish society until 2016 coup attempt (or false-flag coup for many including myself) due to its schools, media, and business network both within Turkey and all around the globe. Since the very beginning, the movement has been in the target of ultra-secularist/ultra-nationalist establishment in Turkey, as well as political Islamists who saw the movement as their competition.

[6] Constanze Letsch, “Turkish Ministers’ Sons Arrested in Corruption and Bribery Investigation,” The Guardian, published on December 17 2013.  https://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/28/opinion/a-golden-reign-of-tolerance.html

[7] “A Look at Turkey’s Post-Coup Crackdown.” AP, published on August 30, 2018.https://www.apnews.com/dbb5fa7d8f8c4d0d99f297601c83a164

[8] Gullu, Ihsan. “Describing Turkey Israel Relationships with Its Trade Dimensions.” International Journal of Commerce and Management, Volume 4, Issue 10, p/107. (October 2016)

[9] Hayrettin Karaman, “Corruption One Thing, Theft is Something Else,” Yeni Safak, December 21, 2014. https://www.yenisafak.com/yazarlar/hayrettinkaraman/yolsuzluk-baka-hirsizlik-bakadir-2006694

[10] Rick Gladstone. “Turkish Secret Agents Seized 80 People in 18 Countries, Officials Say.” New York Times, published on April 15, 2018.

[11] Ahmet Akgunduz, “Erdogan Governments Stole Only 20 Percent of Public’s Wealth,” t24, published July 2, 2014, https://t24.com.tr/haber/tayyip-beyin-hukumetleri-milletin-malinin-sadece-yuzde-20sini-yedi,263031

[12] Ahmet Akgunduz, “Killing of Hizmet followers is permissible.” Accessed on May 8, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqROH3OH1kE

[13] Joanna Hong, “Erdogan’s Turkey: The World’s Biggest Prison for Journalist.” Newsweek, September, 8, 2018, accessed on May 12, 2019.

https://www.newsweek.com/erdogans-turkey-worlds-biggest-prison-journalists-opinion-1125718

[14] Gaffney, Patrick. “Popular Islam.” American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol 524, (November 1992)

[15] Ben Westcott, “Pakistan’s Khan dodges questions on mass Chinese detention of Muslims.” CNN World, March 28, 2019.

[16] Hallaq, Wael B. The Impossible State, Islam, Politics, and Modernity’s Moral Predicament. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013, p 23.

Darbe, silah zoruyla veya siyasi nüfus kullanarak Anayasanın askıya alınması demektir. Yönetimler meşruiyetini anayasadan alır; anayasayı rafa kaldıran veya Anayasayı açıkça ihlal eden bir idare meşruiyetini kaybetmiş demektir. Dolayısıyla, 17 Aralıktan sonraki günlerde yargıya yapılan darbe ile Türkiye’deki yönetim meşrutiyetini yitirmiştir. Asıl darbe 17 Aralık sonrası Anayasanın askıya alınmasıyla başlamış, 15 Temmuz’da ki kanlı darbe mizanseni ile tam teşekküllü bir darbe halini almıştır.

15 Temmuz darbe tiyatrosunda gelecek olursak; Türkiye’de başta laikler olmak üzere, pek çok farklı kesim gibi Hizmet insanı da aslında, 17 Aralık’tan sonra hırsızlardan hesap soracak, Anayasayı tekrardan ikame edecek bir darbe beklentisi içindeydi. Fakat böyle bir darbenin ordu içindeki şakirtler tarafından yapılmayacağı veya yapılamayacağı 15 Temmuz’a gelinceye kadar zaten aşikar olmuştu. Zira, Cemaat darbe yapacak olsaydı bunu 17 Aralık’tan, 15 Temmuz’a kadar olan süre içinde çoktan yapmış olurdu. Çünkü, bu süre zarfında, başta Emniyet ve Yargı olmak üzere, Cemaatin devlet kademelerindeki bütün üst düzey bürokratları uzaklaştırıldı, STV, Zaman, Kanal Türk ve Bugün gibi bütün etkili basın organları gasp edildi, şirketlerine, hastanelerine, üniversitelerine kayyım atandı, üst düzey abileri tutuklanmaya başlandı. Darbe yapmak isteyen Cemaat, darbe yapmak için kolu bacağı budanıncaya, devlet içindeki bütün gücünü kaybedinceye kadar neden iki buçuk yıl beklesin? Oysa, darbeyi halkın nazarında meşrulaştırmak ve başarıya ulaştırmak için en gerekli araç medyadır. Zaten, Cemaatin darbe yapıp Devleti ele geçirme gibi bir planı olsaydı, bunu 17 Aralık’da Erdoğanın da koluna kelepçe takmak suretiyle tereyağından kıl çeker gibi yapabilirdi, ama yapmadı.

Çünkü Hocaefendi’nin veya Cemaatin, Devleti ele geçirmek gibi bir planı asla olmadı. Devleti ele geçirmek isteyen bir insan, müntesiplerinin büyük çoğunluğuna neden öğretmen olmayı, dünyanın dört bir yanına göç etmeyi salık versin?

Kaldı ki Devlet 15 Temmuz’un karanlık yüzünün ortaya çıkmaması için her türlü tedbiri aldı. Daha darbenin ilk saatlerinde bizzat Erdoğan tarafından kara propaganda başlatıldı. Darbeyi herkes gibi televizyon başında haber alıp, duaya başlayan Hizmet insanları bir anda terörist ilan edildi. İnsafsız, ahlaksız, Allah’tan korkmaz bir güruh tarafından başlatılan linç kampanyası karşısında dehşete kapıldılar. Kanlı senaryo çok ustaca hazırlanmıştı. Daha önce Ordu İmamı diye basına reklam edilen, istihbarat raporlarına girmiş Adil Öksüz’e eşlik eden MİT görevlileri, yüz binlerce insanı bir anda terörist ilan etmeye yetecek bir kaç dakikalık görüntü aldırmayı başarmıştı. 17 Aralık sonrası yüzlerce alakasız insan tutuklanırken, yeri yurdu belli olduğu halde ne hikmetse Cematin ordu imamı diye ifşa edilen Adil Öksüz bir türlü tutuklanmamıştı.

Adil Öksüz 15 Temmuz akşamı kime imamlık yapmış, darbeyi yöneten Generallerden hangisine emir vermiş, oraya nasıl gelmiş, ayrılırken neden geldiği gibi değilde tarlalardan yürüyerek gitmek istemiş öğrenemedik. 15 Temmuz öncesi tefsir alimleri bile tutuklanır, ifadeleri 3-5 gün sonra alınır, saçma sapan iddialarla, tek delil olmadan tutuklanırken, Adil Öksüz yakalandıktan bir gün sonra ülkede kıyamet koparken savcılığa verdiği deli saçması ifadeyle Cemaat operasyonlarında baş rol oynayan bir hakim tarafından nasıl serbest bırakılmış anlayamadık.  

Darbeden bir kaç gün sonra bir KHK ile binlerce hakim, savcı ihraç edilirken, ordu imamı olduğu daha önce yazılıp çizilmiş, darbenin bu karanlık figüranının elini kolunu sallayarak çekip gitmesine müsaade eden bu hakim neden hala bu güne kadar ihraç edilmedi onu da anlayamadık…

Ama, siz kafanızı fazla yormayın. Ulu Öneriniz, Reis sizin yerinize düşünüp sizin adınıza kararı verdi bile; 250 sivilin ve bir sürü günahsız erin kanının döküldüğü bu karanlık darbe tiyatrosunu  o akşam evlerinden çıkmayan öğretmenler, akademisyenler, iş adamları, ev hanımları yapmıştı. Orduda 115 generali, binlerce subayı, emniyette on binlerce polisi olan Cemaat; çoğu ne olduğundan habersiz erbaş, topu topu 1,200 askerle darbe yapmaya kalkınca sap gibi ortada kalmıştı. Cumhurbaşkanının yaverleri dahil binlerce subay, on binlerce polis. 50 kusur bin sivil darbeye katılmamanın cezasını bugün işlerinden atılarak, tutuklanıp işkence çekerek ödüyorlar.  

 

Faşizm, bir ırkın, bir ulusun, bir ideolojin bütün diğer ırklardan, uluslardan, ideolojilerden üstün olduğunu kabul ederek, kendi ideolojisine tabi olmayan herkesi ikinci sınıf vatandaş sayan, onlara yaşama hakkı tanımak istemeyen bir düşünce sistemidir. Bütün faşist sistemlerin ya da ideolojilerin temelinde, yarı ilahlaştırılmış, düşünceleri tartışılamayan, adeta kutsallaştırılmış bir lider bulunur.

Müntesiplerince bu kutsal lidere olan kalbi bağlılık, çoğu zaman kurumsallaşmamış bir din hükmündedir. Bu lider sevenlerince; dünyanın gelmiş geçmiş en büyük, en akıllı, en kabiliyetli, en merhametli, en yüksek karakterli lideri veya liderlerinden biri olarak görülür. Asla hata yapmaz. Hata yapmışsa bile bulunduğu şartların zorlamasıyla istemeyerek yapmıştır. Aslında dünyanın en demokratik lideridir fakat ülkenin içinden geçtiği olağanüstü şartlardan dolayı muhalefeti susturmak zorunda kalmıştır. Bu lidere, liderin icraatlerine ya da fikirlerine muhalefet etmek vatan hainliğiyle eş değerdedir. Lider hayatta ise, liderin iktidarı kaybetmesi; lider hayatta değil ise, ideolojisinden sapılması devletin çökmesi, milletin tarumar olması demektir.

Bu lider, dış düşmanları yenerek öce kahraman olur, daha sonra iç düşmanları yenerek devletin sorgusuz sualsiz tek sahibi, yani diktatör olur. Ama diktatör olsa, kimse ona diktatör diyemeyeceği için bir türlü diktatör olamaz. (Buraya dikkat; adam diktatör olsa zaten kimse ona diktatör diyemez, birileri diktatör diyorsa zaten diktatör değil demektir, nasıl ama!) Dış düşman yoksa, gerçekten savaşılacak bir Kurtuluş Savaşı olmamışsa bir şekilde zihinlerde üretilir. Durduk yerde, Marmaranın Mavi sularında ‘One Minute’da düşman yaratmak kadar kolay bir şey yoktur. Yıllardan beri dost ve müttefik olan bir ülke, iki günde devletin varlığını tehdit eden en büyük düşman haline gelebilir. Bu dış düşman bazen bir devlet, bazen değişik platformlarda müttefikin olan bir grup devlet, yerine göre kim ya da ne olduğu belirsiz hayali bir Üst Akıl, Siyonistler, Masonlar, Komünistler, ya da onun gibi bir şey olabilir. Dış düşman piyasası borsa gibi iner çıkar. Devletini yıkmak isteyen azılı düşman bir bakarsın dost ve müttefikin olmuş. Dost ve müttefik kabul ettiğin başka bir lider ise bir bakmışsın bir anda O-Rus-bu da ABD olmuş. Ulu Reis, Ata Önder gerektiğinde bu azılı düşmanlarla oturup konuşabilir, zahirde devletin aleyhinde gibi görünen antlaşmalar imzalayabilir ama bütün bunlar aslında devletinin ve halkının iyiliği içindir. Devlet yönetmenin inceliklerini bilmeyen biz cahiller bu gibi siyasi manevraları anlayamayabiliriz.
Faşist düşüncenin iktidar olduğu toplumlar mütemadiyen hainler, iş birlikçiler, ajanlar üretir. Dış düşmanlar çok flu, kaygan ve değişken olsa da, iç düşmanlar kolay kolay değişmez. Genelde emperyalist devletler, kim yada ne olduğu zamana, zemine göre değişen dış düşmanlar, bu Ulu Reisin hükümferma olduğu devleti kıskanır, bu devleti yıkmak için bitmez tükenmez entrikalar çevirir, devamlı ajanlar, iş birlikçiler yetiştirerek bu kutsal topluluğu bölüp parçalamaya çalışırlar. Bu iş birlikçiler bazen Komünist olur, bazen irticacı mürteciler, bazen de kuzu postuna bürünmüş bir Cemaat. Sayıları bazen milyonları bulan bu hainler, nedense içinden çıktıkları topluma kin besler, nedensiz bir şekilde devamlı kötülük etmek isterler. Ulu Reisin etrafındaki vatanseverler, Kurtuluş Savaşının zorlu günlerinde servetlerine servet katarken, bu hainler, karşılığında hiç bir şey almamalarına rağmen yine de vatanlarını satarlar. Assan da, kessen de, zindanlara tıksan da, topunu birden sürgün etsen, varil bombalarıyla köküne kibrit suyu dökmeye çalışsan da, bu hainler bir türlü bitmek bilmez. Dış düşmanlara ve vatan hainlerine karşı Ulu Reisle omuz omuza yıllarca birlikte mücadele etmiş kırk yıllık dostları bile bir bakmışsın hain oluvermiş. Bu hainlerin kriptoları olur, kriptolarının kriptoları olur, hainleri temizleyenler bazen hain çıkar, vs, vs. İşin bu kısmı iki ucu pis değnek gibidir, at izi, it izine karışır gider.

Ey Zift Havuzunun kalem erbabı…

Ey Firavunun göz bağcı sihirbazları…

Ey haram yiyerek yoldan çıkmış; azmış; kendisinin ve avanesinin hırsızlığı ortaya çıkınca işi arsızca pişkinliğe vurmuş, zorbalığa başlamış; rezil olarak ölecek ve rezil olarak haşrolacak MÜNAFIĞIN rezil dalkavukları…

Artık bu kadar da olmaz derken, hergün bir seviye daha irtifa kaybediyorsunuz esfel-i safiline doğru.

Üç yıldan beri uydurmadığınız yalan, etmezdiğiniz iftira kalmadı.

Şaşırıyorduk; yıllarca saygı duyduğumuz, kalbinde Allah korkusu vardır diye umduğumuz insanlar nasıl böyle vicdansızlaşır diye, ama meğer,  şaşırmamak gerekiyormuş!

Devlet kasasından gönderilen beş milyonlardan aldığınız maaşlar belli ki HARAMMIŞ! Vicdanınızı köreltmiş, fıtratınızı bozmuş, daha doğrusu gerçek fıtratınızı ortaya çıkartmış.

Utanmadan hırsızı, yolsuzu, arsızı destekliyorsunuz! Utanmadan münafiklığı zahir olmuş, konuşunca yalan konuşan, söz verip yerine getirmeyen, emanete ihanet etmiş, şatafata düşkün, kininde aşırı     giden kaypak mı kaypak bir siyasetçiyi İslam aleminin lideri diye millete pazarlıyorsunuz.

Yüzünüz kızarmadan; yalan konuşuyor, yalan yazıyor, iftira olduğu her halinden belli MANŞETLERLE safderun kimseleri kandırıyorsunuz.

Milletin arasına fitne saldınız; insanları eşine, dostuna, akrabasına, komşusuna, aynı safta namaza durduğu din kardeşine HAİNDİR, AJANDIR diye düşman ettiniz.

Allah Rızası deyip kendini HİCRETE vurmuş, dünya adına tek beklentisi olmayan Hizmet erlerini, eli kanlı teroristlerden daha tehlikeli diye Ubey Ibnu Selülleri utandıracak iftiralar uydurdunuz.

Hayatlarını vatan hasretiyle gurbette geçiren asrın GARİPLERİNE dünyayı zindan ettiniz, yerin altını üstünden hayırlı kıldınız.

O GARİPLER ki; çoğu sudan temiz sudan saf, onların hürmetine bize ihsan bize avf kıvamında yiğitler.

Hocaefendi müleane yaptığında çok şaşırmış, yadırgamış, kalbimizden bu kadar da olmaz diye garipsemiştik. Meğer asrın dertlisi her zamanki gibi gayb-aşina kalbiyle hissetmiş esfeli safiline olan yolculuğunuzu.

Az bile demiş; Rabbim kalemiyle bu zorbaya destek veren sizleri ve devlet kesesinden gazete basıp O AHLAKSIZ MANŞETLERİ atan yoldaşlarınızı KAHRETSİN…

Rabbim, tez zamanda hem o Tiranın, hem de sizin belanızı versin, sesinizi kıssın, birliğinizi bozsun, ocaklarınızı darmadağın etsin….

Allah sizi; dalkavukluk yaparak azdırdıgınız Tiran’la, bu dünyada mahkemelerden kurtardığınız saatçi-makaracı avanesiyle ve Reza gibi, Cengiz gibi hayırsever işadamlarıyla haşretsin…

AMİN, AMİN, elfu elfu AMİN…