ISSN 2147-0405

Transcription

ISSN 2147-0405

ISSN 2147-0405
Number 4
ÇANAKKALE 2013
JOURNAL OF INTERCULTURAL AND RELIGIOUS STUDIES
TURKEY
Journal of Intercultural and Religious Studies is included in the Islamicus Index
Number 4 ● June 2013 ● ISSN 2147-0405
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TABLE OF CONTENTS____________________________________________
ARTICLES
Islam in Islam between East and West
ENES KARIĆ / 7-62
Religion and Organizations: A Theoretical Perspective
ALI AYTEN / 63-77
Cultural Diffrences between Turkey and Bosnia: Does Converenge Exist?
AZRA BRANKOVIĆ & SAVO STUPAR / 77-94
Education of Values in Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge Classes in
Turkish Primary Schools
ALİM BAYHAN 95-118
Muhammed Ferid Vecdi’nin Tefsir Anlayışı ve Yaşadığı Dönem Açısından
Tefsirinin Değerlendirilmesi
SEMA GEYİN / 119-152
ISLAM IN “ISLAM BETWEEN EAST AND WEST”
Enes KARIĆ
E-mail: eneskaric@yahoo.com
Citation/©: Karić, E., (2013). Islam in Islam between East and
West. Journal of Intercultural and Religious Studies. (4). 7-62.
Abstract
Islam between East and West is a good example of a text written by an
intellectual under siege who (while writing it) thought that the empires of
Socialism and Communism would last at least for another several
decades. The structure of Izetbegović's Islam between East and West does
not permit a simple walk through its pages because on the pages of this
work the author tries to do many things, with varying degrees of success.
First, occasionally - or, better to say, rarely – he confronts what he
considers to be ”Islam“ or ”true Islam“ with the state of Muslims in the
19th and 20th centuries. Second, in this work Izetbegović confronts his
views about Islam with the then prevailing Socialist and Communist
systems in the world, particularly in the hemisphere in which the USSR
had a leading word. Third, Izetbegović confronts his understanding and
interpretation of Islam with the current, ideologically aided trends in
natural and social science such as Evolutionism, Darwinism, Biologism,
etc. Fourth, his Islam Between East and West contains also many
successful pages on, tentatively speaking, philosophy and theory of
culture, science, law, aesthetics and ethics. Based on those facts this paper
aims to provide the reader with a detailed analysis on Islam between East
and West.
Keywords: Balkans, Islam, Bosnia, Alija Izetbegović, Islam between East
and West, Islam in the Balkans
 Professor at the Faculty of Islamic Studies of Sarajevo University, Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Journal of Intercultural and Religious Studies
Introduction
Islam between East and West1 is a work that occupies a special place, not
only in relation to Islamic, but also political and politico-philosophical
thought of Alija Izetbegović (1925–2003). The work is a good example of
a text written by an intellectual under siege who (while writing it)
thought that the empires of Socialism and Communism would last at
least for another several decades. Indeed, at the time of writing Islam
Between East and West Izetbegović regarded Communism as “one of two
indestructible forces.” Let us quote that passage:
After settling all accounts and confronting all the arguments, they all
gradually disappear or ebb away and what remains on the turbulent
scene are two powers set against one another, one can freely say two
indestructible powers. On the surface they are Christian democracy and
Communism, but viewed deeper, these are religion and materialism
2
(Izetbegović , 1996, 340).
In the middle of that “turbulent scene” Izetbegović decided to write Islam
between East and West, an expression of his intellectual courage. Giving it
a robust title it also represents his ambition to address a “global” topic
and to place it on a big canvas, from “from East to West.”
In terms of his behavior and existential witness, Izetbegović remained
faithful to most of the ideas and views expressed in this work. However,
with time he discarded some, which one can find out by comparing this
with his other works. The dictum that one cannot expect from man to
stay faithful to his views during stormy and fragile times applies to
Izetbegović, too.
1 Islam Between East and West is Izetbegović's most published and translated book. With
regard to Serbo-Croat and Bosnian editions one should mention the 1988 edition
(published by Biblioteka „Nova“), Izetbegović's samizdat from 1990, while the next,
Bosnian edition was published by Svjetlost in Sarajevo in 1995. Svjetlost also published
the book in 1996. By 1996 the work was translated into English (American Trust
Publications, 1984), Turkish (Nehir Yayinlari, 1987), one of Indonesianlanguages
(Penerbit Nizan, 1992) and in Arabic (in Germany by Bavaria Verlag & Handel GmbH,
1994) and in Albanian (by TWRA in Macedonia, in 1994). Let us mention that the author
received the „Thinker of the Year“ prize in 1995 from Saudi Arabia.
2 Unless stated otherwise, all the quotations are taken from the 1996 Bosnian edition of
the work and rendered into English anew.
8
Karić, Islam in Islam between East and West
Moreover, with his enthusiasm for Spengler's Decline of the West, Alija
Izetbegović introduces into his Islam between East and West a distant
echo of messianism and an indication of an Islamic renaissance. It cannot
be a coincidence that Izetbegović chose verses3 by Muhammad Iqbal
(2011, 56) from his Javid-nama as the motto of his work which serves
the same or at least a similar purpose for which Spengler (1926, 140)
4
chose Geothe's verses.
On many pages of Islam between East and West we can detect quite a
strong wish by Izetbegović to make room for distant echoes of Spengler's
ideas from Decline of the West.
The structure of Izetbegović's Islam between East and West does not
permit a simple walk through its pages because on the pages of this work
the author tries to do many things, with varying degrees of success. First,
occasionally -or, better to say, rarely– he confronts what he considers to
be “Islam” or “true Islam” with the state of Muslims in the 19th and 20th
centuries. There is no need to stress that Izetbegović saw the state of
Muslims as despicable, wretched, and miserable. Second, in this work
Izetbegović confronts his views about Islam with the then prevailing
Socialist and Communist systems in the world, particularly in the
hemisphere in which the USSR had a leading word. Third, Izetbegović
confronts his understanding and interpretation of Islam with the current,
ideologically aided trends in natural and social science (or what used to
be considered valid scientific methods, trends and findings) such as
Evolutionism, Darwinism, Biologism, etc. Izetbegović offers his, often
powerful, but in many places also a simplified critique of Darwinism and
Evolutionism (in the field of natural sciences) and of Marxism (in the
field of social sciences and theories). Fourth, his Islam Between East and
3 The verses by Muhammad Iqbal are: “Though it is out of the East that the sun rises
showing itself bold and bright, without a veil, only then it burns and blazes with inward
fire when it escapes from the shackles of East and West; drunk with splendour it springs
up out of its East that it may subject all horizons to its mastery; its nature is innocent of
both East and West, though relationship-wise, true, it is an Easterner.”
4 The verses borrowed by Oswald Spengler from Goethe are: ”In the Endless, selfrepeating flows for evermore The Same. Myriad arches, springing, meeting, hold at rest
the mighty frame. Streams from all things love of living, grandest star and humblest clod.
All the straining, all the striving is eternal peace in God.”
9
West contains also many successful pages on, tentatively speaking,
philosophy and theory of culture, science, law, aesthetics and ethics. One
should particularly highlight the passages dedicated to culture and
civilization, morals and utopia, society and community, morals and
religion, drill and upbringing, art and religion, art and science, religion
and revolution, and so on.
There are tens of pages in the book on which there is not a single
mention of Islam, Muslims, the Qur'an and such like. The link between
those pages with the main topic of the book (and its topic is the same as
title, Islam Between East and West) needs to be deduced from
Izetbegović's allusions, headwords, views, in fact from his overall
philosophy with which Islam Between East and West as well as his other
works are infused.
As a follower of functional dualism (as we have seen, most of his essays
bear ”dualist“ titles or subtitles: Culture and Civilization, Moral and
Utopia, Society and Community, Morals and Religion, Drill and
Upbringing, Art and Religion, Art and Science, Religion and Revolution,
etc), even when he writes about these “secular” themes, in the back of
Izetbegović's mind there is an intention to offer the reader “Islam as the
solution”, “Islam as the middle path”, or at least to offer what he regards
to be the “Islamic view”, or the “Islamic outlook” of things from his
contemporariness. Thus, Izetbegović's dualism in these places has only
functional nature. However, sometimes this “dualist method” takes
better of the author and the very essence of what he wants to present in
the book, resulting in affectation and a reductionist observation of
Islamic topics.
II - An ideological discourse about Islam
Islam Between East and West enjoys exceptional importance in
Izetbegović's ouvre and thought in general, and in his Islamic thought,
especially within the framework and context of his views on the
“political philosophy of Islam”.
In this work Izetbegović displays a degree of knowledge about the
Muslim literature of reformist and modernist provenance written at the
10
end of the 19th and during the 20th century, especially of Muslim schools
of thought in Europe, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey, Algeria, Morocco, as
well as of local reformers in the Balkans. Izetbegović did not know the
Arabic language. He derived reformist and modernist ideas and theories
of Muslim schools of thought from Egypt and other Arab countries
indirectly, through sources in English and French. He gained his insights
into Arab, Turkish and Indo-Pakistani currents in contemporary Islam
mainly via English and French, and by way of translations from Turkish,
German and Arabic into Bosnian.
Islam Between East and West is a good and even a useful proof that it has
always been possible in Islamic history to offer a provocative, an
effective and an intellectual answer to the call of Islamic universalism
even when the author in question is not familiar with traditional Islamic
sciences. Of course, this method exposes its authors to various risks, the
biggest of which is what Edward Said calls “essentializing” the subject
under consideration. On the pages of Islam Between East and West one
often comes across an “Islam” which is completely essentialized,
ahistorical, general, experientially elusive. Besides, such an Islam is
emotional, too.
The reason for this is that Alija Izetbegović's Islamic thought was formed
during ideologically fragile times and around the cluster of modernist
and reformist ideas which were conceived among Muslim and Islamic
thinkers of different hues and who were among the first to become
dedicated to studying the consequences of the arrival of the mighty West
into Islamic world in the shape of colonial and neocolonial powers:
England, France, Holland, Portugal, Spain, etc. Those Muslim thinkers
(who, but in different ways, were all concerned with questions such as:
What has happened to us, Muslims? Why did the Western powers
conquer us? What is to be done? What is the place of Islam today?, etc5)
were by origin from Europe, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Turkey, Algeria,
Morocco, etc. These thinkers, reformers, modernists, revivalists from
5 It is sufficient to open any Islamic or Muslim magazine or newspaper to find texts
which are still entitled with What is to be done? See, for example, Muzafar Iqbal,
“Challenges to Islam and Muslims: What is to be done?“, in Islamic Studies, vol. 42, no. 4,
Islamabad, 2003, p. 595 and further).
11
India, later Pakistan, persons like Syed Ahmad Khan (1817-1898), Syed
Ameer Ali (1849-1928), Muhammad Iqbal (1870-1979), Abu Ala alMaududi (1903-1979), then the thinkers, reformers, modernists and
revivalists from Egypt such as: Muhammad Abduhu (1849-1905), Rashid
Rida,6 Hasan al-Banna (1906-1949), Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966), and many
others, produced rich literature on the topic of der Islam in der
Gegenwart (Islam in the contemporary age), as Germans would say, i.e.
with profiling a Muslim concept of the present, as Nerkez Smailagić
would say (1927-1987).
Just as the geographical origins of the above-mentioned thinkers of
contemporary Islam are different, so are their views on the role of Islam
in the modern age.7 But, their intellectual and theoretical efforts may be
synthesized into several postulates and summarized into several points,
which they offered with the aim of liberating Muslims from their own
inertia (internally) and West's dominance (in the shape of Capitalism
and Socialism externally) as follows:
- The Islamic belief needs to be rationalized.
- It is necessary to liberalize Sharia law.
- Islamic social institutions (khalifa, khilafat, ijma', etc.) need to be
substituted with something else, eg. an all-Islamic league of
nations, a council of scholars, a council of people's representatives,
and such like.
- Muslim societies must become emancipated and it is particularly
necessary to initiate emancipation of the Muslim woman.
- It is necessary to view classical theological systems not as eternally
binding interpretations of Islam, but as examples of
interpretations from the past. Classical interpretations have only
6 Besides Muhammad ‘Abduhu and Rashid Rida (died 1935) one should add their teacher
Jamal al-din al-Afghani (1838 –1897), who was active in Persia, Ottoman Empire, France,
England, Russia and especially in Egypt within the school of thought known as al-Manar
(the Lighthouse).
7 A good and systematic review of teachings and theories expounded by these authors
may be found in: Fikret Karčić, Društveno-pravni aspekt islamskog reformizma [Social and
Legal Aspect of Islamic Reformism], Fakultet islamskih nauka, Sarajevo, 1990.
12
secondary importance for providing fresh and contemporary
interpretations of Islam through the methodology of ijtihad.
- Ulama have become priest-like and there is no priesthood in Islam.
Thus, it is necessary to deny ulama the monopoly over the
“symbolic treasure of Islam”.8
All these postulates have brought about a new kind of discourse which
may be designated as an “ideologized Islam.” There are many examples
and passages of Alija Izetbegović's discourse showing an ideologized
form of Islam.
In forming his Islamic thought Alija Izetbegović refers not only to the
ideas and opinions of Muslim reformist, modernist and revivalist
authors, but in the same measure, and even more than that, to European
existentialist philosophers and Western theoreticians, philosophers of
culture and history, and often to Soviet scientists and theoreticians, as
well as to writers of various ideological and scholarly persuasions and
from various scholarly disciplines. His referring to scientific discoveries
was the fashionable with many Islamic theoreticians during the 19th and
20th centuries, but interpretation of sacred texts in the context of
fashionable scientific discoveries proved, sooner or later, forced and
unsuccessful. This is seen in the huge production that belongs to
modernist and reformist Islamic thinking and there is no doubt that
Izetbegović's Islam between East and West belongs to this type of
thinking, too.
III - When did Izetbegović write Islam between East and West?
This question is important and it is good to raise it and to try to answer it
based on facts. Besides, it is particularly significant to give documented
answers, because the time in which Alija Izetbegović wrote Islam
between East and West will help us understand better the ideas and the
thought structure of the work. It will enable us to review critically his
views and to understand the context in which he wrote it.
8 The expression “monopoly over the symbolic treasure of Islam” is taken from
Muhammad Arkoun.
13
After considering a number of facts which mutually support and confirm
each other one can affirm with certainty that Izetbegović wrote most
chapters of this work in the late 1960s, during the 1970s and early
1980s, and that he then amended and polished them. If we use the
method of ”textual evidence“ (or evidence from the author's text itself)
one can conclude that Izetbegović wrote its main themes and completed
and updated its units mainly between 1965 and 1980. The early 1980s
he used almost exclusively for improving and polishing the text.
In an attempt to precisely date various chapters in Islam between East
and West our best guide is the author and the information he gives in the
book. There is no reason not to believe his words such as, for example,
”recently stated“ (before quoting the source and the year); or
Izetbegović's wording ”as I am writing this“ (followed by the year in
which he wrote it in brackets), etc. This information provided by
Izetbegović is the best evidence of the time of writing, i.e. the dating of
various chapters of the book.
For example, in the chapter entitled “Historical Compromise” and Social
Democracy, he writes:
As I am writing this (1977) Spain is preparing for her first free elections.
According to some forecasts, Spanish people will this time opt for the
centre, for the first time in history. If this happens, both the leftist and
rightist dogmatics should draw a lesson from the Spanish
example”(Izetbegović, 1996, 338).
The chapter which Izetbegović (1996) alludes to with the words “as I am
writing this” is chapter 11 entitled the “Third Path” Outside Islam. If he
wrote it in 1977, this would probably mean that he wrote the first 10
chapters (or most of the first 10 chapters) earlier. This is easy to prove,
too. For instance, In chapter 1 “Evolution and Creation”, sub-section 3
(“Dualism of the Living World”) Izetbegović (1996) refers to the opinion
of, as he puts it, “perhaps the greatest living biologist today” Jean
Rostand who says that “at the present moment we do not know what life
is...” (57). But on the same page he adds a footnote in which he tersely
states that the biologist Jean Rostand “died in 1977”. This note suggests
indirectly that Chapter 1 of “Evolution and Creation”, and its third sub-
14
section (“Dualism of the Living world”) were written a couple of years or
months before the death of Jean Rostand in 1977.
Also, on page 340, on which he analyses specific tension in relations
between Marxist-Communist and the religious Catholic forces and
currents in France and the possible ways of overcoming that tension,
Izetbegović (1996) writes:
Recently (1977) the Permanent Council of the French Episcopate issued a
special declaration entitled 'Marxism, Man and the Christian Faith'. In it
French bishops note 'the failure of Social policy of liberalism' before
finally concluding that 'Marxism contains part of the truth which we are
not ignoring' (340).
One can clearly see from this passage that it was written in 1977, since
the author himself affirms so.
Also, speaking of his view of the Muslim countries “gaining the
independence of mind and political independence” Izetbegović reveals
when it was that he intended to send his book for publication. He says in
one of the footnotes:
When this book was under preparation for publication, two great Muslim
countries, Iran and Pakistan, cancelled their membership in the proWestern CENTO pact. Earlier, Indonesia, Sudan and Somalia thwarted
attempts to become drawn into an ideological domination by the Eastern
Block (Izetbegović, 1996, 27).
In order to resolve the question of “when this book was under
preparation for publication“ it is necessary to know when Iran and
Pakistan cancelled their membership in the CENTO Pact. It is a general
view that the CENTO Pact9 ceased to exist in 1979 following the outbreak
of the Iranian Revolution. It follows from this that some time during
1979 Izetbegović prepared (or was preparing) his book for publication.
9 CENTO was a military and political alliance established in 1955 by Turkey, UK, Iraq,
Iran and Pakistan. Its headquarters were in Baghdad under the official name Middle East
Organization. In the diplomatic and journalistic parlance it was also known as the
Baghdad Pact. Iraq withdrew from the aliance so that its seat was moved to Ankara in
1959, when it became known as CENTO pact. USA joined it. After the victory of Islamic
revolution in Iran in 1979 CENTO lost its purpose.
15
On page 339 Izetbegović, indirectly again, reveals when he wrote (or
proof-read) the book by saying:
Pope John Paul II has recently (during his visit to USA in 1979) stated
that 'a systematic threat to man's right is linked to the distribution of
material goods.' Only he who is familiar with the real nature of
Christianity can judge what kind of a shift this statement signifies
(Izetbegović, 1996, 339).
In some other places Izetbegović also passingly informs his readers
about when he wrote a chapter or a passage of his Islam Between East
and West. These places suggest the time context for the emergence of
this work, which is of great importance for its analysis.
If one takes all these facts into account, it is no longer necessary to stress
the ambiguity of the statement by Bakir Izetbegović, the son of Alija
Izetbegović, that Islam between East and West was written in 1945, i.e.
when Alija Izetbegović was 20 years old. In his statement for the Dnevni
Avaz of 17 July 2004, Bakir Izetbegović is reported to have said this:
My father wrote the books Islamic Declaration and Islam Between East
and West when he was very young, when he was 20. He always used to
read and write a lot... (Sarač, 2004, 3).
It is possible that Bakir Izetbegović thought that in 1945 the young Alija
Izetbegović, as a 20 year old, conceived major contours of his ideas
which he would put to paper later, but his claim that Alija Izetbegović
wrote those works at that time is not at all defensible.
After all, for the sake of putting to rest this controversy about when Alija
Izetbegović really wrote Islam between East and West, let us refer to a
kind of Izetbegović's samizdat, i.e. an edition of this work prepared by
Alija Izetbegović himself. For, after the Belgrade edition of Islam between
East and West was published in 1988 (the very first edition of the work
in Bosnian), there appeared the second edition in 1990, this time in
Sarajevo. In this 1990-edition of the book it is neatly stated that the
publisher is Alija Izetbegović, the reviewers are Dr Predrag Matvejević
and Dr Muhamed Filipović while language editing was made by Džemal
Latić. The edition was published by Uniprint from Sarajevo (Izetbegović,
1990). On the back cover one can read a clear statement:
16
The manuscript of Islam between East and West was completed in 1975
and, in a way, it represents an anticipation of the renaissance of Islam
and the current events in the Islamic world.
As expressed, this statement is not valid, either. For, on the pages of the
same samizdat, i.e. the first Sarajevo edition of the book from 1990, on
whose back cover one can read that the manuscript of Islam between
East and West was completed in 1975, Alija Izetbegović quotes a
statement from someone called Simle who reportedly said at a congress
of archaeologists in 1976 in Nice:
Even cave people suffered 70,000 years BCE from 'metaphysical
dizziness', a disease of the modern man (Izetbegović, 1990, 30).
If the manuscript was really completed in 1975, then it could not have
included allusions to later events, that is, those after 1975, even with the
most refined metaphysical intervention.
As we could see from the above mentioned quotes from Izetbegović
himself, and from many passages taken ad verbatim from Islam between
East and West, Izetbegović often refers to events which took place in
1977, 1978, and 1979. All this casuistry (“when did Alija Izetbegović
really write Islam between East and West”) should be put an end to with a
rhetorical question: if the manuscript was completed in 1975, how come
it addresses events taking place in 1977, 1978, and 1979?
The only sound answer is that the work originated in the late 1960s,
1970s and early 1980s. Of course, the ideas expressed in the work could
have matured in Izetbegović's mind earlier and may have even been
already written down in some form or shape. But the late 1960s, 1970s
and 1980s are the “axial time” of Izetbegović writing Islam between East
and West. Let's add that the early 1980s were the time when the author
regularly went back to the text, the time of brushing and polishing its
many passages.
In an attempt to save the author from the mistake and inconsistency of
this note from the last page of the samizdat edition of Islam Between East
and West from 1990, one can say that the author of the note probably
wanted to say that the work's key themes and ideas were articulated,
completed, and written down in 1975. As any responsible author would
17
do, Izetbegović later worked on his manuscript, returned to it, refined it,
occasionally expanded it, and updated it with additional data.
IV – Which “East” and which “West” in Islam Between East and West?
It is possible to say that the title of Islam between East and West
remained only briefly true to the reality it aimed to address. In other
words, already by 1990 the title and the bulk of the work was already
out of fashion in relation to the mind-boggling changes in the ideological
and politico-geographic realities of the previous bi-polar division of the
world into Socialist “East” and the capitalist “West.”
Of course, this argument is meaningful only if by “East” Izetbegović
meant the Socialist east, and by “West” the capitalist West.10
In this regard, there is one among many facts indicating that Izetbegović
knew that after the first edition of the book in Serbo-Croat (let us recall:
Belgrade, biblioteka NOVA, 1988)11 many ideological, political and
politico-geographical facts and “constants” in the world had changed. If
we cannot believe we can at least assume that Izetbegović realized the
need to occasionally intervene and change an outdated terminology,
nomenclature or data given in the work. However, this was done only
rarely.
By comparing Serbo-Croat, English, Arabic and several Bosnian editions
of the work it is clear that Izetbegović did not change the content of the
book. As we know, after 1991 the USSR no longer existed on the world's
political map. But, in spite of the planetary important fact of the USSR's
disappearance, Izetbegović left the USSR in the later Bosnian editions of
10 As it is known, Berlin Wall fell in 1990, USSR disappeared in 1991, Communist cover
was gone and the revival of religious tradition within Islam, Eastern Orthodoxy and
Roman Catholicism in the area took place. (It is interesting that even in the 1996 edition
Izetbegović did not feel the need to point out the possible lack of currency of the book
title. It is hard to know his reasons, but it is possible to suggest that East (Socialist block)
means and designates materialism, while West signifies individualism, and even religious
individualism).
11 The publishers of this edition were Bakir Izetbegović and Slobodan Mašić. Its printing
was completed in November 1998.
18
Islam Between East and West without even adding the prefix “the former”
(Izetbegović, 1996, 134-136). Also, in the editions from 1995 and 1996
Izetbegović mentions “West Germany” even though the country ceased
to exist following the unification of two German states after 1990 (1996,
112).
One can also note that the 1996 edition of the work the Socialist
Yugoslavia is described as “the former”! If one briefly compares two
editions of Islam between East and West, the Belgrade edition of 1988
and the Sarajevo edition of 1996 (by Svjetlost), one can observe precisely
this change.
For, when speaking of an incredibly high and worrying increase in
suicides, depression and alcoholism and “similar diseases and vices of
the modern developed world” Izetbegović (1988) says: “In Yugoslavia,
for example, the number of alcoholics and suicides is literally
comparable to the level of [the country’s] development” (81).
Nevertheless, in the Sarajevo edition from 1996 in this passage
Yugoslavia became the “former Yugoslavia” (Izetbegović, 1996, 111).
Consequently, it is not clear why Izetbegović did not intervene in several
Bosnian editions of the work in the same way and refresh the facts of the
new editions when it came to the states of former USSR, West Germany,
etc. Throughout the whole book of Islam between East and West in all
editions from 1995 and 1996 the USSR always remains USSR, regardless
of the fact that the USSR became “former” in 1991 when it was
transformed into the Commonwealth of Independent States. The Arabic
edition of the work published in Munich in 1994 by Bavaria Verlag &
Handel GmbH, i.e. at a time when USSR was no more, the translators left
the old state of matters as written by Izetbegović and as appeared in the
first, Belgrade edition of the work! (It is hard to know the reasons for
Izetbegović not updating the later editions of the work and for not
refreshing and renewing them in terms of facts, as already said. One can
only assume that he thought that the external collapse of USSR in 1991
did not necessarily amount to the state of affairs this polity comprised or
left behind as political legacy, etc, in other words that ”the death of the
19
goat did not stop the unpleasant smell of goat-meat“, as the folk saying
goes.
This concern as to why the author described Yugoslavia with the word
”former“ and did not do the same for the USSR (and why there was no
note explaining reasons for publishing the work in an unchanged format)
is not mere hair-splitting, but an attempt to give an accurate meaning to
the words ”East“ and ”West“ not only in Islam Between East and West, but
also in his thinking and ideas about Islam.
It is difficult to shed an impression that Izetbegović had in mind (very
often)
precisely
the
materialist/Socialist “East”
and
the
religious/Capitalist “West”, since such a bipolar division of the world
follows from Izetbegović's words at the very beginning of the work:
Modern world is under the sign of a sharp ideological conflict which has
lasted for years... (Izetbegović, 1996, 15).
What else could the ”ideological conflict“ mean if not ”the conflict
between Socialism and Capitalism“ to which Izetbegović was a witness
for decades and which made him (because he lived in the Socialist
hemisphere) an intellectual in exile, a thinker under siege, an exiled pen!
Of course, it is quite necessary here to take into account the possibility
that under ”East“ Izetbegović meant the several thousand years old
”mystical“, ”Magian“, ”far eastern“, ”Zen Buddhist“ East, while by the
”West“ he meant the ”rational,“ ”technical“, ”enlightening“, ”materialist“
and ”secular“ West, which experienced its rise in the wake of Humanism
and Renaissance and the bourgeoisie revolutions, especially after the
18th century. Nevertheless, Izetbegović was aware that his use of the
terms ”East“ and ”West“ applies more to religio-philosophical than to
politico-geographical classification of the world. But there are many
pages in the book in which ”East“ and ”West“ mean nothing more than
politico-geographical distinction and division of the world during most
of the 20th century. Perhaps because he saw in it an unchangeable
constant of the world Izetbegović did not consider it necessary to explain
the title of his book in any detail.
Be it as it may, Izetbegović thought that the bipolar division of the world
offered him a rare chance to interpret the position of Islam as the
20
mediating, as the central, as the synthesizing. As a matter of fact, the
accent in the title of the book is on Islam which is in between East and
West. This at the same time means that the Islam as seen by Izetbegović
has neither its east nor its west, because Islam –as he sees it– has not
turned into an ideological bloc. The step towards Islam's transformation
into an “ideological bloc” is something Izetbegović indicates, something
he wishes and wants to see happen. He calls that block ”the third way“
which consists (at least in some of the passages) in the synthesis and in
the softening of ”West“ and ”East.“
If we take the very title of the book, the words ”Islam Between East and
West“ reveal a spirit of times, but also a spiritual disposition of the
author in whose mind the ideas for this work emerged and matured. It is
possible that long ago, in the prime of his youth, Izetbegović took the
view that in our Muslim and Islamic interpretations Islam should be
positioned as a ”religion in between“, that is to say, “religion of the
middle position“, as a teaching, a set of principles, beliefs, institutions
and ideas which ”find their place between Judaism and Christianity“.
This is a great theme of his Islam Between East and West which
Izetbegović tries to prove.
However, the title of the work also reveals Izetbegović's admission that
Islam in the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s and 1980s was (or maybe it still is?)
placed between “East” and “West”. It is not necessary to mention that not
only the title, but the whole book Islam Between East and West is meant
to offer a view or many views of the position and role of Islam in the
context of the ”sharp ideological conflict” between ”East and West“ in
which the modern world lives.
Modern world is under the sign of a sharp ideological conflict which has
been going on for years and whose end is difficult to see. One way or
another, we are all involved in the conflict, be it as actors or as victims.
What is the place of Islam in this gigantic confrontation? Does it have a
role to play in shaping today's world? (Izetbegović, 1996, 15).
There is no need to beat about the bush, since Izetbegović did not do it
either, and one should say that Islam Between East and West openly
offers a solution for overcoming this “sharp ideological conflict”. For
21
12
Izetbegović Islam itself is that synthesizing solution. In his opinion the
world of Islam in the contemporary world is not ideologically engaged,
or ideologically drained, or engrossed in the “sharp ideological conflict”.
In this regard he says:
However, one part of the world is not embraced by this polarization, and
its majority consists of Muslim countries. This phenomenon is not a
coincidence. Muslim peoples feel that they have nothing to look for in the
current ideological conflict and even when they cannot formulate an
active position; they take the position of non-belonging (Izetbegović,
1996, 27).
Only the naive could think that with these words Izetbegović wanted
personally to be a witness as “an ideologue of non-aligned movement”
from the shadows. It would not be right to interpret his view expressed
in Islam Between East and West about “Muslim world not belonging”
during that giant polarization (as Izetbegović imagined it:
“West/Capitalism/religion – East/Socialism/materialism”) in the context
of the then Non-Aligned Movement. That would be a shallow
understanding of the book.
But, it also does not mean that Izetbegović thoroughly checked the
soundness of his position when he said that “Muslim peoples feel that
they have nothing to look for in the current ideological conflict.” It is
possible that he is partly right in saying the “Muslim peoples”, but one
could not say the same for the majority of Muslim regimes and political
systems which largely took sides with one or the other bloc in the
13
“ideological conflict” during the second half of the 20th century. After
all, even in the capitalist West it was not the peoples who became
capitalists, but these were capitalist systems and regimes, just as in the
age of Socialism in Eastern Europe only the regimes and systems were
Socialist, not the peoples!
12 Here we recall the contemporary Egyptian theoretician Muhammad 'Immara and his
work “Hal al-Islamu huwa al-hallu“ [Is Islam the solution?], Dar al-shuruq, Cairo, 1995.
13 Most of member state in the Non-aligned movement were Muslim, but for some nonalignment was just cosmetics. In most Muslim countries one quite clearly know if the
governing regime was pro-American or pro-Soviet.
22
Hence, Izetbegović leaves aside the fact that during 20th century
(especially during its second half) many Muslim regimes accepted not
only Capitalism, but Socialism, too, and even Communism as their
political platform and ideology. Hundreds of books were published and
countless PhD dissertations written and defended on the so-called
14
“Islamic Socialism”, “Arab Socialism”, etc. Out of courtesy and for
diplomatic reasons the writer of this essay will not name Muslim
countries which had or still have veritable Communist regimes, Marxist
or Maoist military juntas and one party systems in power and which, in
accordance with their interpretation of Socialism and Marxism,
perpetrated all the crimes against their own people that Stalin, Pol Pot
and others did, too. There are known cases, which are sadly not isolated,
of those who serviced such Muslim regimes and who destroyed and
obliterated Muslim or other populations of entire lands! (Let us recall
that USA claims to have launched its intervention in Iraq in 2003 partly
because the Ba‘athist Saddam Hussein had been mercilessly
exterminating Kurds and Shiites. Regardless of this American claim born
by the perspective of eyes made misty by shedding crocodile tears, it is
not difficult to see from the relevant literature that many Muslim
regimes and system in the 20th century were quite cruel and that they
justified their cruelty with Socialism, Marxism and Communism). It was
precisely Islam as religion, as culture and civilization, a traditional Islam,
which became the first victim of Muslim regimes in the 20th century and
their “five year plans”, the regimes which took Communism and
Socialism as their political platform.
In Islam Between East and West Izetbegović did not pay the necessary
and realistic attention to that big problem of the so-called “Arab” and the
so-called “Islamic Socialism”. In the absence of experience and of being
intellectually well-informed about the cruelties of “Arab” and “Islamic”
socialism, Izetbegović enthusiastically wrote the following lines:
14 Even the Islamic Community in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Slovenia published
Roger Garaudy's book Islam, Culture and Socialism (translated by Dr. Ahmed Smajlović)
in 1981 in which Socialism is occasionally praised and Islam is largely seen as being
“Socialist“ by nature!
23
The absence or failure of Marxist revolutions in Muslim countries is not a
coincidence. Islam has its own Marxism. The Qur'an has retained
something of the bitter realism of the Old Testament, and Marxism in
Europe is a compensation or substitute for the Jewish, Old Testament
component which the Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox Christianity
completely squeezed out (Izetbegović, 1996, 253).
Here historical facts are not in agreement with Izetbegović, nor are the
clearly visible realities of many parts of Muslim world during second half
of the 20th century. Arab and Muslim world have the experience of not
only the “present”, but sadly also of “successful” Marxist revolutions! The
Arabic word thawrah (ٌ ‫ )ثَوْ َرة‬means precisely rebellion, that is,
“revolution”. Ba‘athist regimes used the term to describe their military
coups when they seized power in, for example, Syria and Iraq. In
imitation of Russians, Chinese and other “brotherly Socialist peoples”
they called these bloody takeovers Socialist revolutions! Many Marxist
classics were translated into Arabic under the sponsorship of those
Marxist regimes. Many Muslim countries saw the emergence of fierce
opposition to Marxist and Socialist revolutions in the form of domestic,
seemingly home-grown counterpoint –“Islamic revolution” (al-thawrah
al-islamiyyah– ٌ ‫“ !)الثَّوْ َرة ٌ اإل ْسالَ ِميَّة‬Islamic revolution” took as its platform
neither Marxism, nor Leninism, but one or more forms of an ideologized
Islam.15
Of course, one should take into account Izetbegović's love for Muslim
countries (no less shared by the writer of this essay), but there is no
reliable basis for Izetbegović's idealization of the Muslim world when it
comes to exporting Marxist and Socialist revolutions and regimes there,
because Muslim world was neither innocent, not immune to Socialism
and Communism, or Capitalism for that matter. To be sure, there are
differences of intensity, but Communist and Marxist regimes in the
Muslim world acted according to the principle of “a chip off the old
block”! Like their models in Moscow, Beijing and elsewhere they, too, set
15 On the phenomenon of Islamic revolution as a counter-point and counter-movement
to Marxism and Socialist in Muslim countries in the 20th century see: Enes Karić, Kur'an
u savremenom dobu, I- II [the Qur'an in the Modern Age], El-Kalem & BKC, Sarajevo, 1997.
See also: Enes Karić, Tumačenje Kur'ana i ideologije XX stoljeća [the Qur'an Interpretation
and Ideologies of the 20th Century], Bemust, Sarajevo, 2002.
24
up concentration camps for the opposition, intellectuals, minority
leaders, etc.
Traditional Islamic ulama and pro-Muslim secular intellectuals were
particularly hit hard by these regimes. Sayyid Qutb, whom Izetbegović
mentions in Islam between East and West in several places with respect
(1996, 248), was hanged by a Socialist regime, the Nasserite regime of
Egypt.16
The fact that Capitalist experiments in the Muslim world, just as Socialist
and Communist ones, were more benign in comparison with their parent
countries: the capitalism of the West and the socialism of the former
Soviet and Chinese East. Due to their lack of atomic and nuclear weapons
these experiments were not given special attention in the prevailing
political constellation in the world. But this does not mean that Muslim
world resisted the temptations of Capitalism, Marxism and Socialism.
It has already been noted that in much of his book Izetbegović offers
Islam as an alternative to the “world's division into blocs”. Izetbegović's
offer is not shallow, it is not inspired by the political philosophy of NonAligned Movement, but by an enthusiastic view of Islam as “ideologically
independent, uninvolved” factor and therefore, a synthesizing force in
the contemporary world which can overcome the idealism of religion
and the atheism of materialism.
All this non-engagement of the Muslim world is not only political.
Everywhere it is followed by an equally determined demand for rejecting
foreign models and influences, both from East and from West. In fact,
Islam is ideologically independent, ideologically unengaged. It is so by its
very definition. This is a matter of a natural and legal state of things
We have already seen that Izetbegović's statement about noninvolvement of Muslim peoples (and especially the regimes) in their own
projects of capitalism and socialism during 20th century is questionable.
There is no need to go back to this. But one takes his statement to mean
that his view of the bipolar division of the world was derived (and in his
16 Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Naser had Sayyid Qutb put on trial and hanged in
1996.
25
case, fueled) by the then division of the world in to capitalist West and
Socialist/Communist East.
It follows from the previous quote that Izetbegović identifies Islam with
the Muslim world. He says: “Islam is ideologically independent,
ideologically unengaged”. Indeed, if one takes the Islam of the Qur'an and
Hadith, the Islam of the early centuries, one could agree with Izetbegović.
But, it is clear that by “Islam” Izetbegović means “Muslims” and, based on
the rich body of evidence on which to form a view, they were not
ideologically unengaged either in the 20th century or today. But this is a
topic for another study.
Be it as it may, Izetbegović, having argued that Islam was “unengaged”
adds that:
Islam does not have to see its chance in negating or destroying either of
these two worlds. Its superiority comes from its capacity to recognize
their portions of truth and justice. Global contradictions, of which the
existing blocs are historical expressions, may be overcome only by
building a third world... (Izetbegović, 1996, 27).
It is clear from these words that Izetbegović was not primarily a
revolutionary type of man, since he is not in favor of “destroying either
capitalist West or Socialist East.” He is in favor of (their) synthesis, he is a
synthesizer, and it is in such a context and direction that he interprets
Islam:
At a time when it is becoming clear that the ideologies in conflict in their
extreme form cannot impose themselves on mankind and that they must
strive towards a synthesis, a middle position, we want to show how
Islam is harmoniously linked to this natural course of human thought,
accepting it, encouraging it and gradually becoming their most
consistent and complete expression (Izetbegović, 1996, 27).
Hence, Islam is harmoniously linked to a natural course of thought, as
Izetbegović says, and among the “natural courses of human thought“ he
counts religion and materialism, two poles, two confronting positions
which Islam - as he sees it – can reconcile and bring about their
synthesis.
Izetbegović was fairly convinced that Islam is the unity of “religion and
materialism”, that is the position he takes in the book from the first to
26
the last page. He thought that with its synthesizing potential Islam could
contribute to surmounting the “the world's division into blocs”, the
globe's split into “capitalist West” and “socialist East.”
Islam not only recognizes the truth of Socialism and Christianity, but
even insists on it. For, if Socialism is a lie, then Islam is not a complete
truth either. To demonstrate the trueness of Islam means at the same
time to demonstrate the trueness of Socialism and Christianity and the
imperfection of their truth (Izetbegović, 1996, 27).
If we understand Izetbegović well, religion/Christianity is true (but only
half-way); materialism/Socialism is also true (half-way), whereas Islam,
being a synthesis of religion and materialism (i.e. a synthesis of their
external forms, Christianity and Socialism) is whole and, ipso facto, an
encompassing truth!
Izetbegović presents variations of this argument several times in Islam
between East and West. It is interesting that he never subjects this
position to critical examination. For example, he does not ask the
following question: is it islamically sound to derive Islam's foundations
from a pair (Christianity and Islam) from something which, after all, is
outside Islam? He does not want to ask, even as a possibility, this
question: is it necessary to seek confirmation of Islam outside Islam?
Also, what if Socialism as a human-made ideological construct
disappears, but Christianity survives? On what basis are we then going to
reach the synthesis, Islam?
Izetbegović delays these questions and does not ask them straight away.
Other Muslim reformers, revivalists and modernists of the 20th century
did not ask them either, even at the methodological level of checking
their premises and conclusions in various fields of research and activity.
They often expressed their opinion only at the level of principle (In this
context and with these distinguishing features of a principled and at the
same time engaged presentation of arguments Izetbegović's Islamic
thought ranks among the summits of Muslim revivalist, reformist and
modernist literature. In terms of presenting arguments in the form of
principles Izetbegović's book can stand shoulder to shoulder with the
works of Sayyid Qutb, Abu Ala Maududi, Hasan al-Banna and others. In
this regard Izetbegović must be given credit).
27
For better or worse, the world's duality, the dualist division of the
modern world into blocs which Izetbegović lived through in the second
half of the 20th century fascinated him to the extent that everywhere he
saw dualism of various forms. Thus one can find hundreds of places in
the book in which Izetbegović reaches the results of his thinking, or at
least wants to reach them, only by way of a construed dualism.
Whatever Izetbegović writes in Islam between East and West, there is
somewhere in the background of his thinking a dualism of various forms.
For him even tawhid, the key term in Islam, is a mere synthesis reached
via dualism, that is to say, dualism of religion and materialism
disappears through a process of synthesis and with its vanishing and
disappearance there emerges Islamic tawhid! For example, just as man is
“unity of spirit and body”, so Islam is “a permanent quest for a state of
internal and external equilibrium:”
For the future and for man's practical attempts, Islam means a call for
creating man as the carrier of body and soul and society whose laws and
social and political institutions will be established in way that upholds
their harmony not undermine it. Islam is, or ought to be, a permanent
quest in the flow of history, for a state of internal and external
equilibrium. In any case, there is no demand more natural and whose
possibilities have been less examined or tested. This goal stands before
Islam today and in it is its specific historical task in years to come
Although Izetbegović was a good stylist, typically Socialist expressions
left a visible mark on his language: “call to create a man”, “socio-political
institutions”, “specific historic task”, etc. Islam has never meant a call for
“creating a man...”, but it has meant, among many other things, call to
bring up and refine man, etc. Also, Islamic tawhid has always (at the level
of methodology of ilm al-kalam) meant a unity of plurality, not a unity of
duality, as Izetbegović wants to demonstrate. For, Islam does not signify
a synthesis of two opposites of a dualism (Islamic theology or ilm alkalam, the main schools of jurisprudence in Islam, and Sufism, too,
without exception have sought to explain during the 14 centuries of
historical Islam that tawhid is the unity of plurality. Given that
Izetbegović belonged to a trend in thinking which greatly disputed the
achievements of ilm al-kalam, ulama and Sufism, he was bound by the
28
preliminary nature of his thinking about Islamic monotheism to fall into
reductionism).
In concluding this section let us say that in the main, Izetbegović
regarded “West” in the title of his book to mean religious, Christian,
capitalist West. “East” is materialist, atheist, socialist East (USSR, China,
etc). For the purposes of his study he often expresses the duality of
opposites, “East” vs “West” into symbols of opposition and confrontation:
a) religion vs. materialism
b) upbringing vs. drill,
c) dramas vs. utopia,
d) reformation vs. revolution,
e) cult vs. tools,
f) intentions vs. deeds, etc.
Everywhere Izetbegović tries to retain this dualism, which is so
characteristic not only of his style of writing, but of his thinking also.
V - Which “Islam” in Islam between East and West?
This, too, is an important question, because Alija Izetbegović did not
study Islam formally or systematically, nor – as already mentioned - did
he know Arabic.
He did not graduate from a Bosnian madrasa or an Islamic or some other
theological seminary. In terms of Islamic studies he was a ”layman“, but
not a ”secularist“! When it comes to his Islamic education, one can say
that he was an industrious, hard-working and also a self-taught person.
When Izetbegović writes books on Islam, he does not pretend to offer
something ulama-like or theological. As we have seen, he does not hide
this fact.
In his youth, within his intimate intellectual milieu of Young Muslims
circle, Izetbegović came across literature that was emphatically antiulama and anti-mulla in orientation.
29
Such an orientation among some members of Young Muslims is
understandable up to a point (and it was conditioned not only by the
literature they were reading, but also by the spiritual temperament of
the time!). At the time the thinking in Bosnia in the first half of the 20th
century (and largely in the Islamic and Muslim world as a whole) was
that reform and renaissance of religious and social life of Muslim peoples
cannot come out of the ranks of the old, traditional, conservative and
17
left-behind ulama. In the first half of the 19th and early 20th century
many works were written against traditional Islamic ulama. Muhammad
Abduh, though himself an alim, was anti-ulama by inclination.
Muhammad Iqbal wrote several passages against traditional and “inert”
ulama. The Muslim Brotherhood movement in Egypt was and remained
an opposition to the traditional ulama university of al-Azhar.18 This antiulama outlook was the axiom for the then Islamic modernist and
reformist literature which the young Alija Izetbegović fondly read. A
book by Mehmedalija Metiljević (1934) Islam u svjetlu istine (Islam in the
light of truth) was read with enthusiasm in the Young Muslims circles.
This brief compendium of anti-ulama literature is the most famous work
of the kind in Bosnian and it shaped and partly gave an anti-ulama slant
to Izetbegović and many Young Muslims, but also some Bosnian Muslim
youths and students who were outside the circle of Young Muslims.
Mehmedalija Metiljević is a type of an intellectual who had “secular”
development and who appeared in Muslim societies in the first half of
the 20th century. These intellectuals looked upon ulama thinking and
casuistry as outdated, boring, inert, even anti-Islamic. Describing the
“outdatedness” of ulama's Islamic thought, he says:
I was in the presence of some 'ulama' in which over an hour was spent
discussing some special rules according to which the beard is to be
sported and moustache clipped, and at the end of the discussion each of
17 For a critical attitude towards ulama in the Muslim world see: Kate Zabiri, Mahmud
Shaltut and Islamic Modernism, Oxford University Press, 1993.
18 Highly instructive data about the position of ulama in the contemprary age may be
found in: E. Sivan, Ulama and Power, in Interpretations of Islam: Past and present,
Princeton, NJ, 1986. See also: N. Keddie, Scholars, Saints and Sufis, Los Angeles, 1972. The
main topic of all these debates is “dethronement“ of ulama in the Muslim world by
Modernist and reformist intellectuals.
30
them had his own special proofs and special opinion regarding, in their
view, such a momentous question (Metiljević, 1934, 8).
It is understandable that such casuistry and scholasticism of the ulama of
the day (and sometimes today) put off young intellectuals with secular
education. During the period between the two world wars many young
people who came from what was still a traditional Muslims society went
over to various ideologies, often communism, partly out of
dissatisfaction with the unattractive and sterile interpretation of Islam
by ulama and mullas. Some Muslim intellectuals and high school and
university students who did not agree with the ulama interpretation of
Islam were looking for their own path and chose ”self-teaching“,
autodidacticism, as Metiljević says (1934, 9).
Revivalist, modernist and reformist literature on Islam which was slowly
coming to Bosnia both from East and West was the staple reading for
those young people. It was suffused with encouragement and
enthusiasm, it liberated Islam from traditional limitations, and especially
from the “inertia of ulama thinking”, as it was often stressed. It was
considered that its endlessly rehashed casuistry and scholasticism were
draining fresh juices out of Islam and thus making it dead.
An opinion was gaining currency among a section of Bosnian Muslim
youth and intellectuals at the time that Islam was being turned into a
religion, while Islam was “not a religion only,” but something “more”. It
was also held that those people, ulama, were increasingly becoming a
caste, a theological one, which Islam never had and which was alien to its
“original teachings.” On this Metiljević wrote:
The recent spiritual generation of that /ulama/ class, in its spiritual
arrogance, has a habit to call itself 'Islamic theologians' or 'specialist in
interpreting Islam... (Metiljević, 1934, 9).
Metiljević denies priesthood (rahbaniyya) and theology in Islam. He
thinks that Islam should be freed from the shackles of ulama and mullas
and their interpretation of religion. His Islam in the Light of Truth is
sharply intoned against ulama, a class he calls
“... a cancer, which needs to be cured as fast and as radically as possible.
The previous methods by ulama have not proved efficient in practice, on
the contrary, they are dangerous because with their illogicality and
31
inconsistency they can push [people] away from Islam. In front of their
method there is always a better method of independent autodidacticism,
with which one can still awaken much greater interests among many for
the ever more through study of Islam and its principles...“ (Metiljević,
1934, 11).
Alija Izetbegović in principle shares such views. In several interviews on
TV and for newspapers he gave after 1994 Izetbegović frankly expressed
his anti-ulama views of his youth.
Under the influence of Mehmedalija Metiljević and other authors of
similar orientation Izetbegović quoted the Prophet Muhammad's saying:
“There is no monkery in Islam – (ٌِ ‫( ”)لَ َر ْهبَانِيَّة ٌَ في اإلسْالم‬Izetbegović,
1996, 275). Following from this, Izetbegović resolutely added:
“We should say clearly and openly: yes, Islam is in favor of a natural life
and against ascetism” (Izetbegović, 1996, 275).
For this reason every mention of theology in Islam Between East and
West, even one which legitimately grew out of the fold and tradition of
Islamic learning, is nearly always given in a disparaging and negative
context.
Izetbegović dismissively mentions his contemporaries among Bosnian
ulama in the expression “our learned theologians” (Izetbegović, 1996,
261). For example, he states that:
…theological debates about zakat are limited to the question of how
much should be given of what. But more important for the institution of
zakat than percentages and numbers is the principle of solidarity...
It is clear that Izetbegović here ignores the fact of a long and fruitful
tradition of hundreds of classical Islamic works, such as al-Gazali's Ihya
ulum al-din, for example. Such works not only interpret key functions of
zakat, but also give due consideration to the solidarity component
(which Izetbegović rightly emphasizes) as one of the many social
components of zakat. Those classical works treat spiritual, social and
other aspects of Islam in great detail, but they also address the need to
see zakat as a primarily religious duty.
However, Izetbegović does not give up his opposition to theology. What
is more, he considers theology to be impossible in the same way as he
32
considers art criticism impossible. This is how he questions in one sweep
both art criticism and science of religion:
The impossibility of art criticism means for the same reasons the
impossibility of theology in religion. (Faulkner compared critics with
priests). There can be no science about religion. True religion and ethical
issues can be expressed adequtely by drama, theatre, novel. Gospel and
Qur'an are not theological writings (Izetbegović, 1996, 154).
Nevertheless, although critically disposed towards ulama, little by little
Izetbegović began doing in his Islam between East and West precisely
what ulama were doing for centuries: offering a rational apologia for
Islam. In this way his work took the burden of a special “theology of
Islam” (regardless of whether Izetbegović recognized its teachings or
not). Also, since his Islam between East and West constitutes a special
critique of the state of Muslim part of mankind in the 20th century as a
“Qur'an realized,” by some of its deepest motives the work may be
considered - theological. Because, just as Izetbegović gives a
(reductionist) interpretation of Islamic “tawhid” as a synthesis which he
reaches out of his contemporariness, a synthesis that stems from a
procedure of unifying a duality called “religion and materialism”, so did
classical Muslim theologians take from their time (and their spiritual
disposition) concepts from Greek or old Iranian philosophy and, having
“Islamized” them, incorporated them legitimately into Islamic
intellectual edifice. In brief, just as theology or ilm al-kalam was possible
as a refined science forged through great intellectual efforts of classical
Muslims to create a special theological meta-language with which to
describe the teachings of their religion with the aim of explaining and
defending them, in the same way the book Islam Between East and West
was possible as an example of a contemporary apologia of Islam penned
by an auto-didact.
Given that he did not study Islam systematically, one often finds
(unintended) material mistakes and omissions in Izetbegović's works.
For example, he quotes by distant meaning a saying of the Prophet
Muhammad pbuh and when he tries to quote him literally one notes
frequent (unintended) mistakes. For example, in Islam Between East and
West, in the chapter “Islam and Religion” Izetbegović quotes (footnote
no. 9) a saying of the Prophet as follows: “If you see an evil, remove it by
33
hand; if you cannot, condemn it by word or at least by thought, but this
last is the smallest Islam” (Izetbegović, 1996, 264).
Of course, there is no hadith with this narration. It is recorded in the
following form:
ْ َ‫ى ِم ْنك ْم م ْن َكرًا فَ ْالي َغيِّرْ ه ٌ بِيَ ِده ٌِ ف‬
ٌِ ‫إن لَ ْم يَ ْستَ ِط ْع فَبِلِ َسانِه‬
َ ‫َم ْن َرأ‬
ْ َ‫ف‬
. ٌِ ‫ك أضْ َعف اإليِ َمان‬
َ ِ‫إن لَ ْم يَ ْستَ ِط ْع فَبِقَ ْلبِه ٌِ َو ذ ٌَ ل‬
“Whoever sees an evil, let him prevent it by hand. But if he cannot, then
by his tongue, and if he cannot, then by heart (let him disdain it), but this
is the weakest belief” (Sahih al-Muslim, 1972, 22).
The notions of smaller and greater Islam are unknown to Islamic
theology. The hadith in question does not mention the smallest Islam, but
hadith works certainly mention decrease and increase in faith (iman).
Therefore, the point of the hadith is that “the weakest iman” (the
weakest belief) is by no means the ”smallest Islam“ as Izetbegović writes
by omission (This is why the Arabic translator of Islam Between East and
West corrected this passage and quoted the Prophet's saying as
mentioned in the original Islamic sources, with the key point contained
in the expression ad'af al-iman ( ‫“ – )أضْ َعف اإلي َما ِن‬the weakest belief”
There are more examples of Izetbegović conveying the Qur'an and
Hadith by their sense and imprecise references to foundational Islamic
texts. It will suffice to give the above-quoted examples. Izetbegović was
aware of this type of shortcomings in his book. On this point he writes
honestly and openly the following:
Otherwise, this is not a book of theology, nor is its author a theologian. In
this regard the book is more of an attempt to 'translate' Islam into the
language which the present day generation speaks and understands.
This circumstance may explain some of its mistakes and inaccuracies
To return to the question of which Islam in Islam between East and West?
In answering the question it is best to follow Izetbegović himself. For him
defining Islam is a highly important thing. In one place he quite rightly
says that defining Islam is a process which encourages “development of
34
Islam.” Defining Islam is a kind of fruitful reconstruction of Islam. He
writes:
Defining Islam as a principle is of key importance for its future
development. Countless times it has been said, quite accurately after all,
that Islam and Islamic world have become rigid, closed. This situation
was undoubtedly linked with a view of Islam as a completed and once for
all defined teaching (Izetbegović, 1996, 23).
This passage reveals and confirms Izetbegović's belonging among
Muslim renewing and reformist authors who approached Islam, among
other methods, through the method of “reconstruction.” As Izetbegović
affirms, Islam must not be viewed as “completed and the once for all
defined teaching.”
There were also many Bosnian Muslim intellectuals as well as the
revivalists and modernist ulama who shared this view, or perhaps
Izetbegović shared their view. In their writings Husein Đozo (1912 1982) and Nerkez Smailagić (1934 - 1987) repeatedly expressed
renewing and reformist views and modernist stands such as: “Islam
begins with the Qur'an, but it does not end with the Qur'an.”
Nerkez Smailagić, for example, wrote his articles and anthologies about
the Qur'an and the classical culture of Islam tinged with revivalist and
reformist tones. He wrote about meeting the needs for “constituting an
Islamic modernity”, as he liked to say. In the modern historical shifts,
which in his view were going on for more than a century, he observed:
... how in Islam one can sense a latent unfolding of a general and
thorough rebirth whose main feature is a move from the previous
traditionalism to an active process of constituting Islamic Modernity
(Smailagić, 1975, v).
Like Izetbegović, Smailagić also stressed a certain “anti-ulama” character
of Islam claiming that Islam:
…by its source and spirit, was contrary to priestly institutionalization,
which was to develop at the end of the classical period... (Smailagić,
1973, 110).
Izetbegović, therefore, was not only aware that today “Islamic world has
become rigid, closed” but was undoubtedly also aware that ulama or
mullas were to great extent guilty of that development. Consequently,
35
Izetbegović wishes – as one can learn indirectly – to present his views
about how to “thaw”, how to “move” and “open up” Islam and Islamic
teachings.
Indeed, on many of the pages Izetbegović attempts to give his answers
on how to do that, but nearly all of them revolve around one expression
of his, “dualism of Islam” (or al-thuna'iyyatu llati yatamayyazu biha alislam – ‫( )الثُّنَائِيَّة ٌ الّتي ٌِ يَتَ َميَّز ٌ بِهَا اإلسْالم‬Izetbegović, 1994, 302), as the
Arabic translators of his work rendered it well.
Already in the opening pages of Islam between East and West and with a
resolute tone Alija Izetbegović afirms the following:
There are only three integral Weltanschaungs and there can be no
others: religious, materialist and Islamic. They either correspond to
three elementary possibilities, which we have learned to call
consciousness, being, and man – or they are their projection
Everything he says about Islam later on the pages of the book stems from
this categorial statement of his. The notion of religion in the above quote
and in Izetbegović's terminological tool-kit of Islam Between East and
West refers most commonly to Christianity, since “Islam is more than a
Religion” (1996, 15), Izetbegović claims. The notion of materialism
Izetbegović often ascribes (justifiably or not) to Judaism (and its modern
derivatives, such as Socialism occasionally, whereby he silently
recognizes that Socialism was a Jewish invention and a Jewish work!).
The term Islamic relates to Izetbegović's understanding of a cohesive,
synthesizing Islam, the Islam that combines religion with materialism.
If one understands Izetbegović well here, religion is concerned only with
the consciousness, and consciousness belongs to religion. Furthermore,
materialism is concerned with being and being belongs to materialism.
Izetbegović, then, suggests that a unity of consciousness and being results
in – man. Man is a “bipolar unity” of consciousness and being and this
”bipolar unity“ is best expressed in the Islamic view of man, because
“Islam is a bipolar unity of the world” (Izetbegović, 1996, 237).
Following Izetbegović's line of argument, one can conclude that, being a
whole - ie, the man is a unity of consciousness and being - Islamic view is
36
concerned with man (in the right way)! And this Islamic view, if it needs
to be stressed at all, is whole, it combines the poles of “consciousness”
and “being”, and, as a consequence, Islam is best defined as a “bipolar
unity of the world” (Izetbegović , 1996).
We have already seen that Izetbegović appears in his book, or in some
sections, as a loyal dualist, whatever it means and whatever difficulties in
interpreting his dualism. But, let us add that Izetbegović is only a dualist
functionally. He employs the discourse on Islam as “bipolar unity of the
world” only temporarily and in order to explain his views on Islamic
monotheism or tawhid. It is possible to offer several explanations as to
why Izetbegović accepted (even if temporarily and functionally) to arrive
at his theory of Islam as “a principle of unity of spirit and matter”
(Izetbegović, 1996, 15), which he held to be sound, by way of dualism.
European existentialist literature in the 20th century which Izetbegović
read is one of the reasons for his claim that “dualism....is the most
intimate human feeling, but not the highest human philosophy”
(Izetbegović, 1996, 16). In his Islam Between East and West Izetbegović
refers to Sartre (1905-1980), Camus (1913-1960), Jaspers (1883-1969),
Heidegger (1889-1976) and other so often that it is reasonable to say
that he drew from them his convictions and his overemphasis on seeing
man dualistically. For, man is a spirit “thrown” into the world of “matter”,
and human being should be viewed in the context of “primordial
contrariness of man and world” (Izetbegović, 1996, 160), as Izetbegović
writes.
On many pages of Islam Between East and West Alija Izetbegović, under
the influence of his own understanding of existentialist philosophy and
its fusion with his understanding of the Qur'an, has overstressed the fact
of “man's fall” from the Paradise into the world of the transient, from
spirit into the world of matter. Izetbegović holds man a stranger on earth
and he stressed this whenever he wrote about “man's fall on Earth.”
Of course, it is true that the Qur'an notes the fact of man's exit from
Paradise, but only as a voucher of man's becoming man, theomorphic
being which will show all his magnificent possibilities on earth, and not
cry because he allegedly found himself in a strange world. There is no
37
traditional school of Islam which teaches that man's fall to ”enemy Earth“
should be emphasized as something crucial and out of which man's
destiny is to be explained. There is no school in Islam that views the
world and nature as hostile environment, as “the valley of tears.”
It is clear that in his attempt to promote his dualism man's body/Earth
vs man's spirit/Hereafter, Izetbegović understood and tried to interpret
certain Qur'anic passages about man's exit from Paradise and “descent to
Earth” in terms of existentialism.
This is how he (dualistically) makes a conclusion: “Islam is the name for
a principle of unity of spirit and matter whose highest form is human
life” (Izetbegović, 1996, 15).
Neither religion, nor materialism – especially materialism - have the
privilege of understanding man, of honoring man in his entirety, is Alija
Izetbegović's message. He thinks that religion rejects man's biological
life, while materialism negates man as such.
Man's life is true to itself if at the same time it realizes a humane concept,
without rejecting but confirming all the zoological prerequisites of
existence. All human failures can essentially be reduced either to
religious rejection of man's biological life or to materialist negation of
man (Izetbegović, 1996, 15-16).
When Izetbegović says that “Islam is more than a religion”, nowhere in
the book does he offer a systematic explanation of this “Islamic surplus”
in relation to religion. He has extended the task of explaining it to the
whole book, but often he elegantly leaves the search for weeding out the
details of that explanation to industrious readers.
In Chapter Seven of Islam Between East and West Izetbegović tries, while
staying true to his dualism (which is, perhaps, an age-old memory of a
Bosnian beg (i.e. Bosnian Muslim nobleman) of the dualism of Bosnian
patarins!) to interpret Islam through a form of synthesis or unity of
”Christianity and Judaism.“
According to Izetbegović, Judaism has a this-worldly inclination, “a leftist
tendency” (Izetbegović, 1996, 239), it wants to “realize justice already
here, on earth.” For him Judaism is an old forerunner of materialism and
38
the new materialist philosophy and Spinoza (1632-1677) is one of its
philosophers.
In Spinoza's example one can nicely follow the birth of a new materialist
philosophy within the fold of Judaism or on the sources of Jewish
tradition, in which the religious core remains very thin and shallow in
relation to national, political and world content; the situation is
completely reversed in Christianity (Izetbegović, 1996, 240).
Furthermore, for the sake of a more effective representation of Judaism
as a religion inclined to materialism Izetbegović adds even the Kingdom
of God, which Jews had announced, “they expected on earth, not in
heavens, like Christians” (Izetbegović, 1996, 240). Passing quickly over
the long and rich Jewish history and also ignoring those historical,
concrete aspects of Judaism, which – if were to recount them – would not
agree with the main line of argument of his book, nor would they be of
any use for his one-sided argumentation (in fact, they would undermine
it!), Izetbegović then comes to masons or “Freemasons”. He says: “The
Freemason idea of humanity's ethical rebirth on scientific basis is
positivist and – Jewish” (Izetbegović, 1996, 241).
Izetbegović then proposes a research project:
It would be interesting to research esoteric as well as exoteric links
between Positivism, Freemasonry and Judaism. One would find not only
spiritual, but also quite concrete links and influences (Izetbegović, 1996,
241).
Following his highly suggestive but reductionist line of argument,
Izetbegović goes on to claim that “the history of Jews is a history of the
world's economic (trade) development.” Jews are, Izetbegović asserts,
city population, they improved the civilization of Cordoba, Granada,
Seville, Toledo, Amsterdam, Venice, Marseille and other places. He fails
to mention the example of Protestantism as a current which contributed
to the development of economy and capitalism in the West. Compared
with Protestantism, Jewish contribution in this regard is negligible.
All these arguments Izetbegović presents so as to show that Jews, with
their alleged propensity towards this-worldly goods, trade, economy,
science and civilization have practically demonstrated how their
example serves as an example of one pole in Izetbegović's dual image of
39
the world, the material pole. Needless to say, that pole is just one aspect
of Islam, the material one! Thus, by increasing the wealth and material
prosperity of mankind Jews indirectly work for one pole of Islam, the
material one!
There is no attempt at least to indicate that in Judaism one can find a rich
tradition of esoterism and mysticism. As the example of Maimonides
shows, Jewish theology and philosophy speak of God, spirituality, the
transcendent. For the most part Izetbegović passes in silence over
Kabbalah, Talmud, Mishna and the rich tradition of Jewish and Judaic
esoterism because mentioning them would disrupt the dualistic
philosophy he presents and defends by all means on the pages of Islam
Between East and West.
This is why Izetbegović very quickly, in his search for the other, spiritual
pole of Islam, turns to “the pure religion” (or Christianity, tentatively
speaking) (Izetbegović, 1996, 242). While Jewish materialism (which he
claims to be called Positivism in the modern world) turned man's
consciousness towards the world and while it also “encouraged during
the whole history...its interest for external reality,” Christianity, on the
other hand, “turned human spirit to itself” (Izetbegović, 1996, 242).
According to Izetbegović the dualist, the pronounced realism of the
Jewish Old Testament “could only have been overcome by the equally
pronounced idealism of the New Testament” (Izetbegović, 1996, 242).
According to Izetbegović's scheeme of things:
a) Jewish realism and b) Christian idealism, then:
a) Jewish materialism and b) Christian monasticism, and:
a) Jewish inclination to this world and c) Christian turning of the spirit to itself,
- all this duality, the whole dualistic edifice contains a rift, a split, a break
of the world which had to be overcome and become a new synthesis! It is
quite clear that Izetbegović assigns the role of fusion and synthesis to
Muhammad and Islam. Izetbegović says: “With Muhammad, Islam was to
effect the fusion of these two demands” (Izetbegović, 1996, 242).
Here as elsewhere in his book Izetbegović makes no attempt to
reexamine this dualist formula dear to him of arriving at Islam as a unit
40
by a shortcut whose constituent parts are Jewish materialism and
Christian idealism.
Izetbegović is not inclined to subject his thinking to some kind of a check.
For, although Islam does not arrive in 7th century after Isa pbuh on the
world stage in which there is only Judaism and Christianity, but also starworship, Masdeism, fire-worship, idol worship, Buddhism, Hinduism,
Animism, etc, Izetbegović does not attempt to situate Islamic tawhid (or
Islamic monotheism) in a broader context of all pre-Islamic religions, but
sticks to the narrow dualist solution (Judaism+Christianity=Islam).
Izetbegović claims that in Christianity human efforts and energy “should
not be diverted into two opposing directions: to heavens and to earth”
(Izetbegović, 1996, 242). He then quotes Matthew 6:24: “No one can
serve two masters: either he will hate one and love the other, or he will
try to please one and ignore the other” (Izetbegović, 1996, 242). He then
leapfrogs by nineteen centuries and, bypassing so many great Christian
commentators of the New Testament, quotes Tolstoy and his
interpretation of the above-quoted passage. This is what Tolstoy says:
One cannot at the same time care about one's soul and the goods of this
world. If you want the goods of this world, give up your soul; if you want
to keep your soul, give up the goods of this world. Otherwise, you will
tear yourself apart and will have neither (Izetbegović, 1996, 242).
Out of his essentialized reading of the New Testament and of a rare
interpretation Izetbegović concludes that religion (for him meaning:
Christian religion) “gives up in advance the ordering or perfecting of the
external world.” This is a passage in which Izetbegović offers his
understanding of religion (as Christianity):
Religion, therefore, forswears arranging or perfecting the external world.
Religion naturally sees as a form of blasphemy (self-deception) any
human conviction that by externally arranging and changing the world
one can help increase true goodness. For, religion is the answer to the
question of how to live in my own self and in front of myself, not how to
life in the world and in front of people. It is a temple on the top of a hill, a
refuge to which one has to climb in order to leave behind all the
emptiness of an unfixable world which Lucifer has in his power. This is
pure Religion (Izetbegović, 1996, 243).
41
In a possible critique of Izetbegović's arguments it is necessary to say
that the history of Christianity itself (both, before and after the great
schism of 1054 and therefore in the history of Christianity as
Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Protestantism and other reformed churches)
shows that religion/Christianity has by no means neglected and ”left
behind the emptiness of an unfixable world“, nor did it abandon this
world, as Izetbegović claims, but it tried to ”mend it“ in its own way and
in accordance with its teachings. Did not Christianity and church
practically govern part of the world during the Middle Ages often
becoming the chief arbiter in social systems? If this was not the case, if
Christianity, church and religion were not present as masters in the
world and in social life, why did bourgeoisie revolutions, which were
often anti-church and anti-religion, take place? Why would bourgeoisie
strive (and eventually succeed) to separate clergy from wealth, property
and social sphere of life, unless clergy had already been part of that
social sphere?
But it would not suit Izetbegović's goal charted in Islam Between East
and West if he checked his essentialized views against the wealth of
historical evidence. He did not care about it. He only cared about saying
and demonstrating, and proving as far as possible, this formula:
JUDAISM + CHRISTIANITY = ISLAM!
However much this formula keeps Izetbegović's dualism, it is mechanic,
indemonstrable by ilm al-kalam, historically non-existent, and islamically
debatable. It is precisely because Izetbegović in his book does not take
much notice of aqa'id,19 history and of the pluralism of types and schools
of thought in Islam that we find him making paradoxical claims such as:
“Islam is an enlightened, towards the world turned Christianity...”
(Izetbegović, 1996, 245), or that “Islam contains a purely Jewish
component...” (Izetbegović, 1996, 245), or his claim that “Hegel saw
Muhammad's Islam as a direct continuation of Judaism...” (Izetbegović,
1996, 245).
19 Aqa’id (al-'aqidah, pl. 'Aqa’id) is a classical science dealing with systematization and
exposition of the principles of Islamic belief, therefore it is, in a way, Islamic apologetics,
Islamic theology, or, in a wider sense, ‘ilm al-kalam.
42
In traditional Muslim schools of thought (not only theological, about
which Izetbegović does not want to hear, but also mystical/Sufi,
philosophical, theosophical, legal and ethical ones) Islam is never defined
by or derived from the historical forms of Judaism or Christianity.
Doing so was an invention of the evolutionist schools in the West. It is a
paradox that Izetbegović, who otherwise wrote excellent pages of
critique of evolutionism and Darwin, became a victim of evolutionist
thinking by deriving Islam as historical forms of “Judaism and
Christianity.” This procedure was abandoned in the West a long time ago,
and it used to be dear to the hearts of Orientalists and their followers.
It is possible that Izetbegović was led to arrive to this mechanic formula
(Judaism+Christianity=Islam) by the often stressed postulate in the
Qur'an about the Muslims being “the middle community” (ummatan
wasatan – ًٌ ‫( )أ َّمة ًٌ َو َسطا‬Bakara, 2:143). But, “middle” in terms of what?
Qur'an commentators emphasize that the arrival of Islam is not the
concern of Judaism and Christianity only, but of all the existing religions
on earth at the time. Islam encountered them all coming out of the
“middle region”, the Arabian peninsula which is geographically located
between Africa, Asia and Europe, and starting from the “middle position”
of observing the world in its entirety.
In his great text Islam and the Encounter of Religions the contemporary
Sufi and theosophical thinker Seyyed Hossein Nasr (1999) writes that
Islam encountered not only Christianity and Judaism, but also Buddhism,
Hinduism, Taoism, Shintoism, idol worship, various types of fire worship,
etc. In all these encounters Islam made a name for Muslims as the
“middle community” not only in geographic sense, but also in a spiritual
sense. To say that Islam is a simple product, a mere sum of historical
Judaism and historical Christianity amounts to reductionism which
leaves aside and out of the fold a major part of religious history of
mankind.
Even if that Islamic “being the middle community” meant being a “middle
community” between Judaism and Christianity, this is not the reason to
claim that Islam is a mechanic sum of the historical manifestations of the
two religions. Izetbegović arrives at a mechanical explanation. That leads
43
him not only to a series of methodologically questionable conclusions;
what is more, he begins discovering Christian and Jewish elements in the
practices of the Prophet Muhammad. Thus, he writes:
Muhammad goes to the cave of Hira, but every time he returns to the
20
godless city of Mecca to continue his mission. But in Mecca this was not
yet an Islam either. Islam began in Medina. In the cave of Hira
Muhammed is an ascetic, a mystic, a hanif. In Mecca he is a messenger of
religious thought. In Medina he becomes a messenger of Islamic thought.
The message Muhammad pbuh carried was completed and reached its
full awareness in Medina (Izetbegović, 1996, 246).
Here, too, we can see Izetbegović quite clearly being an advocate of an
evolutionist view of Islam and the Prophet Muhammad, even though, as
already mentioned, he has written brilliant pages in refutation of theory
of Evolution.
In giving possible suggestions for a critical interpretation of Izetbegović's
views from the above-quoted passage according to which “in Mecca
Muhammad is a messenger of religious thought, while in Medina he
becomes the messenger of the Islamic thought” we can add that in the
Qur'an itself, during the Meccan period of Muhammad's messengership,
Islam is called Islam, just as Muslims are called Muslims during the same
Meccan period of revelation. And those two words (Islam and Muslims)
come from the same root in the Arabic language. It is sufficient to open
the Qur'an to find a plethora of suras which are dated back to the Meccan
period and which clearly refer to the words “Islam” and “Muslims” as
known, clear, acceptable and understandable words already in the
context of the Meccan period of revelation and of Islam's entry into
history simply because in Mecca Muhammad was spreading Islam, not
something else! (It is sufficient to take a look at the following passages:
39:22; 11:14; 27:81, all of which are Meccan and contain terms, words
and concepts Islam and Muslims).
Classical hermeneutics of the Qur'an was always suspicious about the
sharp and clear cut classification of the Qur'an into “Meccan” and
20 At the time of the arrival of Islam Mecca was not a godless city. It was a city of many
gods, i.e. a polytheistic city.
44
“Madinan” parts, because that would amount to undoing the unity of the
Qur'an, just as it would also imply a development of ideas in the Qur'an!
Recognizing and accepting a chronological development of ideas in the
Qur'an would mean contesting its quality of being sealed by God! The
Qur'an is not a text organized according to some “development of ideas”,
it does not follow a chronology, nor is it constituted as such. For two
centuries now Orientalists have been stuck with the problem of fixing
and dating Qur'anic passages without being able to conclude the debate.
The reason they have not been able to do it is because the Qur'an is a
sacred text, a book which is not proven by logic of its formal
arrangement of chapters and passages so much as by the logic of its
eternity, holiness and baraka.
Of course, Alija Izetbegović was fond of that simple, crystal clear, but also
easy scheme of things. There is religion (Christianity) on the one side
and materialism (Judaism) on the other. Islam came to unify the two, it is
the synthesis! Once he accepts the scheme as an axiom, he turns to
identifying “ascetic”, “monastic” ways of life in the Prophet and so, he
suggests that in Mecca the Prophet was not spreading Islam, but religion!
This trajectory of Izetbegović's thought is rational and seems acceptable
and logical! But not all rational things are necessarily right. This is
especially the case with simplifications which Izetbegović often offers on
the pages of Islam between East and West.
Izetbegović's dualism is in itself the first simplification he agrees to in
Islam between East and West. Let us mention few typical sentences,
dualistically intoned maxims, which can sound Spenglerian and quite
effective, but if subjected to a more thorough examination, they simply
must be supplemented! For example, Izetbegović writes:
1)
Mosque is the place for people, and church is ”temple of God“.
2) Mosque is dominated by an atmosphere of rationality, while church is
dominated by an atmosphere of mysticism.
3) Mosque is always at the centre of action, near market places and in
the middle of settlements. Church requires ”elevated places“.
45
4) Gospels address man, while the Qur'an addresses people (in plural)
(Izetbegović, 1996, 249-250).
Each of these statements is expressed effectively and in the manner of a
general judgment, but none of them can stand factually, historically, or
“Islamically”. Let's consider them one by one.
A) However much is mosque for people, so is church. However much
church is a “temple of God”, so is mosque. In the Qur'an itself Ka'ba in
Mecca is called “Holy Sanctuary” (al-masjid al-haram – ‫( ) ْال َم ْس ِجد الْ َح َرام‬Kahf,
18:1). Moreover, Muslims call Ka'ba and the Meccan sanctuary the House
of God (Baytullah) and they find nothing religiously questionable or
contentious about that.
B) There are mosques in which mysticism dominates, and there are
churches in which rationalism prevails. This depends on the historic era
in which a church or a mosque was built. It also depends on whether the
architect and builder of that particular sacred building had mystic or
rational inclinations, or both! The mosque in Isfahan inspires rationality
and mysticism at the same time, as does the Cologne cathedral. One can
cite thousands of such examples both on Islamic and Christian side.
C) There are also mosques standing out-of-the-way. They can be seen in
Malaysia, in Bosnia, and in Casablanka. There are churches near markets
and even in the middle of them. Many churches in Vienna, Florence and
other European cities present extraordinary examples of a harmonious
connection of markets, squares and trade with prayer.
D) In addition to addressing people, Qur'an also addresses man as a
singular being. Many chapters have names in singular, such as (Mu'min)
Believer, Insan (Man). There are also Qur'anic passages which address
the individual.
Here, too, the author does not attempt to reexamine the coherence and
reasonableness of his dualistic trajectory in proving the wholesomeness
of Islam and of the argument that “Islam is more than religion”.
Izetbegović sees Judaism, Christianity and Islam through the method of
“essentilizing”, which means that Judaism, Christianity and Islam are
three “essences” which history hardly touched. If he sometimes allows
46
for history to reach them, he falls into reductionism and a selective
choice of facts.
Although Izetbegović states that “Islam is more than religion”, he
nevertheless designates Islam in the book as “religion” in a conventional
sense of the word. For example, in staying true to his dualism, he writes
that the appearance of Islam;
... marked the appearance of religion of 'two worlds', a comprehensive
system of human life, recognition that in the name of science man does
not have to discard religion and fight for a better life in the name of
Religion (Izetbegović, 1996, 275).
Also, when he writes about ethics which stems from philosophy and
about ethics which stems from religion, Izetbegović classifies Islam as a
“revealed Religion” (Izetbegović, 1996, 78), along with Judaism and
Christianity.
Again, in one place he refers Le Bon whom he quotes as saying that till
today Islam has remained “the clearest monotheistic Religion”
These examples show the difficulties in which Izetbegović gets himself in
his effort to implement consistently his new terminology concerning
Islam. For, if Islam is a “religion revealed” by God (to which Izetbegović
agrees), how can one explain his claim that “Islam is more than
religion.”?! Where is that “surplus” and where did Islam “gain”
something?! Does that “surplus” come from God and did God himself
mean it for Islam?! These are all questions Izetbegović did not want to
address, maybe because he thought it would look like he was doing an
ulama-like work.
VI – How is Islam in Islam between East and West seen as a political
and social theory?
On the pages of Islam between East and West, Izetbegović links the
purpose of Islam almost solely to man. Thus, he states:
The Qur'an is a realistic, almost anti-heroic book. Without a man who
applies it, Islam is incomprehensible, even non-existent in the true sense
of the word (Izetbegović, 1996, 247).
47
As an intellectual who felt certain revulsion to esoteric theories and
theosophies and schools of Tasawwuf in Islam, Izetbegović, it would
seem, ignores their teachings that the whole universe is a “Muslim” and
“in submission to God.” Accordingly, mineral, vegetative and animal
worlds are also in the state of Islam and those worlds, eo ipso, are, along
with countless spiritual worlds, Muslim in their own way! However
much impressive and spiritual, Izetbegović is not interested in such
speculations. In contrast to those schools he links Islam mainly to man.
As he was predisposed for ideological readings of the Qur'an by the
literature on which he was educated Izetbegović saw in Islam an
“effective teaching” for ordering a new world. “Islam does not idealize
much this world” writes Izetbegović (1996, 247). Therefore, in this
world Muslims must strive to order it.
Here lies at least part of the reason as to why it is necessary, at least in
contours, to address Izetbegović's definitions of Islam, which he gave
along the lines of exteriorizing this faith as a specific “political and social
theory”. In his book Izetbegović gives many such definitions of Islam,
unsystematically and in various places. Thus, while making a resolute
and categorical claim in which he states that there are “only three
integral worldviews and there can be no other: religious, materialist and
Islamic” (Izetbegović, 1996, 15) he implicitly designates Islam as a
“worldview”, but does not specify whether it is a human, Divine, angelic
21
or someone else's “worldview”. Besides, Izetbegović on the same page
argues that Islamic and religious worldview are not identical, since,
according to him, “Islam is more than a Religion” (1996, 15).
The assertion that “Islam is more than a religion” was (and still is) a
claim made by classical Muslim revivalists and reformers. Classical
Muslim authorities interpreted Islam and exteriorized its message in the
direction of its social, state and imperial concepts, too. So, it is no news to
21 Throughout most of its history Islam never defined itself as a worldview. The notion
of Islam as a worldview or Weltanschauung is recent and came from the West. Of course,
the idea of Weltanschauung is not bad and one could write very fruitful studies about
Islam as “a worldview“. It is possible to say that Islam is a kind of “worldview“, but it
should be kept in mind that according to the classical interpretations of Islam the world
is not an object, nor is man an indisputable subject and arbiter.
48
view Islam, among other things, as a specific political theory, because
with its symbolic treasure Islam lends itself to integral interpretations
and in it one cannot identify a clear line of separation marking the world
into religiously neutral, certainly not out of religious aspects.
But, politics is neither a primary, nor an eternal principle of Islam, but by
all accounts a secondary (and historical) possibility of Islam. According
to the descriptions and accounts of principles of Islam in classical kalam
works politics is not designated as an eternal principle of Islam. During
its history, Islam realized itself for the sake of what it came for out of
eternity: first of all as a faith and above all, as a faith. As a faith Islam
lived and survived under different Islamic as well as un-Islamic policies
and systems. By living under different Islamic and un-Islamic policies
Islam did not become less of Islam, nor did it lose its religious
importance and freshness.
Many times Izetbegović's words that “Islam is more than a religion” were
used against him so as to discredit him and accuse him of holding an
“integralist view” of Islam and Muslim societies and for smuggling in an
idea which advocates the argument that “in Islam that which is more
than religion, is politics.” Everyone, including Izetbegović, has the right
to interpret and view the world and religion as he wants. That is not (nor
it should be) the subject of accusations and judgments, especially not
court judgments.
Historically viewed, it is true that Islam realized itself, as it still does, not
only as religion but also as a social system, law and even politics. But, in
certain ages Christianity, Judaism and other world religions also
manifested in their own way as “politics.” It is possible, and this cannot
be excluded, that many world religions will get a chance again to shape
social realities in various parts of the world, in different times in future,
with lesser or greater force, through state, law and social systems of
various types.
Therefore, when Izetbegović elaborates on Islam as, among other things,
a political doctrine, he is not doing anything against humankind, nor is he
carrying out some sort of a diversion against Islam. In principle, such a
theoretical approach is legal and legitimate as is the action of some
49
American presidents who show inclination to church or Christian
prohibition of abortion and who advocate it by promoting state laws in
favor of sanctioning abortion.
Of course, we should keep in mind that by “politics” classical Muslim
authors do not mean total politics, or politics as “man's destiny”; nor do
they mean rigid skills of ruling over other people; what they mean by it is
a “holy politics”, moral ordering and managing of public affairs in human
communities in accordance with justice. There is a big difference
between the classical use of the term “politics” and its modern usage.
What is important for the purposes of this analysis is the way in which
Izetbegović views Islam as a political doctrine. Let us look for answers in
Izetbegović's work itself. In one place he says:
Muhammad pbuh had to return from cave. Had there been no return, he
would have remained a hanif. Given that he did return, he became the
preacher of Islam. That was an encounter of internal with the 'real'
world, mysticism with reason, and meditation with action. Islam began
as mysticism and ended as political and state thought. Religion accepted
the world of facts and became Islam (Izetbegović, 1996, 247).
This passage, too, Izetbegović argues along evolutionist lines (Islam
begins as mysticism; it ends as political and state thought). Not only
theology (ilm al-kalam), but also history of Islamic institutions and of
Islamic culture and civilization do not support such a position. For,
Islamic foundations, the Qur'an and Hadith, in principle (and in embryo)
contained everything which Muslim will have discovered in history
through a valid use of ijtihad, which is to say by way of the effort of spirit
and intellect. The Qur'an and Hadith contain in principle religious,
mystical, ethical, theosophical, aesthetic, legal, political and other
inspirations. Those inspirations are always there, not in a way in which
one comes before or after others (not in a way which suggests that one
issues from others), but they are simultaneous and by divine providence
stored, dormant, banked up in the inspired sacred texts and, in potentio,
they are open to manifestation or interpretation, when spiritual mood
emerges in people and at certain times, to draw mainly on these or those
aspects of Islamic sources, Qur'an and Hadith.
50
According to this holistic approach, it is not reasonable to say that “Islam
started off as mysticism and ended as a political a state thought.” For, if
Islam started off as mysticism, does it mean that it stopped being
mysticism once it became a “political and state thought”? An evolutionist
approach to the study of Islam would answer with a “yes”, whereas a
holistic approach to Islam would reply with a “no”.
Ottoman sultans, by drawing political and legal inspiration from Islam in
(and for) their time, and by creating an empire on the basis of drawing
legal and political theories from sharia, did not stop being mystics!22 All
the currents of Islam, all the inspirations of Islam are always there; it is
just that people, out of the different spiritual dispositions of their times
and epochs, responded to inspirations coming out of the sources of Islam
with different perceptions and by placing various accents on things!
Furthermore, with his words that “Islam began as mysticism23 and ended
as political and state thought” Izetbegović implies and suggests a notion
that political and state thought in Islam is the highest form of expression
of Islam. Other forms and contents of manifestation of Islam would have
much to object to that view.24
By defining and reducing Islam to a “political and state thought”
Izetbegović very quickly made further reductionist interventions. In fact,
he had to make them because he followed the “general logic” of his book
Islam Between East and West. One such intervention is noticeable in his
claim that two Islamic formulae – Allah akbar (God is greatest) and la
ilaha illallah (There is no deity save God) – represent “at the same time
two most revolutionary mottos of Islam” (Izetbegović, 1996, 248). It
seems problematic to reduce religious principles and the sacred Qur'anic
22 Mevlevi shaikhs used to strap a sword on Ottoman sultans! It was a symbolic sign that
mysticism did not disappear with the development of “Islam as politics.“
23 Islam did not start off as mysticism, it started off as Revelation and Faith and
remained Revelation and Faith. Mysticism is only one aspect of Islam.
24 Just as does Evolutionism of Darwinian type comits error by arguing, for instance, that
aemeba does its part for the higher form of life and then, in that higher form of life, the
ameoba is gone, it no longer participates in it.
Holistic theory of Islam, in contrast to the evolutionist one, would argue that with the
genesis of man, nothing in him (man) ceased existing, he has what is found in the
aemebas, reptiles, beasts, angels, etc.
51
statements to “revolutionary reductions”, mottos and slogans. As a
concept, revolution is not an Islamic, but a European and Western
invention. In one place Seyyed Hossein Nasr calls European revolutions
“screams against the heaven”.
But we can understand Izetbegović in his consideration of key principles
of Islam in the context of revolutionary slogans and it is humane to do so.
Besides, he argued this during turbulent and contradictory times, with
fast moving events which by their appearance seemed to confirm his
theoretical conclusions. Indeed, during 1970s and 1980s, in the age of
the event of Catholicism in Poland and of Islam in Iran, it seemed
convincing that after Socialist and Communist revolutions is was
possible to have revolutions based on religion. It was thought that
religion can serve as the main platform for revolution.
In his books Izetbegović was a witness of the times, he was “the son of
his time”, as the Sufis would say. The contradictions of his time are often
interspersed with contradictions on the pages of his book. One can says
that those contradictions are not his or subjective, but are an “objective
given.”
When Izetbegović wrote his Islam between East and West it seemed that
Islamic world was experiencing a revolutionary ferment. It seemed that
everywhere there was an Islamic renaissance at work. Hence
Izetbegović's claim that “Islam has its own Marxism” (Izetbegović, 1996,
253), that is to say, Islam has no need for the Marxism of Karl Marx
which is secular, etc. With the slogan “Islam has its own Marxism”
Izetbegović wants to say that Islam has its own theoretical and
revolutionary resources which can serve for creating social forms,
systems and patterns in which morality and justice would be satisfied.
Furthermore, in Islam Izetbegović did not see a revolutionary inspiration
only. He also thought that Islam (at least by indication) was democratic,
too:
Islam does not know an elite in the form of monks, holy men, or two
programs: one for the elect, the other for common folk. This is an
indication of a democratic principle (Izetbegović, 1996, 250).
52
Here, too, one can see Izetbegović's essentialized Islam at work. An
essentialized Islam, perhaps, does not recognize the elite, not because
there is no elite, but because there is no essentialized Islam anywhere!
From the point of view of history, there are more realizations and
manifestations of “Islam”, as there are epochs in Islam, which had elites
and, what is more, could not be without them. Let us recall that in Iran it
was one such elite which shouldered the revolution which they called
Islamic! In Shiism there is a division of the believers into an elite
“khawwas” and the common people “awwam”, etc. In ahli sunni Islam
there are “naqib al-ashraf”, “sayyids”, etc, which are also particular kinds
of elite, etc.
While offering a new definition of Islam, Izetbegović adds a little later
that “conditions in which Islam appeared can also help us to understand
it easier as a teaching of unity of religion and politics” (Izetbegović, 1996,
250). The author stresses his dualistic viewpoint (religion + politics =
Islam) to prepare the ground for another, not so clearly expressed
dualistic viewpoint, which includes culture and civilization as its
constituent elements.
According to the Qur'an – but not the gospels – God created man to be
His viceroy on earth (Qur'an, 2:30). Man could achieve power over
nature and world only with knowledge and work, that is to say, with
science and action. Thanks to this fact, as well as to its attention to law
and laws, Islam has showed that it wants not only culture, but
civilization, too (Izetbegović, 1996, 251).
In this part of Islam between East and West Izetbegović increasingly puts
emphasis on action. He indicates his new dualistic formulae of Islam such
as: knowledge + work = Islam, and: science + action = Islam. This kind of
thinking inevitably led to further reduction and essentialization of Islam
expressed in claims that the Qur'an in places “is not a religious and
moral, but social and political codex.” Here is one such passage:
When the Qur'an approves and even orders fighting (Qur'an, 2:216,
22:39, 60:2, 60:8-9, 61:10-11, etc) instead of suffering, submitting and
repeated suffering and submitting, it is not religious and moral, but
social and political codex. Muhammad pbuh was a fighter.... (Izetbegović,
1996, 252).
53
A classic holistic approach to interpreting the Qur'an would understand
this Izetbegović's viewpoint like this: the fact that Qur'an orders Muslims
to defend themselves does not mean that it denies suffering and
patience. Suffering and patience, fighting and defense, compassion and
forgiveness, etc, are given as juxtaposed and simultaneous motifs and
possibilities of human existence. They are not separate Qur'anic motifs,
nor are they evolutionist phases which are to be crossed one by one, as it
seems to the writer. For the time being we shall put aside whether it is
good to define the Qur'an as a “codex” in the first place. It is particularly
questionable to call it a “religious and political codex.”
In his insistence on “social and political” and an engaged reading of the
Qur'an, Izetbegović steps into the terrain of a whole series of reductions,
which then lead to further reductions. One of the biggest reductionist
interventions in the book (Islam between East and West) is his argument
that Sufism, Sufis and dervish orders are a new form of a flacid Islam, a
kind of “degradation of Islam”, as he puts it.
In arguing that the prohibition of alcohol in Islam is supposedly social
(and not religious), he finds room for a claim that “the dervish represents
a return from Muhammad to Jesus”. This is the passage:
Prohibition of alcohol in Islam is essentially a social prohibition because
alcohol is primarily a 'social evil.' In principle no religion can have
anything against alcohol (some religions have to lesser or greater extent
even used artificial stimulants which facilitate extasis; darkness in
cathedrals and the smell of incense belong to this category). It is known
that some dervish orders (Islamic version of monasticism) did not reject
alcoholic drinks. But the dervish is a degradation of Islam. Islam means
advance from Jesus towards Muhammad pbuh. The dervish is a return
from Muhammad to Jesus. In darwish-Christian feeling and experience of
the world the prohibition of alcohol and narcotics makes no particular
sense (Izetbegović, 1996, 252; 1988, 193).
The fact that there is a small and negligible minority of heterodox
dervishes who permit a glass of alcohol is not and should not be the
reason to discard the whole, over a millennium old edifice of Sufism and
Tasawwuf. Even if a large number of Sufis on earth were to drink
alcoholic beverages it would not be sound methodologically to draw long
term conclusions about the whole Sufism from there, because on what
54
argument would stand the claim that dervish orders signify a
“degradation of Muslims”? Sufism is quite an engaged, important and
intensive activity in Islam, a spiritual and esoteric activity. Not only is
Sufism a legitimate and generally recognized school of Islamic thought
and practice, but it is also a school which played, as it still does, a
magnificent role of providing refinement, enrichment and spiritual
discipline within the majority of Islamic schools of other currents, in
legal, ethical, philosophical, theosophical schools.
Nonetheless, Izetbegović was not attracted to Sufism and Tasawwuf, nor
did he store much hope in the heritage of other classical schools of Islam.
It is for these reasons that he made claims such as that “dervish orders
and mystic philosophy” are the “most characteristic form (...) of
deviation” from the true Islam, and this “deviation” could even “be
described as a Christianization of Islam, a return of Islam from
Muhammad pbuh back to Jesus” (Izetbegović, 1996, 252).
Izetbegović was fascinated by a political view of Islam and an ideological
reading of the Qur'an, so that in his interpretation of sacred principles
and institutions of Islam he gladly reaches out for political reductionism.
According to him, Islam transformed umma from a “purely spiritual
community” into a “spiritual and political community” (Izetbegović,
1996, 305) Therefore, according to Izetbegović, umma cannot express
itself validly and suitably unless it does so by way of politics. This also
implies that politics is the highest form of organization and expression in
Islam. On many pages of Islam between East and West Izetbegović in
various ways offers variations on the theme of political expression of
Islam as Islam's final purpose. Here we would like to offer few
illustrations.
When Izetbegović examines key Islamic institutions such as salat, hajj,
zakat, etc, the trajectory of his thought goes in the direction of religion –
society – politics! Using in his time widespread and much exploited
Socialist word “socialization”, in one place Izetbegović argues that salat
has a social tendency and is most intensely expressed in juma
(communal Friday prayer), and juma, again, is a “political” salat:
55
This 'social' tendency in salat (this proces of socialization of salat) is
completed with juma. It is a markedly civic, 'political' prayer. It is
performed on holiday in the central mosque and is led by a state
functionary. Its essential component is khutba [sermon], a largely
political message... (Izetbegović, 1996, 257- 258).
It is important to stress, as Izetbegović sees it, this insistence on politics
in this context because “this is a metamorphosis of religion into Islam”
(Izetbegović, 1996, 258), and Islam, according to him, is not a complete
Islam unless it transforms “prayer into political salat”, “alms into
obligatory tax”, etc. This is how Izetbegović interprets the
“metamorphosis of alms into tax”:
This metamorphosis of religion into Islam can equally clearly be made in
the example of zakat. In the beginning (Meccan period) of Muhammad's
mission zakat was a voluntary form of giving to the poor; it was,
therefore, alms. As the Madina community was formed – and this is a
historical moment of a previously purely spiritual community growing
into a state – Muhammad pbuh began treating zakat as a legal obligation,
as tax... (Izetbegović, 1996, 258).
Needless to say, with the above-mentioned view about zakat Izetbegović
again showed that he is on the side of reformist Islam. There is no reason
to say about his understanding of zakat what we have already said about
the word Islam. Indeed, just as Islam is mentioned in Meccan and
Medinan suras, so is zakat, too. There is no difference in meaning, in the
purpose of the use of the word in the Meccan and Medinian suras.
Besides, Izetbegović does not check his view about zakat as tax against
the plans of desacralizing religious institutions.
And it is precisely in this field, in its polemic which traditional and
perennial Islam initiated against Muslim reformers and modernists, that
many questions were raised such as: can we treat taxes paid in the USA,
or any other ordered state, and which are backed by state enforcement,
as zakat from the point of view of Islam?
Furthermore, does the force used by the state in collecting zakat divests
this institution from the sacred trusts it contains, does it divest it of being
a voluntary act which religion demands also, because “there is no
compulsion in religion”?
56
For the most part Izetbegović's school of Islamic thought did not ask this
or similar question. Therefore the debate between modernists and the
traditional Islamic school is ongoing.
On many pages Izetbegović's book Islam between East and West burns
with the great desire to show a socially visible Islam, an Islam which is
present and at work. Taken by that desire, Izetbegović did not wonder
about the sacred dimension of Islamic institutions, nor did he want to
consider the sacred as something inexplicable and unquestionable. The
postulates of traditional Islam: one explains by the sacred, but one does
not explain the sacred! – is a dimension Izetbegović did not want to
introduce into his book.
According to Izetbegović, Islam is the “true” Islam if it is here and now, in
society, at work. All institutions of Islam have a temporary, “untrue”
purpose, but also their “true”, permanent and social and/or political
purpose. “Zakat acquired its true significance only with the
establishment of the Medina community” (p. 258), when it evolved from
alms into tax! Salat acquired its “true” purpose only when it became a
political salat. Umma, the spiritual community of Muslims, acquired its
true purpose when it was transformed into state; these are the
summaries of Izetbegović's efforts to offer concepts of “socialized
islama.”
In accordance with his insistence on “social and political” aspects of
Islamic institutions Izetbegović argues that they are all socially
orientated. Hajj, for example, being the fifth obligation, also manifests a
“religious ritual, trade fair, political gathering (...) all these together”
(Izetbegović, 1996, 264). The testimony of faith (Shahadah) is
...made in front of witnesses, which is the consequence of the dual
meaning of the act. With the statement one joins a spiritual community,
for which one needs witnesses, but also a social and political community,
which has legal, not just moral, significance (Izetbegović, 1996, 263).
Even Islamic fasting has, according to Izetbegović, a social dimension:
There is no doubt that we find a similar component (social) in the
Islamic fasting. Muslim masses always considered it manifestation of
togetherness, and this explains sharp reactions of the people to cases of
public violation of this duty. It was considered (or rather, felt) that this
57
undermines internal social cohesion. Therefore, fasting in Islam is not
exclusively a religious question and hence a personal matter of an
individual, but a social obligation (Izetbegović, 1996, 264).
In accordance with his dualism (“All of Islam is under the sign of this
'bipolar' unity” (Izetbegović, 1996, 263), as he claims), Izetbegović offers
an interesting view. Not only do the institutions of Islam are
distinguished by that duality of temporary and permanent purpose, but
they also relate to each other “dualistically”, because some are “spiritual”
and others are “material and social”, etc. Thus, he writes:
...salat appears as a spiritual, and zakat as a social component. Salat is
directed towards man, zakat towards the world; salat has personal,
zakat a social character; salat has a subjective, zakat an objective aim;
salat is an instrument of upbringing, zakat is an element of a social order,
etc (Izetbegović, 1996, 262).
Although Izetbegović writes outstanding pages on utopia, it is also good
to note in his writings a strong utopian strain. We can see it in his
discussing zakat, when he says that it is not the percentages of property
to be given which are important so much as the act of solidarity itself:
The essential thing is the principle by which the rich section of society
has an obligation towards a poorer section. One should not doubt that
the true Islamic order, one day it is realized, will seek to fulfill the very
purpose of this principle, without caring too much about percentages...
(Izetbegović, 1996, 260-261).
Izetbegović does not say when the “true Islamic order” will be realized,
but he hopes it will be “one day.”
Izetbegović's Islam between East and West is a courageous book. It is also
a valuable example of a text as protest, and whose pages are exceptional
because they were written in the age of set opinions and ideologies.
Islam between East and West is an attempt to overcome the then socially
desirable theory of interpretation of Islam and such an intellectual
position comes from the existential situation of the author himself.
Simply everywhere Alija Izetbegović saw the whole world to be split
between religion/Capitalism and materialism/Socialism, with the
exception, as he thought, of the Islamic world. He assigned the role of
58
synthesis and unification of antagonized poles to Islam and the Islamic
world.
Therefore, when we read Islam between East and West today, we must
bear in mind also the author, his existential situation, and the times in
which he thought out his ideas and wrote his books. It is in that, and only
in that context that we should interpret Izetbegović's texts which today
appear contradictory to us.
His later life and political involvement offered Izetbegović new insights,
knowledge and experiences. After writing Islam between East and West
he went to jail for second time. When he came out, he founded a political
party, joined politics and became Bosnian president. Then he found
himself in the middle of war and, due to the war drama, in his and
Bosnian suffering he visited tens of capitals, West and East. As a greyhaired man well into his 70s he then acquired many new and important
experiences. He also acquired them in important places, concerning
important matters and with important people.
This is probably when deep rethinking took place. For, only after
rethinking could Alija Izetbegović write in his subsequent works views
which are quite contrary to the ones he expressed in Islam between East
and West. For this occasion, I shall only mention one such example. With
regard to his glorification of the Islamic and Muslim world (which was
also placed as a simultaneous critique of the West), Alija Izetbegović
writes:
This is the situation in which church rears souls, and state rules over
bodies, according to the pattern: give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar,
and to God what is God’s. Western man has been taught that he can be a
Christian in private, and that he can be a machiavellist as a public or
businessman. Those unable to resolve or sustain this conflict or become
victims of neurosis. All those who came to know Muslim world are
unison in the impression about an extraordinary harmony between man
and his environment, about the individual's fitting into social tissue,
about a cohesion which is not at all artificial, external, political, legal, but
internal, organic. This fact is present even in spite of poverty and
backwardness which prevail (Izetbegović, 1996, 278).
This standpoint expressed exclusively on the basis of feeling and “Islamic
solidarity” changed as soon as Izetbegović gained experiential
59
knowledge about today's Western and Muslim worlds. More than 20
years after writing the book, in his speech given to the OIC meeting in
Teheran, 25 Izetbegović (2001, 348) had this to say:
Forgive me for being frank. Beautiful lies do not help and bitter truths
can be healing.
The West is not rotten, or degenerate. 'The rotten West' – Communist
system paid dearly for this self-delusion. West is not rotten. It is strong,
educated and organized. Its schools are better than ours and its cities are
cleaner than ours. The level of human rights in the West is higher, and
social care about poor and the less able is better organized. Westerners
are by and large responsible and punctual people. These are my
experiences with them. I also know the dark side of their progress and I
am not losing sight of them.
Islam is the best, that is true, but we are not the best. These are two
different things we often mix.
Instead of hating the West, let us compete with it! Is this not what the
Qur'an commands us to do: 'Compete in what is good...' With faith and
science we can create strength we need.
In its many passages and views Izetbegović's Islam between East and
West already belongs to the past and history. But, the concerns which the
book contains, the ideals it indicates, the angst it occasionally shows, the
place it seeks for Islam, the indirect critique of Muslim present it brings
to light – all that stands to author's credit, it makes him alive, but also
outlives him!
In those passages Islam between East and West can still be read as a fresh
and engaged word, which can also be applied partly to our own
knowledge, thinking, conviction and belief.
References
Iqbal, Muhammad (2011). Javid-Nama. vol. 14. Iran: Routledge.
Iqbal, Muzafar (2003). Challenges to Islam and Muslims: What is to be
done?. in Islamic Studies, vol. 42, 4, Islamabad.
25 The conference was held on 11 Decembre 1997.
60
Izetbegović, Alija (1988). Islam između Istoka i Zapada. [Islam Between
East and West]. Beograd: NOVA.
East and West]. Sarajevo: Samizdat Edition.
Izetbegović, Alija (1994). al-Islamu bayna al-Sharqi wa al-Garbi. Munich:
Majalla al-nur al-kuwaytiyya and Muassasat al-Bavariya/Bavaria Verlag
& Handel GmbH.
East and West]. Sarajevo: Svjetlost.
Izetbegović, Alija (2001). Sjećanja (autobiografski zapisi). [Reminiscences
(Autobiographical notes)]. Sarajevo: TKD Šahinpašić.
Karčić, Fikret (1990). Društveno-pravni aspekt islamskog reformizma.
[Social and Legal Aspect of Islamic Reformism]. Fakultet islamskih nauka,
Sarajevo.
Karić, Enes (1997). Kur'an u savremenom dobu, I- II. [the Qur'an in the
Modern Age]. Sarajevo: El-Kalem & BKC.
Karić, Enes (2002). Tumačenje Kur'ana i ideologije XX stoljeća. [the
Qur'an Interpretation and Ideologies of the 20th Century]. Sarajevo:
Bemust.
Keddie, N. (1972). Scholars, Saints and Sufis. Los Angeles.
Metiljević, Mehmed-Alija (1934). Islam u svjetlu istine. [Islam in the light
of truth]. Tuzla: self-published.
Nasr, Seyyed Hossein (1999). Sufi Essays. Chicago: ABC International
Group, Inc.
Sahih al-Muslim (1972). vol. II. Bayrut.
Sarač, Edina (2004). “Izabrana djela“ Alije Izetbegovića u deset knjiga
početkom iduće godine. [Selected works of Alija Izetbegović in ten
61
volumes at the beginning of the next year]. Dnevni Avaz, Sarajevo, 17 July
2004.
Sivan, E. (1986). Ulama and Power, in Interpretations of Islam: Past and
present. NJ: Princeton.
Smailagić, Nerkez (1973). Znanost u islamskoj kulturi. [Science in Islamic
culture]. in: Klasična kultura islama, I. [Classical culture of Islam, vol 1].
Zagreb.
Smailagić, Nerkez (1975). Uvod u Kur’an. [Introduction to the Qur'an].
Zagreb.
Spengler, Oswald (1926). The Decline of the West, trans. Charles Francis
Atkinson. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
62
ARE RELIGIOUS PEOPLE BENEVOLENT PEOPLE? A STUDY
ON THE CASE OF TURKISH MUSLIMS
Ali AYTEN
E-mail: dinpsikolog@gmail.com
Citation/©: Ayten, A., (2013). Are Religious people benevolent
people? A Study on the case of Turkish Muslims. Journal of
Intercultural and Religious Studies. (4). 63-76.
Abstract
The present article aims to display the role of religiosity on empathy and
helping behaviours. It also purposes to examine the links between the
motivations to helping and religiosity and empathy. The sample of the
study consists of 461 males and 450 females from 32 cities of Turkey. In
this research, “Brief Islamic Religiosity Measure” and “Empathic Inclination
Measure”, and “Helping Behaviours Measure” are used. The findings of the
study indicate that there is an important relationship between religiosityhelping behaviour and religiosity-empathic inclination. According to the
multiple regression analyses, “religious faith and consequence” factor has
a considerable effect on empathic inclination, and helping behaviour.
Namely, when the level of religiosity increases the level of empathic and
helping inclinations increases as well. Furthermore, religiosity and
empathy have provided helping behaviours with altruistic motivations.
Keywords: Religiosity, Empathic Inclination, Helping Behaviour,
Religiosity Scale, Altruism, Pro-social Behaviour, Altruistic helping,
Reciprocity, Compassion.
 Associate professor at the department of Psychology of Religion of Marmara University,
Turkey.
Introduction
Almost all religions have teachings that advocate care giving and
compassion for others and helping indigents, and kindness for relatives,
neighbours and friends. Religiosity is identified with certain concepts
such as "love, justice, mercy, compassion, benevolence, kindness". Social
scientists, especially the psychologists and sociologists studying the
relationship between religion and pro-social behaviours (e.g., helping,
sharing, solidarity, and fairness) and religion and empathy have often
interrelated religiosity with pro-social behaviours, altruism and
empathy. Various studies that have been carried out to investigate these
stated issues yielded multi-directional findings on the religiosity-helping
behaviour relationship, the religiosity-empathy relationship, and the
empathy-helping behaviour relationship. Most studies have indicated the
positive relationship between helping behaviour and religiosity (Batson
1976; Batson & Gray 1991; Saroglou, Pichon, Trompette, Verschueren, &
Dernelle, 2005; Reitsma, Scheepers, & Grotenhuis 2006; Ahmad 2009)
empathy and religiosity (Khan, Watson, & Habib 2005; Gillet 2006; Sahin
2008) and amongst these three valuables (religiosity, empathy and
helping behaviour) (Watson, Hood, Morris, & Hall, 1984; Ayten 2010).
The main purpose of the present study is to illustrate the role of
religiosity and empathy on helping behaviour(s) based on TurkishMuslim sample. Research in the psychology of religion has involved the
analysis of largely Judeo-Christian samples drawn from Western
societies (e.g., Duriez 2004; Hardy & Carlo 2005; Chang-Ho, Pendergraft,
& Perry, 2006; Pichon, Boccato, & Saroglou 2007). The study also aims to
test the empathy-altruism hypothesis which was examined in several
studies (Piliavin & Charng 1990; Sibicky 1990; Sibicky, Schroeder, &
Dovidio 1995; Bierhoff & Rohmann 2004) in the case of Turkish Muslims.
In this way, the present study intends to offer new data to the existing
research and aims to contribute to the cross-cultural debates in terms of
religiosity and pro-social behaviour links.
64
Ayten, Are Religious People Benevolent People? A Study On The Case Of Turkish Muslims
Religiosity
 Religious faith and
consequence
 Religious ritual and
knowledge
Helping Behaviours







 Contents of Empathy
 Understanding
 Mercy
 Warmth
 Relieving
 Compassion
helping friends
helping neighbours
solidarity
helping charity organisation
basic (simple) helping
helping strangers
helping in ambiguous
situations
Figure-1: Model of study shows probable relations
In this study, the following hypotheses were constructed based on the
probable links amongst the variables as seen in Figure I.



Religiosity factors promote the helping behaviour and empathic
inclination.
Contents of empathic inclination (understanding, mercy,
compassion) promote helping behaviour.
Religiosity and empathic inclination provide altruistic motivation
for helping behaviour.
METHOD
Survey method and questionnaire technique were used in this research.
“Brief Islamic Religiosity Measure” and “Empathic Inclination Measure”
and “Helping Behaviours Measure” were performed to subjects. The data
were analyzed by SPSS statistical program. Analyses of factor, reliability,
t-test, Pearson correlation and multiple regressions were used for data
analysis.
65
Participants
The sample of the study consists of 911 participants from 7 different
geographical and sociological regions (from 32 cities) of Turkey. The
sample was selected by quota technique. It represents the regional rates
of population in seven regions based on the Population Census of 2000.1
50.6% (N=461) of the sample were males, and 49.4 % (N=450) were
females. The average age of the study participants was 33 years and
participants ranged in age from 14 to 76 years.
Forty percent (N=363) of the sample live in rural areas while 60%
(N=548) live in urban areas. 59.3% (N=540) of the sample are married,
and 37.7% (N=343) are single, and 3.1% (N=28) are other (widowed,
engaged or separated).
Measures
Background Information
Participants responded to several questions regarding the demographic
information (gender, age, marital status, economic level and education
level, etc.).
Helping Behaviours Measure
In the present study, a measure was developed for assessing Turkish
Muslim People’s attitudes toward helping behaviours on the basis of
Helping Orientation Questionnaire (Romer, Gruder, & Lizzadro, 1986).
This measure consisted of seven items. Some items which seem to be
applicable for Turkish Muslims were adapted from Romer, Gruder, &
Lizzadro’s scale. Some items were generated in pursuance of the general
structure of the measurement. Since each item includes a different
helping behaviour there are seven different types of helping behaviours:
1 According to Population Census of 2000, the regional proportions of the population of
Turkey are 26% in Marmara; 17% in Central Anatolia, 13% in the Aegean, 13% in the
Mediterranean, 12% in the Black Sea, 10% in South East Anatolia and 9% in East Anatolia
(see www.tuik.gov.tr).
66
(1) Helping friends, (2) helping neighbours, (3) solidarity, (4) helping
charity organisations, (5) basic (simple) helping, (6) helping strangers
and (7) helping in ambiguous situations. Each item contains four options
pointing out motivations/intentions of helping behaviours, and the
scores of items change according to the content: Altruistic and
unconditional helping (4 point e.g. I help him/her without any expectation
and recompense), reciprocal/conditional helping (3 point, e.g. I will help
my neighbour if s/he is kind or I help someone hoping s/he will help me in
the future), avoiding to helping (2 point. e.g. I try to find an excuse not to
help) and total rejection of help (1 point. e.g. I refuse to help). Questions
(7 items) were subjected to principal components factor analysis with
Varimax rotation to reduce complexity. It was elicited that only one
factor accounted for 27% of the variance. Kaiser-Mayer-Olkin parameter
and Bartlett test showed the suitability of data for factor analysis
[KMO=0.72; x2=348.87; p=0.000]. The internal reliability of the measure
was acceptable (=0.55).
Empathic Inclination Measure
The measurement (9 items) was developed to assess participant’s
empathic inclination on the basis of Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Davis,
1996). 7 items were adopted from Davis’ measure and two more items
were added by the researcher. Items were constructed as a Likert-type
scale format ranging from 4 (always) to 1 (never). After principal
components factor analysis, it was decided that the measure was
reduced to only one factor, and seemed acceptable to using in this study
[KMO=0.86; x2=1587.76; p=0.000]. Cronbach’s coefficient alpha was also
compatible (=0.77).
Brief Islamic Religiosity Measure
Respondents’ religiosity was measured with Brief Islamic Religiosity
Measure (BIRM) in this study. The measure was developed on the basis of
Uysal’s (1995) Islamic Religiosity Measure (Islami Dindarlik Olçegi). It
was first composed of 12 items. However, the religiosity items were
67
subjected to principal components factor analysis with Varimax rotation
to reduce complexity. It was elicited to two factors (10 items) which
accounted for 50% of the variance. Kaiser-Mayer-Olkin parameter and
Bartlett test showed the suitability of data for factor analysis. [KMO=
0.83, x2=2325.27; p=0.000]. Two items were excluded because of their
factor loadings (under 0.400). All items were measured on a four-point
Likert scale ranging from 1 to 4.
Sub-dimensions of the measure were named as religious faith and
consequence (e.g., “I behave well to my neighbours as required my
religious beliefs.”, “I don’t lie as required my religious beliefs.”, “How
often do your religious beliefs play an important role in searching
solutions for social problems such as family problems and cost of
living.”) and religious ritual and knowledge (e.g., “How often do you
pray?”, “How often do you fast?”, “How often do you perform the reading
of Quran?”). Cronbach’s alphas in the present study were compatible:
0.743 and 0.742 for two sub-dimensions, respectively. The first subdimension (religious faith and consequence) contains 6 items that assess
the degree of the effect of religious beliefs on benevolence, honesty, and
the solving of daily life problems. The second sub-dimension (religious
ritual and knowledge) contains 4 items that assess the degree of the
fulfilling religious rituals (e.g. daily prayers, fasting in Ramadan, and
reading the Qur’an) and acquiring religious knowledge.
Procedure
The data of the present study were collected between December 2007
and March 2008 from the Sunni Muslims from 32 different cities of
Turkey. Questionnaires containing Brief Islamic Religiosity Measure,
Empathic Inclination Measure and Helping Behaviours Measure were
distributed to participants in the streets (ordinary people), schools
(students, teachers and academics etc.), hospitals (doctors and nurses
etc.), companies (workers), private offices (lawyers, engineers and
managers etc.) and fields (farmers). The study was carried out with the
help of approximately 60 pollsters. Pollsters informed the participants
about the objectives of the study and what their participation would
68
entail. They also answered participants’ questions regarding the study
and the questionnaire if needed. Completion of the questionnaire took
approximately 15 minutes based on voluntary participation. Participants
did not hesitate or objected to answering the questionnaire.
Results
A series of multiple regression analyses (stepwise method) were used to
assess whether the religiosity has effect on helping others and the
empathic inclination, and whether the empathic inclination has effect on
the helping behaviours. Regression analysis firstly was employed to find
out the effect of religiosity on the helping behaviours. The two predictors
were religiosity dimensions: “religious faith and consequence” and
“religious ritual and knowledge” were entered simultaneously. The
dependent variable was “helping behaviours total”. The multiple
regression analyses are presented in Table-I.
Table-I: Regression Analysis for Religiosity on Helping Behaviours
Steps
ΔR2
F
p
1
0.067
66.276
0.000
Steps
Independent Variable
β
t
p
1
religious faith&consequence
0.261
8.141
0.000
Independent Variables: Religiosity sub-dimensions
Dependent Variable: Helping behaviours (total)
According to regression analysis, only one subscale of the religiosity was
a significant predictor on the helping behaviour. As can be seen in TableI, in step 1, “religious faith and consequence” accounted for 6.7% of the
variance in the helping behaviours total (ΔR2 =0.067; F=66.276=;
p=0.000). As regards Beta coefficients, a positive correlation was found
between “religious faith and consequence” and “helping behaviours
total” (β=0.261; t= 8.141; p=0.000). The results indicate that “helping
behaviour” increases as “religious faith and consequence” increases.
69
Table-II: Regression Analysis for Religiosity on Empathic Inclination
Steps
ΔR2
1
0.085
85.135
0.000
2
0.090
45.853
0.000
Steps
Independent Variables
β
F
t
P
P
1
religious faith&consequence
0.293
9.227
0.000
2
religious faith&consequence,
0.249
6.872
0.000
religious ritual&knowledge
0.089
2.469.
0.014
Independent Variables: Religiosity sub-dimensions
Dependent Variable: Empathic inclination
Secondly, regression analysis was employed to find out the effect of the
religiosity on the empathic inclination. The two religiosity dimensions
were entered simultaneously. The dependent variable was empathic
inclination.
Table-II shows us that two subscales of the religiosity were significant
predictors on the empathic inclination. In step 1, the subscale of
“religious faith and consequence” accounted for 8.5% of the variance in
the empathic inclination by itself (ΔR2 =0.085; F=85.135=; p=0.000). But
in the step 2, the subscales of “religious faith and consequence” and
“religious ritual and knowledge” accounted for 9% of the variance in the
empathic inclination together. As regards Beta coefficients, the positive
correlation was found between two subscales of the religiosity and the
empathic inclination. (see step-2: β=0.249; t= 6.872; p=0.000; β=0.089;
t=2.469; p=0.014). The results indicate that “empathic inclination”
increases as “religiosity” increases.
70
Table-III: Regression Analysis for empathic inclination on Helping Behaviours
Step
ΔR2
F
p
1
0.136
144.47
0.000
Step
Independent Variable
β
t
p
1
Empathic Inclination
0.370
12.020
0.000
Independent Variable: Empathic Inclination
Dependent Variable: Helping behaviours total
Lastly, regression analysis was realized to detect the effect of empathic
inclination on helping behaviours. Table-III shows us that the empathic
inclination was a significant predictor on helping behaviours. In step 1,
the empathic inclination accounted for 13.6% of the variance in the
helping behaviours (ΔR2 =0.136; F=144.47=; p=0.000). Furthermore, as
regards Beta coefficients, a positive correlation was found between the
empathic inclination and the helping behaviours (β=0.370; t=12.020;
p=0.000). The results indicate that “helping behaviour” increases as
“empathic inclination” increases.
In this study t-test analyses were used to answer the question “Do
religiosity and empathic inclination provide altruistic motivation for
helping behaviours?” The t-test analyses are presented in Tables IV and V.
Table- IV: Religiosity according to Motivations of Helping
Motivations of Helping
Religiosity
Total
Reciprocal/conditional
helping
Altruistic/unconditional
helping
N
M
S
161
3.355
0.431
F
p
4.379
0.001
697 3.481 0.416
As can be seen in Table-IV, the subjects who seemed to have inclination
to altruistic/unconditional helping scored higher on religiosity in
comparison to those who seemed to have inclination to
reciprocal/conditional helping (see respectively M=3.48; M=3.35). This
means that there is a significant difference between subjects who tended
reciprocal helping and altruistic helping regarding religious attitudes
71
and behaviours. Thus, it is possible to conclude that there is a positive
link between altruistic helping and religiosity. In other words, religiosity
promotes the altruistic motivation to helping.
Table-V: Empathic inclination according to Motivations of Helping
Motivations of Helping
Empathic
inclination
N
M
S
Reciprocal/conditional
helping
161 2.974 0.460
Altruistic/unconditional
helping
697
3.209
F
p
1.154 0.000
0.425
As also detailed in Table-V, the subjects who have the inclination of
altruistic/unconditional helping had high score on empathic inclination
comparing to those who have the inclination of reciprocal/conditional
helping (see respectively M=3.20; M=2.97). It means that there is a
significant difference between subjects who tended reciprocal helping
and altruistic helping regarding the empathic inclination. Thus, it is
possible to conclude that there is a positive link between the altruistic
helping and empathic inclination, namely empathic inclination promotes
the altruistic motivation to helping.
In conclusion, the subjects who have high scores at religiosity and
empathic inclination also have high score at altruistic/unconditional
helping. These findings indicate that religiosity and empathy provide
altruistic motivation for the process of helping others.
Discussion and Conclusion
The purpose of this investigation was to determine the role of religiosity
and empathy on helping behaviours, and illustrate whether religiosity
and empathy provide the process of helping with altruistic motivation.
As expected, religiosity (with its two dimensions) and empathy were
positively related to helping behaviour. In addition, there was a
significant positive relationship between religiosity and empathy, and
72
also religiosity and empathy provided the altruistic motivations for the
process of helping. Thus our hypotheses were entirely supported.
The debate whether religious people are nicer, and they feel more
empathy towards others and their helping inclination is higher than
nonreligious counterparts had been argued in several studies (Ellison
1992; Duriez 2004). It was asked “Are Religious People Benevolent
People?” in this study. The findings supported that religious people are
more likely to understand and help others. It was moderately consistent
with the previous findings (Batson, Floyd, Meyer, & Winner 1999;
Reitsma, Scheepers, & Grotenhuis 2006). This could be explained by the
influence of responsible consciousness invoked by religion, and also by
the influence of collectivist culture.
The findings also demonstrated that religiosity has an overwhelming
influence on empathic inclination. This stance was consistent with other
studies. It was obvious that religious belief and fulfilling of religious
rituals were positively effective on understanding, mercy and
compassion of the subjects. It evoked that empathy is an important
component of religiosity (see also Watson and et al. 1984; Batson,
Schoenrade, & Ventis 1985). On the other hand, empathy also promotes
the fulfilling of religious principles (Hoffman 1984). For instance, when
people see an indigent person in the street and feel empathy towards
him/her they might help him/her. In this regard, the helping which is the
result of empathy is a fulfilling of religious principle as well. In other
words, it might be said that empathy and religiosity promote each other.
The religiosity-empathy relation was more powerful than religiosityhelping behaviours relation (see Tables I and II). This could be explained
by the fact that the influence of religiosity on emotions and cognitive
circumstances is more than its influence on behaviours. This finding also
may uphold that the influence of religiosity on helping is based on
emotional elements (Saroglou, Pichon, Trompette, Verschueren, &
Dernelle, 2005).
According to empathy altruism hypothesis (Batson, Duncan, Ackerman,
Buckley, & Birch, 1981; Batson 1987), feeling empathic emotion for the
needy ones prompts altruistic motivation. This motivation endorses
73
people to help others without recompense. In short, the more empathic
emotion, the more altruistic motivation will emerge. In consistence with
this theory, the findings of this study showed that people who have more
tendency to empathy have more altruistic motivations to help others.
There are a number of limitations to the current study. (a) Since self
reported measures were used in the present study, participants’ own
perceptions of their values and behaviours were assessed. If behavioural
measures were used there would be different findings (Batson, Floyd,
Meyer, & Winner). For instance, Darley & Batson (1973: 107-108) who
used behavioural measure to assess the relationship between religiosity
and helping behaviours found a negative link between extrinsic
religiosity and helping behaviour. (b) The scope of this study excludes
childhood period (the range varies from 14 to 76). But it is very
important to clarify the relationship between religiosity and helping in
terms of childhood, and detect the effect of religious education on
helping behaviours in this period. (c) In this study, some personal factors
such as empathic inclination, and religiosity were examined.
Furthermore, socio-cultural elements which might be effective on the
process of helping should be studied. (d) In-group and out-group helping
were not examined in this study. It might be beneficial to study the
relationship between religiosity and in-group/out-group helping in
terms of understanding the influence of religiosity on universal
compassion. (e) Lastly, donation of blood and organ which is still a
problematic area should be studied in relation to religiosity.
In summary, results of this study are consistent with other studies
showed that religion has important effect on propensity to empathy and
helping behaviour. Furthermore, religiosity and empathic inclination
have a positive contribution to altruistic/unconditional helping. The
subjects who have high score at religiosity and empathic inclination also
have high score at altruistic/unconditional helping.
74
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77
CULTURAL DIFFERENCES BETWEEN
BOSNIA: DOES CONVERGENCE EXIST?
TURKEY
AND
Azra BRANKOVIC & Savo STUPAR **
E-mail: azrabrankovic@yahoo.com & savo.stupar@efsa.unsa.ba
Citation/©: Brankovic. A., & Stupar. S., (2013). Cultural
Differences between Turkey and Bosnia: Does Converenge Exist?
Journal of Intercultural and Religious Studies. (4), 77-93.
Abstract
Bosnia and Herzegovina is a place where many cultures are present.
Ottoman presence in Bosnia and Herzegovina lasted for five hundred
years. The encounter with the Ottoman culture brought significant
changes in the cultural structure of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The aim of this paper is to research differences between the national
cultures of Turkey and Bosnia, and to determine if there is a convergence.
We measured 4 dimensions of national culture: 1. The relation to
authority, 2. The relation between the individual and the group, 3.
Concept of masculinity and femininity, 4. Ways of dealing with
uncertainty and ambiguity.
Students at the International University of Sarajevo who took the course
Business Communication in the spring semester of 2010 answered a
questionnaire regarding 4 dimensions of national culture in June 2010.
The class consisted of 44 students, half from Turkey and the other half
from Bosnia and Herzegovina. We assume that the students are
representative of their cultures, as everybody who lives in certain culture
shares the values of that culture. An inductive method of the expert
system (Case Based Reasoning) has been applied to analyze the
questionnaire and to explain the differences between the national
cultures of Turkey and Bosnia.
Keywords: National culture, Hofstede, Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Turkey, expert systems
 This paper was presented in the International Symposium for Balkans and Islam:
Encounter- Transformation-Discountinuity-Continuity, 3rd – 5th November, 2010,
Canakkale, Turkey.
 International University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
** School of Economics and Business, University of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Short history of Bosnia and Herzegovina
People inhabited Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Palaeolithic period, a
hundred thousand years ago. During the Neolith, people in Bosnia
established permanent settlements. The first tribes in Bosnia and
Herzegovina were the Illyrians. Celts from Northern Italy attacked
Bosnia from the north in 370 century BC. They stayed only in the north
part of the land, but their influence spread all over Bosnia, as they were
technologically advanced the Illyrians adopted new technologies. The
Greeks established their colonies along the Adriatic coast and islands in
the 4th century BC, but their influence also spread throughout Bosnia and
Herzegovina because of trade. The Greeks were advanced and the
Illyrians learned from them how to make coins, build cities, and produce
arms, tools, jewellery and dishes. The conflict between the Illyrians and
the Romans started in the 3rd century BC, but Rome would not complete
its annexation of the region until the 9th year AD. The Illyrians were
finally defeated, after three centuries of battle and for the next five
centuries were under rule of the Roman Empire, sharing the same
destiny as many nations of Europe, Asia and Africa. In the Roman period,
some settlers from all over the huge Roman Empire settled among the
Illyrians while others travelled to Bosnia for various reasons. Thus the
population of Bosnia in the Roman period was very heterogeneous. It
was comprised of people coming from the Orient, Greece, Egypt, Trakia,
Iran and many other countries. It is noted that 40 different religions coexisted in Bosnia at that time and that the people worshiped 52 different
gods.
Following the crises of the Roman Empire between the end of 3 rd and the
beginning of 4th century AD, barbaric tribes started with attacks. The
region was conquered by the Goths, Alans, Huns, the Byzantine Empire
and finally by the Avars and Slavs, who crossed the river Sava in the year
602nd AD. We do not know a lot about the life of Slavs upon their arrival
and the political situation in Bosnia during the Early Middle Ages. It was
around this time that Bosnia was Christianized, probably being one of
the last areas to undergo this process.
80
Brankovic & Stupar, Cultural Differences between Turkey and Bosnia: Does
Convergence Exist?
Bosnia emerged as an independent state in the 12th century under the
rule of local bans. During the rule of Kulin Ban (1180-1204), one of the
most important rulers of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the country started to
develop economically and culturally. The official church in Bosnia was
the Bosnian Church and the official religion was Bogumilism, considered
heretical by the Roman Catholic Church and the Byzantine church.
Bogumils did not believe in resurrection, sacraments, forgiveness of sins,
purgatory, saints, icons and the cross. They did not believe in the Church
as an institution and criticized the Christian church’s greed for money
and gold. Kulin Ban was forced by the Pope and the Hungarian king to
formally reject Bogumilism in 1203, but this religion survived until the
Ottoman Empire arrived to Bosnia. In the 14th century, during the bans
and kings from the Kotromanic dynasty, Bosnia reached the top of its
political and territorial power and king Tvrtko I Kotromanic was the
greatest ruler in the Balkans. With territorial expenditure, Bosnia
acquired Catholic and Orthodox believers, thus becoming a land
consisting of three religions.
The first encounter with the Ottomans happened in 1386 in the Neretva
valley and then again in 1388. The Ottomans lost these battles, but their
activities and influence in Bosnia have been increasing since, until the
final fall of Bosnia in 1463. The Ottoman conquest of Bosnia marked a
new era in the country's history and introduced drastic changes in the
political and cultural landscape of the region. The Ottomans allowed the
preservation of Bosnia's identity by incorporating it as an integral
province of the Ottoman Empire with its historical name and territorial
integrity, what is a unique case. People in Bosnia and Herzegovina
started to accept Islam as their religion even before its final fall.
According to historical sources, almost all Bosnian Bogumils accepted
Islam, along with a lot of people of catholic and orthodox religion.
However, people were not forced to accept Islam. The Islamic culture
was expanding in art, science, literature, the way of living and especially
in architecture and civil engineering. More than 100 mosques have been
built in Sarajevo in the 15th and 16th century, as well as many bridges,
roads, schools and libraries. The Ottomans ruled Bosnia and Herzegovina
for almost 500 years but with the decline of the Ottoman Empire they
81
were forced by Great Power to cede administration of the country to
Austria-Hungary through the treaty of Berlin in 1878. 1
Culture and cultural dimensions
Culture is, according to anthropology, the way, pattern, or scheme of how
we behave, think, feel or act. We learned this pattern in early childhood
in our families. We may not even be conscious of it, but we behave
according to this pattern. The way we eat, greet, marry, shop, talk, vote is
determined by the culture which we belong to. Culture is always
collective. We are all children of our culture.
There are as many cultures as societies. There have been many attempts
to import other culture's values, but they all failed. It is not possible to
change the way people in a country feel, behave, or act simply by
importing foreign values. It is also impossible to change a culture by
propaganda, money, or military force. Since the end of the war in Bosnia,
the international community, consisting mainly of Americans and
Western Europeans spent a huge amount of money trying to import to
Bosnia their way of economic development, privatization, solving social
problems, their models of democracy and human rights, but all foreign
solutions did not work in Bosnia, simply because culture is deeply rooted
in a country and cannot be changed easily, especially in a short time.
In the first half of the 20th century, American anthropologists argue that
all societies, modern or primitive, face the same basic problems, just
solve it differently. They try to identify these problems. Based on the
work of Geert Hofstede, influential Dutch social psychologist and
anthropologist, and the work of anthropologists before him, it is possible
to identify 4 basic problem areas or cultural dimension. Dimension can
1 See more in Group of authors, Bosnia and Herzegovina from the old times till the end of
2nd World war, Press center of BH Army, 1994, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
82
Convergence Exist?
be measured and thus compared among various countries. These
dimensions are:2




Power distance (or relation to authority)
Individualism versus collectivism
Femininity versus masculinity
Uncertainty avoidance
The explanation of every dimension is given below. However, these are
theoretical extremes. Reality is usually somewhere in between.
Power distance
There is inequality in every society. We live today in the world where
some people have more money, power or status than others. Different
cultures have a different attitude about inequality, whether it is basically
good or bad. Laws in many countries proclaim equality, stating that
everybody is equal in front of the law, regardless of status, wealth or
power. However, this is not exactly true in reality. Islam is an
equalitarian religion, stating that everybody is equal in front of God.
However, there are huge social differences among people in countries
where Islam is the predominant religion.
In a large distance power culture, people are unequal. Everybody
recognizes and accepts inequality. People who have power have
privileges, use power to enrich themselves, show symbols of their status.
Scandals involving people in power are expected and always covered up.
If something goes wrong, the blame is with people who are lower in
hierarchy. Income distribution is unequal with a few very rich people
and many poor people.
In a small power distance culture, inequality is considered undesirable.
Everybody is equal before the law regardless of status, power or wealth.
2 See more in Geert Hofstede, Gert Jan Hofstede, Michael Minkov, Cultures and
Organizations, 3rd edition, 2010, McGraw Hill Companies, USA
83
Privileges are not desirable, everybody uses the same parking lot,
restaurant, rest room. It is negative to show status symbols like
expensive cars. Politicians in these countries go to work by bike, foot or
bus. These are wealthy countries with a large middle class. A scandal
means the end of a political career. Countries with small power distance
are wealthy countries, with a well established democracy and human
rights.
The power distance index value for 76 countries shows that the
countries with the highest power distance are Malaysia, Eastern
European countries with strong Russian influence (Slovakia, Russia,
Romania, Bulgaria), followed by Latin American countries (Guatemala,
Panama, Mexico, Venezuela, Ecuador), than ex Yugoslav countries
(Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia), and Arab countries.3
Countries with low power distance are Austria, Israel, Scandinavian
countries (Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark), the Netherlands,
Canada, Australia, US, Germany, Great Britain and Baltic countries.
The first group where people live is a family in which they are born.
There are as many family structures as societies or cultures. People may
live in extended families, consisting of parents, siblings, grandparents,
aunts, uncles and children. We call these cultures collectivistic cultures.
People stay connected with the group from birth until death. The group
protects them and they owe loyalty to the group. The majority of
countries in the world belong to collectivistic cultures. All poor countries
in the world share this culture.
On the other extreme, people may live in a family that consists of parents
or even one parent and other siblings. They leave this family as soon as
they get an education and lose connection with it. Young Americans
3 See more in Geert Hofstede, Culture’s consequences, 2nd edition, 2001, Sage
publications, Inc, USA.
84
Convergence Exist?
leave their homes to go to college and usually never come back.
Everybody takes care of themselves and only their immediate family.
Students take care about their education, taking part time jobs or taking
a government loan and do not expect their parents or extended family to
cover the expense of their education. We call these cultures
individualistic cultures. These cultures are common in rich countries.
An employee in an individualistic culture is “homo economicus”; he/she
works for a company because his/her skills and experiences match the
company needs. He/she will leave as soon as he/she gets a better offer.
On the other side, the employer will fire him/her in the case of
unsatisfactory performance. In a collectivist society the employer will
hire somebody that he/she knows, usually a relative. The employer will
protect an employee in exchange for loyalty. Bad performance will not be
a reason for firing, maybe only placement to another job.
In a collectivistic culture a business deal is done when the parties in the
business deal know each other very well, trust each other and consider
each other as friends. That may take a long time.
In contrast, in an individualistic culture, business is important and the
person is not. Further, preferring one person, partner or client is
considered discriminatory and against the law. American and Western
European companies lost many business opportunities because they try
to imply their rules to other cultures.
USA is the most individualistic country in the world. It is followed by
Great Britain, Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Scandinavian
countries, Italy, France, Germany, and Switzerland. On the other pole
there are Latin American countries (Guatemala, Ecuador, Panama,
Venezuela, Columbia), Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand, Taiwan, South
Korea.
85
Masculinity versus Femininity
All human societies consist of men and women. They are biologically
different, but also their roles in society are different. A culture is called
masculine when gender roles are clearly distinct, men are assertive,
tough and focused on material success; women are modest and
concerned with the quality of life. A culture is called feminine when
gender roles overlap; both men and women are concerned with the
quality of life.
The masculinity index value for 76 countries shows that the most
feminist countries are Scandinavian countries (Sweden, Norway,
Denmark, Finland), than Baltic countries, Netherlands, Slovenia, Costa
Rica, Chile, Russia. On the other hand the most masculine countries are
Slovakia, Japan, Hungary, China, Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Italy,
Great Britain and US.
In the work place, a masculine culture appreciates hard work and
performance. Men are expected to work hard, earn money and make a
career. All management methods and techniques are born in AngloSaxons’s countries which are masculine countries. The purpose of these
techniques is to push people to work harder and more intensively. In
these countries people live to work. In US many people hold 2 or 3 jobs.
In feminine cultures people work in order to live.
Feminine cultures value equality. These are welfare countries. They
think that the state should provide a normal life for everybody. Their tax
system distributes money from rich to poor. The percentage of poor
people in these countries is very low. Also, everybody has equal access to
education and health care. The percentage of illiterate people is low. In
the US, the tax system makes rich people even richer. A big percentage of
the population does not have access to health care and its excellent
universities are open to those who are able to pay for them.
86
Convergence Exist?
Uncertainty avoidance is a measure of the extent in which people feel
threatened by unknown and uncertain situation. We do not know what
will happen tomorrow, our future is uncertain. It is difficult for a human
being to live with it. From the beginning of history, people tried to
decrease uncertainty, developing science, technology, law and religion.
Technology and science can decrease uncertainty regarding natural
forces. Law tries to regulate people’s behavior and to make it
predictable. Religion tries to make people accept that we have to leave
with uncertainty. The strongest feeling of uncertainty, measured by the
index of uncertainty avoidance in 76 countries, is in Mediterranean
countries such as Greece and Portugal. A very high index is in LatinAmerican countries such as Guatemala and Uruguay. At the top are
Russia, Japan, Belgium and other Mediterranean and Latin American
countries. At the bottom is Singapore, Jamaica, all Scandinavian
countries, Great Britain, US, Canada, Hong Kong, China, Vietnam, India,
Malaysia.
In society, cultures with high uncertainty avoidance have a lot of laws
and regulations. Sometimes, laws are obsolete and even dysfunctional,
but they still exist. However, people in these countries have a strong
need to have a lot of laws, but do not trust their legal system. These
countries are more conservative, often not tolerant of different people
and new political ideas. There are not many people, especially young
people, in politics.
In cultures with low uncertainty avoidance, there are not many rules.
Great Britain does not even have a written Constitution. People believe
that many problems can be solved without rules. If some rule or law
becomes obsolete or does not work, they change it. Citizens are
interested in politics, and usually trust the politicians and legal system.
These countries are more liberal and tolerant of different people and
different ideas.
87
Research results
First, we will present the results of secondary research done by Geert
Hofstede who made an extensive survey about the values of IBM
employee in the more than 50 countries all around the world in the late
sixties and published it in 1980. The results have been recalculated
several times since then and the number of countries increased to 76.
There is no data for Bosnia, however, there is data for Yugoslavia, which
Bosnia was part of during the time the research was conducted, and
recalculated data for the neighboring states of Serbia and Croatia. Then,
we will present the results of primary research. Students at the
International University Sarajevo who took the course Business
Communication in the spring semester of 2010 answered a
questionnaire regarding 4 dimensions of national culture in June 2010.
The class consisted of 44 students, half from Turkey and the other half
from Bosnia and Herzegovina. We assume that the students are
representative of their cultures, as everybody who lives in a certain
culture shares the values of that culture. An inductive method of the
expert system has been applied to analyze the questionnaire.
Power distance
The power distance index value for 76 countries shows that Turkey
shares the 32nd – 33rd place, which means it has a moderate power
distance. Serbia is in 8th place and Croatia in 20th.4 The index for
Yugoslavia is 73.
4 Geert Hofstede, Gert Jan Hofstede, Michael Minkov, Cultures and Organizations, 3rd
edition, 2010, McGraw Hill Companies, USA, pp. 57-59.
88
Convergence Exist?
Chart 1. Power distance index for selected countries
The results of primary research do not show a convergence in power
distance between Bosnia and Turkey. Bosnia still has a much higher
power distance than Turkey. According to our results, it does not seem
that Bosnia moved toward a smaller difference in power distance. There
might be several reasons for it. Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of the
poorest countries in Europe5 which means higher power distance.
Bosnia and Herzegovina has been dependent on foreign aid, as a result of
the war, since the nineties which also implies a higher power distance.
The wealth in Bosnia increased in the last two decades but the wealth
distribution did not benefit all members of society equally. Wealth in
Bosnia is distributed so that the rich people become even richer, thus
increasing power distance. Also, rich people use power to lobby for
adopting laws in Parliament or paying expensive lawyers to win cases in
court, what make them even richer and more powerful and further
increases power distance.
In conclusion, power distance in Bosnia and Herzegovina remains high. It
is visible in everyday life in Bosnia, where politicians and people in
power have huge salaries, pensions, businesses, houses, cars and are
entitled to a lot of privileges.
5 World Bank, (2011), Indicators, GDP per capita, retrieved 25. 05. 2010.URL:
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD
89
The individualism index value for 76 countries shows that Turkey is in
43rd place. We can conclude that Turkey is a collectivistic culture, but
moderate. Serbia shares 55th - 56th place and Croatia is in 46th. 6In the
previous survey of 53 countries, Yugoslavia had the 34th place and
Turkey the 29th. According to this, Bosnia is definitely a collectivistic
country and has higher collectivism than Turkey.
Chart 2. Individualism index for selected countries
Our results do not show a convergence in individualism-collectivism
between Bosnia and Turkey. Bosnia is a more collectivistic country than
Turkey. Turkey moved more towards the individualistic side, what could
be explained with the rise of wealth in Turkey. This move toward the
individualistic side is one of the most dominant cultural characteristic of
Turkey. People started to appreciate having more time for their private
life and their own interests.
According to results of primary research, Bosnia did not move toward
individualism. Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of the poorest countries in
Europe and this discourages individualism. People moved during the war
in Bosnia to their national and religious group and tried to find security
and protection inside their group in exchange for loyalty. This largely
edition, 2010, McGraw Hill Companies, USA, pp. 95-97.
90
Convergence Exist?
contributed to the increase of collectivism. Hiring in Bosnia is not merit
based, but family or party based. There is a Law on civil service in Bosnia
where hiring of civil servants is described in details. However, hiring is
done on a preferential basis and it is impossible for a well educated and
experienced outsider to get a job in civil service.
People in individualistic cultures tend to be positive and express
happiness, versus people in Bosnia that always tend to express sadness
and rarely smile. Bosnians will use the opportunity to complain about
health, weather, prices, politics, etc.
Regarding uncertainty avoidance, ex Yugoslav countries scored very
high. Serbia shares the 11th – 13th place and Croatia shares the 29th – 30th
place. Turkey also ranks very high; it shares the 23rd – 25th place.7
Yugoslavia, in previous research was in 8th place and Turkey in 16th.
Chart 3. Uncertainty avoidance index for selected countries
edition, 2010, McGraw Hill Companies, USA, pp. 192-194
91
There is no convergence between Bosnia and Turkey regarding this
cultural dimension. Bosnia is a country with high uncertainty avoidance.
This is the most dominant culture dimension in Bosnia. It is obvious that
people in Bosnia feel uncertain about their future and feel threatened.
The most dominant question in this research was “Will you work for a
boss of another nationality?” Almost all Bosnian students answered
negatively.
People have a feeling that they cannot change anything. People write
petitions or go to protests but government suppression is expected and
happens. In Bosnia, war veterans recently demonstrated in front of the
Federal Parliament because of their pensions. They clashed with police,
some were injured and leaders of protests were prosecuted.
There are many laws in Bosnia, but they are not implemented, like the
previously mentioned Law on Civil services. Court cases last for years,
and their results are uncertain. People who have power usually win
cases.
Results show that Bosnia became more conservative, often not tolerant
of different people, especially not of people from other nationalities. One
of the explanations may be that during the war in Bosnia, people
confined themselves to their national groups and became conservative.
Later, the political situation reinforced that feeling.
Bosnia is not open to new political ideas. There are not many new
people, especially young people, in politics. Various indicators show that
the same politicians have been on the ballots for the 2010 elections as
for the 1992 elections.
Corruption is very high in Bosnia. Bosnia is on the top of the list of the
most corrupt countries in the world according to Transparency
International8. Bosnia has received huge foreign aid from friendly
countries during the war and after, but the money has ended up in
private pockets and nobody has been prosecuted for that.
8 Transparency International, Retrieved: 25.05. 2010. URL: www.transparancy.org
92
Convergence Exist?
Femininity versus masculinity
The masculinity index value for 76 countries shows that Croatia shares
the 55th – 58th place and that Serbia shares the 47th – 50th place.
Yugoslavia was a feminist culture. Turkey is on 43rd – 45th place, which is
more towards the masculine side than Bosnia.9
Chart 4. Masculinity index for selected countries
There is a convergence between Bosnia and Turkey regarding the
masculinity-femininity dimension. This is also one of the most dominant
cultural characteristic of Turkey. Turkey moved more towards the
feminist side. That means more equality between genders, more
appreciation toward quality of life, use of private time, living and
working in a nice environment. Turkey still has the characteristics of a
masculine country where people appreciate hard work and competition,
want challenges and high earnings.
Bosnia moved towards the masculine side. This could be explained,
again, with poverty and the recent war.
edition, 2010, McGraw Hill Companies, USA, page 141-143
93
Conclusion
Primary research results shows that there is no convergence between
Bosnia and Turkey regarding power distance, individualism versus
collectivism and uncertainty avoidance, but there is a convergence in the
femininity versus masculinity cultural dimension.
The most dominant characteristic in Bosnian culture is uncertainty
avoidance. The most dominant characteristics in Turkish culture are the
shift toward individualism and femininity side. Explanation may be that
Turkey became a wealthy country with many years of stable economic
development. People started to appreciate and enjoy their private time
and to enjoy their jobs more. There is also an evident shift towards
equality.
References
Geert Hofstede, Gert Jan Hofstede, Michael Minkov, (2010). Cultures and
Organizations, 3rd edition, McGraw Hill Companies, USA,
Geert Hofstede, (2001). Culture’s consequences, 2nd edition, Sage
publications, Inc, USA,
Group of authors, (1994) Bosnia and Herzegovina from the old times till
the end of 2nd world war, Press center of BH Army, Sarajevo, Bosnia and
Herzegovina.
Transparency
International,
www.transparancy.org
retrieved:
25.05.
2010.
URL:
World Bank, (2011), Indicators, GDP per capita, retrieved: 25.05.
2010.URL: http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.CD.
94
EDUCATION OF VALUES IN RELIGIOUS CULTURE AND
MORAL KNOWLEDGE CLASSES IN TURKISH PRIMARY
SCHOOLS
Alim BAYHAN
E-mail: alimb09@gmail.com
Citation/©: Bayhan. A., (2013). Education of Values in Religious
Culture and Moral Knowledge Classes in Turkish Primary Schools.
Journal of Intercultural and Religious Studies. (4), 94-116.
Abstract
As a result of scientific and technological developments and globalisation,
it is observed that there is gradual moral values degradation in the World.
Along with the obsession of the mankind with the materialistic values,
negligence of emotional and affective dimensions of mankind led to
growing appearance of sad, anxious, desperate more over mentally
disturbed and physically frail people. Consequently, We are convinced
that technological instruments such as TV and Computer, played a
significant role in the emergence unhealthy individuals and moral values
degradation. Tendencies such as helping the growing generations regain
the moral values and educating them as people with a good character, has
become widespread across the world. There are also similar concerns for
the problem “degradation of moral values” in Turkey. Accordingly serious
measures are taken in order to deal with it. The family, as an institution,
cannot play its role as a value educator, the primary schools has become
the primary centres for the values educations. Obviously, the religous
educations in the primary schools play a vital role in helping the kids
obtain the intended values. In this study, we aimed at studying the
activities related to values education, especially in the religious education
classes which play crucial role in this issue.
Keywords: Education, religious culture and moral knowledge classes,
value, Turkish primary school
 PhD. student, Marmara University Faculty of Theology on Religious Education, Turkey.
Introduction
With the technological and scientific developments, it is seen that the
world has been in a state of flux and transformation. On this rapidly
changing world because of globalization, alteration of values is almost
unavoidable. This transformation and evolution in the society result in
depreciation of traditional values and existence of new values which are
shaped by the changing conditions. Positive assessment of the rapid
changes of our society’s endeavoured values, which are learnt by
experience, is intensely difficult; because these values are people’s
cultural products which have been shaped by their experience of
centuries. Social values are signatures of society’s identity, they are like
dactylograms and they constitute the basis of behaviours of individuals
(Turgut, 2010: 9). One of the common factors why such important values
are being lost and evanished is the society’s not protecting them. Society
is a significant determiner in constructing the sense of value; for that
reason, one of the main reasons why the values are in a state of
corruption is that these values have lost their support from society.
Human beings are composed of souls and bodies. In order to continue
life by building a healthy character, they must feed themselves not only
physically but also spiritually. However, human beings have simply failed
their spiritual developments while they have succeeded in scientific and
technical issues. This situation has ensued in spawn of people who are
materially-well but in lack of peace and happiness. By ruining their own
spiritual equilibrium just as they have ruined the ecological balance,
human beings have cut their own throats. As “environmental pollution”
is standing against us as a global problem all over the world, “soul
pollution” is also another fact in the same way (Ayhan vd., 2004: 10).
Furthermore, this problem should be taken into consideration as much
as environmental pollution and come to an end as soon as possible.
Unfortunately, the products of today’s modern civilizations are
inhumane values such as starvation, poverty, exploitation, war, violence,
hatred and socio-economical inequity, while they should be
humanitarian values such as peace, social justice, equity, happiness etc.
(Köylü, 2006: 53).
96
Bayhan, Education of Values in Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge Classes
in Turkish Primary Schools
Tendency to raise generations with strong personalities and reactivating
these moral values in upcoming generations have become an important
priority for today’s world. It can be seen as an example of this tendency
that in Germany, besides the class of “Religion Education”, a new class
has been added to the curriculum under the name of “Values and Norms”
(Polat, 2010: 145). It has become a priority to personalize individuals not
only in Germany, but also in other countries. No matter how late it is for
our country, studies aimed at education of norms and values have been
accelerated recently. For instance, as the families have been losing their
functions, schools have taken the place in the education of values; within
this framework, by determining a value and studying on it every month
via different kinds of projects and activities, it is aimed at adopting this
value on these children.1 Within these studies, a new kind of a club has
been established at schools under the name of “Education of Values”.
Depending on these studies, we can infer that education of the values is
paid attention in both technical and practical ways.
Nowadays, schools’ understanding of loading students with more
knowledge, while ignoring their characteristic and ethical guidance,
results to the increase of the negation in the behaviours of students
(Hökelekli, 2007: 69). Parents’ and society’s understandings, which value
child’s academic career above everything, cause harm to the child’s sense
of value. Parents’ idea of “no matter how, my kid should be successful”
drags the children into the idea of “the ends justify the means”. Those
children committing themselves to get a high status job put gaining
humane and moral values over. Moreover, educational establishments
give particular importance only to providing students to a higher
educational establishment. This kind of educational structure should be
questioned and schools should give importance to not only cognitive
development of children but also raising individuals who have humane
and moral values (Kaymakcan, 2008: 116). An education system focusing
only on academic success and normalizing such kind of an understanding
results in the corruption of the values. At this point, initial duty for our
1 See the circular of Ministry of National Education: http://www.egitimmevzuat.com/
index. php/ 201009091422/2010/lk-ders-201053-genelge.html. Erişim tarihi:
10.12.2010.
97
educators is to give importance not only to students’ physical and
cognitive developments but also to their characteristic developments. As
Emerson stated; “Character is higher than intellect” because cognitive
education without moral education means an education with the risk of
threatening the society (Kılavuz, 2003: 413).
In this study, we aim to develop some suggestions and analyse the
education of values in Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge (RCMK)
classes which can be seen simply as a locomotive in re-gaining the values
that we have been losing and keeping our children away from negative
behaviours. Although there is a common idea that reactivating the moral
values in children is in the scope of RCMK classes, other classes should
also take active part in this aim and solve this problem with an
interdisciplinary perspective. “Character education, which we can’t think
apart from education of values even though they have different
meanings, is a subject that integrated to the total curriculum of all lesson
plans. For that reason, character education should be taken as a part of
the school life rather than a fast-food-type program” (Ekşi, 2003: 81).
While reactivating the values, education system has the most important
part of the responsibility with its all dimensions. In the on-going process,
it has become obligatory to transform education system into a valuecentred system, because amongst the most important abilities that 21st
century expects from its individuals are being sensitive towards national,
spiritual and global values; taking cognizance of personal and social
values and gaining aesthetic pleasure. (Yaman, Taflan ve Çolak, 2009:
108)
What is Value?
It doesn’t seem possible to make a definition of the term value on which
everyone has the common opinion. It is because people’s sense of value
is not independent of their thoughts and emotions and those thoughts
and emotions differ from one individual to another. “Value is attributing
a sense to an idea, manner or behaviour. For that reason, value is not
neutral. This factuality may take us into a situation that we attribute the
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value to a source and prefer this source to other sources. This source can
be religion or a secular culture or an ideology. From this point of view,
we can say that in the education of values as a moral education, factors
are not objective or neutral” (Polat, 2010: 144).
The term of value is the ideas that consist of expressions such as goodbad, right-wrong, acceptable-unacceptable etc. Erol Gungor has clarified
the term of value as: “Value, especially in means of ethics, is a criterion
that a person consults while evaluating other people, their qualifications,
behaviours, requests and intentions. As an example: Ahmet is a good
person. Why? Helping people is good and he helps other people as much
as he can” (Güngör, 1993: 18-19).
The relation between human and values has always been a matter of
subject. According to Cınar, it is a serious problem that the relation
between existence and value couldn’t be ensured or the link between
them was separated. According to her, value without existence is blind,
and existence without value is deaf (Çınar, 2006: 69).
When the topic is value, a meaning attribution or an evaluation by people
is the matter of subject. If values are worth reaching, they make sense for
individuals (Mehmedoğlu, 2007: 118). To Erdem, values judge
behaviours and are also the source of behaviours. On the other hand,
values, by defining what individuals care for, demonstrate which
situations are preferred, accepted, unaccepted or desired (Erdem, 2003:
56). However, we can’t define prototypes of values; because, values are
diverse and involve our idea of universe and our space in it, our sense of
aesthetics, our intellectual standards which contain our reality search,
and above all, our social relations that associate us with others (Gündüz,
2005: 19).
Values have a significant function in personality formation. According to
Gokce, value is integrated to individual’s personality, and thus it is seen
as a part of that personality (Gökçe, 1994: 133). For that reason,
corruption of values in the society directly affects the people’s
characters.
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Values are identifiers that remain at the forefront of individuals’ lives,
dignify them and prepare individuals to the society by giving shape to
their lives. People’s priorities, or in other words their sense of value, may
differ from individual to individual. For instance; for some people being a
successful person with a high status job, or for some other people getting
wealth in a short time, while for other people being a good person who
gained God’s and people’s love are the privileged ideals. In that case,
value is a qualification that subject has attached to the object afterwards
in addition to its other qualifications to express its purpose and relation
with his/her actions (Cevizci, 1996: 124).
There is a mutual interaction between society and values. While values
are key criterions that make sense of socio-cultural elements of society (
Bağlı ve Özensel, 2005: 85), society is an important criterion in deciding
the values. In other words, at our status, we have the knowledge of what
people of this status do, think, appreciate etc. As a male; we appreciate
qualifications such as courage, tenacity, equanimity, perseverance etc.
and a young lady learns that chasteness is an important value, etc.
(Dilmaç, 2002, 3). Society surrounds roles with social value degrees and
individuals determine their behaviour patterns according to these values
(Fichter, 2001: 146). Hence, whether they are obligatory or not, values
determine all human actions, especially moral actions (Gündüz, 2005:
18).
Each society has its own sense of value. These values are necessary and
required as they ensure life’s running in an order. According to Fichter,
values are criterions that make sense out of society and culture (Fichter,
2001: 146). According to him, all punishments and rewards of a society
are based on the value system of that society. A society without any value
means that it has lost its most powerful social control device. System of
values reflects the human experience of that society and has a direct
effect on the modern human experiences. System of values determines
what is wanted from individuals, what is forbidden to them, which action
is punished and rewarded for them (Fichter, 2001: 146). Even though
sense of value differs from society to society, people also have universal
values. For instance; respecting elders, being honest, behaving
100
customarily or helping people etc. has been accepted in every age and in
every society.
Corruption of Values and Media
Even though people have stunningly succeeded in science and technical
issues, have they succeeded in activating universal values such as
righteousness, honesty, humanity, altruism, sharing, and justice as
much? Akarsu also asks a similar question: “Have human beings, who
have created culture and civilizations, and who have made progress in
science, techniques, art and philosophy this much, made any progress in
being human beings?” (Akarsu, 2002: 15). At that point, it is extremely
difficult to answer these questions positively. Nowadays, even children
are aware that society is losing “value”. It is paradoxical that most of the
youths have the common idea that a large part of their own generation is
“purposeless, idealess and carefree”; however, it is meaningful that they
find it worthy to be attached to an ideal or a purpose (Adenauer, 1999:
47).
It is clearly seen that with the scientific developments and globalization,
the sense of values of the society is in a rapid change. To exemplify:
Duteousness and austerity are not as strong values as they used to be.
Duteousness is replaced by rationalism and quizzicality while austerity
is replaced by entrepreneurism and competing (Turgut, 2010: 7). If
national, humane or spiritual values of a society are being lost, this is a
symptom of alarm bells’ ringing. About this situation, Hokelekli states
that:
“If a society’s values such as trust, peace, justice, equity, mercifulness,
responsibility etc. are breaking down or some values are depreciating
or are losing their significance, children or the young of that society
cannot build a strong character and they cannot edify themselves.
Sanity of the individuals of that society is in serious danger; social
integration and interdependency weakens... Breakdown or
depreciation of values in a society bereaves that society’s individuals
of a healthy spiritual development. “Anxiety”, “stress”, “dullness” and
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“nothingness” appear in the lives of individuals who don’t know what
for and for which aim they live. In such a condition, individual’s
“alienation” to himself/herself and to the nature, “automatization” of
individuals and “tarnishing” of lives are talked about. We can say that
people, whose total interest and attention is attracted to materialism
and cognitivism and who are emotionally and spiritually ignored, are
in search of re-occupying and re-building their fragmented self-unity
and meaningfulness” (Hökelekli, 2007: 63-64).
Today’s youth is aimlessly and senselessly being dragged into a life that
is in lack of values. In the depreciation process, it is absolutely obvious
that a society consisting of unhappy and anxious individuals will face
more serious problems in the near future. With the impact of capitalist
system and media, the perception in which happiness can only be
achieved by obtaining material values, has begun to its fruition. In a
research about this situation, it is seen that most of the young people
have tendency to materialism and hedonism and these social facts have
begun to come into prominence (Gökçe, 1994: 137).
Media, especially television and computer, is an important determiner in
traditional values’ facing the danger of extinction and judgement of
values’ suffering such a change. As media always shows skinniness or
being thin as the only criterion of beauty, the sense of aesthetics in
children has significantly been changed. This situation has turned into
such a paranoia that today’s girls show maximum effort, even at the risk
of putting their lives into danger, in order to be size zero just like the
models they see on televisions. Similarly, we witness that today’s boys
have tendencies of violence and assaultiveness 2 The reason of this
situation is that violence and assaultiveness are shown as criterions of
power and prestige in media.
We can state conveniently that with current television shows, it is
extremely difficult to reach the desired student profile in means of
neither academic success nor values’ education. In other words,
2 In november 1994, in a murder in Norway, 3 kids, who killed a 5-year-old girl, said that
they are inspired form a ninja movie. Milliyet gazetesi, Ekran eki, 01.06.1995, In Canada,
a 14-year-old child killed a 7-year-old friend of himself just like in a movie he watched, as
he was under influence of the movie. Sabah Gazetesi, 20.06.1996 (Peker, 1998: 167).
102
television and success can be considered as two different concepts that
can’t stand together. Postman, in his book named as “The Disappearance
of Childhood”, criticizes children’s being exposed to social events that
belongs to the adult world such as sexual relations, illnesses, homicide,
death, rape, robbery and violence via television, a media device
(Postman, 1995: 121). According to him, all secrets of adulthood are
brought into light via terrifying, self-seeking and embarrassing television
(Postman, 1995: 123). All of those subjects are a part of adulthood and
shouldn’t interrupt a child’s pure and innocent world. Moreover,
television programs, nowadays, contain extremely negative examples
even for adults. The news of accidents, violence, death, terrible illnesses,
rapes, terror, wars and terrifying, disappointing, hateful and painful
scenes that we see on televisions affect people negatively and take them
into an adverse, self-seeker, selfish, aggressive, sceptic and depressive
mood. They also make people interiorize these concepts (Sevinç, 2006:
223).
There has been serious devastation in children’s values such as sense of
responsibility, curiosity, creativity etc. since the television and internet
have come intensely into our lives. Young people, who use computers for
video games or just to chat on-line, have severed all ties with family
relations and become anti-socials by individualizing rapidly. Children
sometimes cannot distinguish the difference between reality and
imagination, especially when they are at concrete operational stage. For
that reason; children, killing enemies in video games and seeing them respawn afterwards, can make unrecoverable damage the other people
with the same expectation.
We witness regretfully that some values, which used to be important to
people, are absent in today’s youth. Nowadays, “we can’t separate men
from the boys.” In other words, judgements of values such as good-bad,
right-wrong, beautiful-ugly etc. are jumbled. For example, students have
lost their sense of respect considerably, as they no more listen to their
teachers or friends talking with permission. Furthermore, young people
used to be extremely sensitive and tactful in giving their seat to the old,
the sick or the pregnant in public transportation; however, they have lost
this feature to a large extent nowadays. The young put their earphones
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on and literally turn their ears off to the life. This situation displays the
end point of selfishness and individualism and thus it is referable that
the sense of respect has been lost almost totally. The reason of this
change is that, in individualized and isolated society, today’s youth can’t
meet people who can be models about traditional values. However,
young people used to be able to meet with the elder and thanks to the
culture of chatting face to face, elder people used to be live models to the
youth about virtues such as manners, politeness, love and respect. It is a
known truth that if the modelled people are in the centre of young
people’s lives, then this will make positive effect on their actions. If the
society has model people and leaders who are actively living with the
values, it is really effective on the young and the children in means of
seeing that these values are concrete and liveable (Polat, 2010: 150).
Chatting environments such as coffee houses, mosques or just homes
where children learned positive values and internalized them, used to
make contribution to their socialization. After such kind of a system,
which had an important social function in our past, couldn’t have been
continued; extended family types split into nuclear family types; and
people became more addicted to televisions and computers, it became
more difficult to transfer positive value judgements from one generation
to another. As a result; corruption of value judgements became
unavoidable. At this point, RCMK classes bear important duties and
responsibilities in order to re-activate these corrupted value judgements.
Activity Examples and Some of the Values to Teach in RCMK Classes
of Primary Schools
One of the basic duties of the schools is to integrate individuals with
strong personalities, who are well-educated and respectful to national
and spiritual values, into the society. This is very important in terms of
society’s development and having a promising future. RCMK classes have
an incontrovertible importance in achieving these goals for Turkish
education system. The values of a society or a state have an important
role in specifying the education policies of that state. If we analyse the
main objectives of Turkish education system, we can see that Religious
104
Culture and Moral Knowledge classes will make a significant
contribution to raising the intended individual types (İÖDKABK
(4,5,6,7,8). 2010: 7)
RCMK classes not only teach children positive value judgements
cognitively but also form an important motivation resource in putting
these values into practice. As to arrange into an order some of the
behaviours to be gained in RCMK classes:
- With a healthy religion and moral education, providing students with
internalization of the national, moral, humane and cultural values that
are stated in the Main Objectives of Turkish Education System, their
growing healthfully in terms of physical, mental, moral, spiritual and
emotional developments; and thus preventing them from cultural
alienation,






Teaching religion in terms of not only theory but also practice. In
other words; ensuring students internalize moral virtues and
values,
Emphasis upon adoption of universal values and national
identity,
Respecting to humanity, ideas, liberty, ethics and culture is made
essential bases.
Comprehending that religion is an indispensible component for
humanity by realizing its dimensions of love and sincerity,
Being virtuous individuals, who respect and know moral values
and internalizing the learnt moral values,
Realizing that universal values correspond to Islamic humane values
is aimed ( İÖDKABK (4,5,6,7,8). 2010: 9-12).
With education of values, it is aimed at raising academically welleducated children with value judgements which can enlighten them in
real life. Through this, it will be possible to raise children with healthy
physical and spiritual structures.
In this part of the study, we aim to make an assessment about the
process of value education in RCMK classes by focusing on what kind of
105
activities are included in RCMK classes in order to revitalize judgement
of values that are facing extinction. However, we have reached the
conclusion that it is a better approach to analyse some of the values that
are important to us. Otherwise, this study would go beyond its concept,
as the number of values aimed to revitalize in RCMK classes is quite
much.
Honesty
Honesty literally means; idea’s being veridical, judgements’ and
suggestions’ being realistic (Turkish Dictionary, 1998: 612). An honest
person doesn’t solely mean a person who tells the truth. It also means a
person, who is honest from the bottom of heart; who has coherence
between ideas, sayings and doings (Dilmaç, 2002: 8).
In the school book of RCMK classes, in order to students’ internalizing
the values of honesty and righteousness, “Kaşağı” (Currycomb), a story
of Omer Seyfettin, is introduced and students are wanted to infer the
importance of being honest from this story (İÖDKABKK (6), 2010: 115).
By giving examples from life of the Prophet Muhammed in order to make
students refer how being an “honest man” has an effect upon other
people; the Prophet, who is also known as “El-emin”(meaning “reliable
man” in Arabic), is represented to the students as a role model
(İÖDKABKK (6), 2010: 48).
With the aim of making students gain the values of honesty and
righteousness, “A Fair Merchant”, a story from the life of Imam-ı Azam
Ebu Hanife, is introduced to the students and they are expected to think
over this story (İÖDKABKK (6), 2010: 134).
In the writing activity, with the couplet of Ziya Pasha;
“Fidelity befits a person even under duress,
Loving God is the helper of truthfulness” it is aimed at making students
comprehend how important to be honest (İÖDKABKK (8), 2010: 118;
106
(İÖDKABDK (8), 2010: 111). In the Information Box activity which is
aimed at emphasizing the importance of honesty and its being a
universally-accepted value, there are examples from Qur’an, The Prophet
Muhammed, Torah, Bible, Hinduism and Buddhism (İÖDKABKK (8),
2010: 139; (İÖDKABDK (8), 2010: 145).
Love and Mercy
Students are asked to read and comment on the story, “My Dear Mother”
in which how the Prophet loved and respected family elders and the
dedication and favours He did for His milk-mother, Halime, is written
(İÖDKABKK (6), 2010: 90); (İÖDKABDK (5), 2010: 70).
In order to ensure the comprehension of the value of love, there is an
anecdote telling how the Prophet loved His grandchildren. Thus, the
image of a loving and a merciful Prophet is exemplified to the students.
In the story “The Prophet and the Orphan Child”, the Prophet, who was
also a parentless child, is introduced as a good example with his
concerned, lovely, compassionate and graceful attitude towards His
adopted child (İÖDKABKK (5), 2010: 95); (İÖDKABDK (5), 2010: 78).
Loving all living creatures is emphasized with the verse of Yunus Emre,
“Love the created for the sake of creator” (İÖDKABKK (8), 2010: 94);
(İÖDKABDK (5), 2010: 79).
Love of nature is emphasized with the words of Prophet Muhammed: “If
you have a sapling, if you have the time, be certain to plant it, even if
Doomsday starts to break forth” (İÖDKABKK (8), 2010: 95); (İÖDKABDK
(8), 2010: 80).
The importance of love, brotherhood and tolerance is emphasized with
another verse of Yunus Emre:
“Come so that we meet,
This will really ease it.
Let’s love and be loved-one,
The earth shall be left to no one” (İÖDKABKK (8), 2010: 122);
(İÖDKABDK (8), 2010: 119).
107
Sharing and Helping
Unfortunately, another pair of values that we have been losing recently is
sharing and helping each other. It is frightening that the children we are
trying to raise with national, spiritual and universal values are growing
as unmethodical, materialistic, senseless and selfish teenagers, who
think only for themselves, try to get on the gravy train, prefer standing
up without comprehending rather than comprehending by listening
(Parlakyildiz, 2007: 127). Parents used to recommend their children to
share their food or money with friends or a needier, but nowadays
parents caution their children not to give others their belongings. This
scene clearly displays the point which our society’s sharing and helping
attitude is exactly on.
In the information box activity, the importance of values such as
generosity, helping, compassion and grace, patience, modesty, humility,
tolerance and sincerity is demonstrated to the students via the
recommending words of Mevlana; “In generosity and helping others, be
like a river. In compassion and grace, be like the sun. In concealing
others’ faults, be like the night. In anger and fury, be like dead. In
modesty and humility, be like soil. In tolerance, be like the sea. Either
seem as you are or be as you seem” (İÖDKABKK (6), 2010: 140);
(İÖDKABDK (6), 2010: 145).
Virtues such as helping others and modesty is tried to be taught to the
students via a story called “Thorn on the Road” which is about a good
deed (İÖDKABKK (5), 2010: 79).
In order to focus on the importance of the virtues such as sharing and
generosity, a text, “I Wove It with My Bare Hands”, is given a place. In this
story, it is told how the Prophet gives a dress, which is actually a present
to him, to a friend of him who likes the dress, and asks if the Prophet can
present him with it. Students are expected to make a conclusion of this
friendly behaviour of the Prophet and thus the importance of sharing
and generosity is emphasized (İÖDKABKK (5), 2010: 92); (İÖDKABDK
(5), 2010: 73).
108
According to psychologists of education, the best way of learning is
experiential learning. In this concept, in order to focus on the importance
of sharing and helping “an aid campaign” activity is suggested and within
this framework students are expected to organize an aid campaign with
the permission of school management (İÖDKABKK (5), 2010: 116).
Thanks to such kind of experiential activities, students will be able to
gain the qualification of sympathy and they also will become more
sensitive in sharing others’ problems.
Within the framework of the “Let’s complete” activity; how problems are
shared in the family of the Prophet is exemplified via the story named as
“Don’t Worry” in which Hatice, wife of the Prophet, consoles him on his
panic and fear he feels after he receives the first divine inspirations in
the Cave Hira (İÖDKABKK (5), 2010: 91); (İÖDKABDK (5), 2010: 72).
By giving a place to the text named as “What is the Right of the
Neighbour?” which is adapted from a hadith about how neighbourhood
relations should be; the importance of virtues such as fraternity, sharing
and helping between the neighbours (İÖDKABKK (5), 2010: 93);
(İÖDKABDK (5), 2010: 76).
In an outdoor activity with the intention of developing students’ sharing
and helping values, students are recommended to visit a nursing home,
orphanage, an old or an ill person with the accompaniment of a teacher.
After that visit, they are wanted to share their feelings and ideas with
their friends within the concept of those visits (İÖDKABKK (5), 2010:
126).
Comprehension of the importance of values such as sharing and helping
is targeted by expecting students to write a paragraph explaining the
following sentence; “A person should be happier with what is given
rather than what is taken” (İÖDKABKK (8), 2010: 60); (İÖDKABDK (8),
2010: 35).
The importance of helping the poor for the Almighty God’s sake and love
is emphasized by telling an anecdote “Someone Gives More Than You
Do” from the life of Caliph Osman (İÖDKABKK (8), 2010: 62)
109
Working and Effort
In order to emphasize on the importance of working, it is targeted to
teach working as a way of worshiping with the help of a Nasreddin Hodja
joke (İÖDKABKK (5), 2010: 67).
Another story named as “to be a Lion or a Cripple Fox” from the piece of
Sadi Shinazi named as “Bostan” (Orchard) is introduced to teach the
importance of working value and the value of working honestly is
represented to the students (İÖDKABKK (8), 2010: 53); (İÖDKABDK (8),
2010: 26).
With the help of the couplet by Mehmet Akif Ersoy; “The one who earns
his food honestly is a shame for his friend and a fool for his enemy”
students are expected to think over the importance of working and
realize that working is an important virtue (İÖDKABKK (8), 2010: 89);
(İÖDKABDK (8), 2010: 72).
Responsibility
With the education of values, raising altruist and devoted individuals
who bare the sense of responsibility is aimed. In teaching these values,
RCMK classes have a significant function. For instance; in RCMK classes,
basic responsibility values such as environmental cleaning of schools,
protecting school equipment and sources and not wasting national
wealth such as water and energy are being taught.
In order to teach the value of responsibility another joke, “Is the Thief
not Guilty?” from Nasreddin Hodja is given a place in the school book,
and thus students are expected to analyse this story in the sense of
responsibility of a person (İÖDKABKK (6), 2010: 117); (İÖDKABDK (6),
2010: 116).
In the course book of RCMK classes a verse from Qur’an, “Corruption has
appeared throughout the land and sea by reason of what the hands of
people have earned (undeserved) so He may let them taste part of the
consequence of what they have done so that perhaps they will return to
110
righteousness.” (30/Rum, 41), is introduced to the students in order to
remind them their responsibilities towards nature and environment
A flower or a sapling is planted within the framework of the activity “We
Protect Our Nature” so that students learn about their responsibilities
towards their environment (İÖDKABKK (8), 2010: 72); (İÖDKABDK (8),
2010: 142).
With “Let’s evaluate” activity, via another verse from Qur’an, “the two
receivers receive, seated on the right and on the left (of the man),
whatever his soul whispers to him. Man does not utter any word without
an observer prepared to record him” (Qaf, 17-18), while making students
think about being recorded by the receivers and its effect on our
responsibilities, they are also expected to gain the sense of responsibility
Respecting People
Respecting others is not only a universal value but also a matter that
Islam emphasizes on sensitively. We can see the value of people in these
words of Almighty God: “Whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for
corruption done in the land - it is as if he had slain mankind entirely. And
whoever saves one - it is as if he had saved mankind entirely” (5/Maide,
32). In the Last Sermon of the Prophet, he also mentions his
consideration about human beings as: “O, People! Just as you regard
these months, these days and this city (Mecca) as sacred; so regard the
life and property of yours as a sacred trust.” As we briefly mentioned
how important people are for Islam, now we can analyse RCMK classes
in terms of the activities emphasizing on the value of respecting people:
In the guide book of RCMK classes, the text, “Patient Visitation”
emphasizes on how important it is to visit a patient and it is also stated
in the text that visiting a patient is a way of showing the value of a person
(İÖDKABKK (5), 2010: 124).
111
In a text named as “Employment of the Physically Handicapped People
during the Prophet’s Period”, the emphasis is made on the value and
respect that the Prophet feels for the handicapped people by
exemplifying this situation with their duties and responsibilities
assigned by the Prophet himself (İÖDKABKK (5), 2010: 127).
Via a story named as “the Walking Stick”, students are expected to think
about the importance of respecting other people (İÖDKABKK (8), 2010:
116-117).
In order to internalize the value of respecting and loving people, visiting
nursing houses or orphanages is recommended for students if it is
possible (İÖDKABKK (8), 2010: 140).
With the aim of laying stress on the importance of loving and respecting
people, students are expected to comment about a hadith of the Prophet:
“He does not belong to us who does not show mercy and love to our
young ones and respect to our old ones” (İÖDKABKK (8), 2010: 140);
(İÖDKABDK (8), 2010: 148).
Students are expected comment on these words of Surah Al-Maidah’s
32nd verse; “…whoever kills a soul unless for a soul or for corruption
done on the earth - it is as if he had slain mankind entirely...” and the
importance of human beings for Almighty God is emphasized
Taking Advice and Consultation
This means to ask for the way or information for a work, to receive one’s
opinion, to apply, mutual consultation (Turkish Dictionary, 1998: 526527).
Within the framework of let’s comment activity, an incident is told about
the Prophet. In this incident, the Prophet is in an adversity during the
Treaty of Hudaibia and thus He consults His wife for an advice. As He
solves the problem with her advice, this incident is presented to the
112
students as a model of solving problems with the help of consultation
With the help of the poem named as “Need to Consult”, the students are
asked to talk about the importance of consultation and thus the
importance of asking for advice is emphasized (İÖDKABKK (8), 2010:
86).
Justice
The importance of justice and equity is emphasized with following verse
from Qur’an: (İÖDKABKK (8), 2010: 121); (İÖDKABDK (8), 2010: 117).
“O you, who have believed, be constantly upright with equity, witnesses
for God, even if it is against yourselves or your parents and nearest kin.
In case (the person) is rich or poor, then God is the Best Patron for both.
So do not ever follow prejudice, so as to do justice; and in case you twist
or veer away, then surely Allah is aware of what you do” (4/Nisa, 135).
Children are asked if they expect their parents to be fair towards them
and with this concept they are expected to learn empathetically how
important it is to be fair towards other people (İÖDKABKK (8), 2010:
121); (İÖDKABDK (8), 2010: 117).
During the period of the Prophet, in a case of theft, the Prophet, being
asked to ignore this crime, rejects this offer with those words; “Even if it
was my daughter Fatima, I would punish her”. By these words, how a fair
leader the Prophet was is emphasized and with this characteristic
feature, he is shown as a model to the students (İÖDKABKK (8), 2010:
122); (İÖDKABDK (8), 2010: 118).
Friendship
Our friends with whom we share our joy, happiness, solitude and sorrow
have a very important place in our lives. Even though the number of
113
selfish and self-absorbed friendships is increased and the number of real
friendships is decreased, a life without friends would be unbearable. It is
unacceptable to think of a life without friendship, even though all of the
other good things that are extremely mandatory are possessed (Gündüz,
2005: 213).
Within the framework of the talking activity, the friendship between
migrants from Mecca and people from Medina is mentioned and students
are asked to exemplify the cooperation made after natural disasters on
today’s world. The aim of this activity is at the importance of friendship
and fraternity (İÖDKABKK (8), 2010: 123); (İÖDKABDK (8), 2010: 120).
Frugality
Students are asked if they come across with any bad examples of
extravagancy at school. Besides this, students are asked to write about
what can be done to prevent waste of sources. This activity teaches
students to be sensitive against the behaviours that waste resources
around them (İÖDKABKK (8), 2010: 129).
Students are asked to talk and discuss about a hadith of the Prophet,
“Take advantage of five matters before five other matters” in order to
make them prevent from wastefulness and to teach them appreciate
what they already have (İÖDKABKK (8), 2010: 129); (İÖDKABDK (8),
2010: 132).
Students are asked to comment on a Turkish proverb meaning “stretch
your arm no further than your sleeve will reach” depending on the sense
of frugality (İÖDKABKK (8), 2010: 129); (İÖDKABDK (8), 2010: 131).
Students are asked to comment on another hadith which is as: “Do not
waste water, even if you were at a running steam” in terms of gaining
awareness about preventing source waste and protecting the ecological
balance (İÖDKABKK (8), 2010: 128); (İÖDKABDK (8), 2010: 130).
114
Conclusion and Recommendations
It can clearly be seen that the world is at the edge of value corruption
because of globalization and scientific and technologic developments.
Nowadays, the studies for reactivating these values in the future
generations and raising individuals with strong personalities are leading
matters of the states all over the world. Our country also attach
importance to this subject and within this concept, Turkish Ministry of
Education performs studies at schools. It can be seen that RCMK classes
have a significant function in reactivating aimed values. There are
certainly other studies about this matter including other classes;
however, RCMK classes have a more important function than other
classes as this subject is also matching with the curriculum of RCMK
classes.
In our researches, we have realized that Verses from Qur’an and Hadiths
of the Prophet is used to a considerable extent in RCMK course book.
Along similar lines; stories, anecdotes, jokes, precedent events, poetry
and proverbs are also used in considerable numbers. Thanks to the
activities such as “Let’s Talk” or “Let’s Comment”, students are compelled
to think of events and their cognitive development is improved; while
empathetic attitudes are gained and their spiritual development is
improved. Besides, within the concept of practice activities, experimental
learning of the values is the target.
Even though different activities are applied in this class, we think that
activities in RCMK classes are not efficient enough and should be
enriched more with more variant activities. Besides, like some of the
other countries, adding a new and independent class to the school
syllabus under the name of “Education of Values” would be proper.
These classes should be more practice-based and Ministry of Education
should train acknowledged experts in this field. These classes should
also be added to syllabus beginning from the first grade and students’
obtaining the values should be followed individually. Social gatherings,
which have an important function in teaching sense of values in our
culture, should be organized within the concept of these classes and
teachers of these classes should also act as life coaches for students.
115
School counsellors should be given more responsibility in the studies of
education of values.
Instead of oppressive approaches, improving motivation by talking about
the function of the class will increase the success in education of values.
The importance of modelling is obvious in transmitting the values to the
children. Senior model representing national and spiritual values are
needed for internalization of these values. For instance; the Prophet
model that bears all of the value judgements with their all dimensions is
an important example for the children. While teaching the positive
values, the Prophet’s methods such as observational learning and
teaching with love should be used. Values should be taught deeply and
experimentally and they should not be seen as stereotypes (Çamdibi,
2003: 44). Parents should be models and be insisting and trustworthy
about the values such as honesty, chasteness, justice, mercifulness,
respectfulness and industriousness which carry conviction (Hökelekli,
2007: 71). What is effective in education of values is the learner’s being
able to see model people who can keep an emotional connection and
share same conditions with her/him while bearing the values. Within
this concept, with reference to the child’s interests, people with positive
values and whom the child is a fan of, can be represented as models with
the aim of transferring these values. Movies can also be used for teaching
the judgement of values. For instance; for teaching the value of
leadership Dead Poets’ Society and The Last Castle and for teaching the
value of helping others The Green Mile can be demonstrated.
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118
MUHAMMED FERİD VECDİ’NİN TEFSİR ANLAYIŞI VE
YAŞADIĞI DÖNEM AÇISINDAN TEFSİRİNİN
DEĞERLENDİRİLMESİ
Dr. Sema Geyin
E-mail: aksusema16@hotmail.com
Citation/©: Geyin, S., (2013). Muhammed Ferid Vecdi’nin Tefsir
Anlayışı ve Yaşadığı Dönem Açısından Tefsirinin Değerlendirilmesi. Journal of Intercultural and Religious Studies. (4). 119-149.
Abstract
It is always stated in the studies about interpretation of Qur’an that
glossators reflects the traces of their age. This study is written with the
aim of tracing the periodical impacts on Quran interpretation of
Muhammed Ferid Vecdi, who is known as one of the most significant
glossators of the recent epoch. Even though Islamic world’s coming
across with the Western Civilizations dates back to the War of Mu’te, it is
said that the most shocking war between these civilizations was the one
in the 18th century. Thus, like the other interpretations in this period,
Vecdi’s interpretation was also badly affected by these shocks.
Mentioning about modern sciences, adducing proofs from the studies of
spiritualists of this period in order to interpret some of the verses of
Quran and while fighting against materialistic ideology, reflecting effects
of this ideology in his interpretation are some of the vital indications of
how he was affected by these shocks.
Keywords: Muhammed Ferid Vecdi, Qur’an, Interpretation, glossator.
Giriş
Kur'an-ı Kerim kendi üzerinde düşünülmesini isteyen bir kitaptır. (Sa’d
38/29) Nazil olduğu ilk günlerden itibaren Müslümanlar bu emre uyma
çabası içinde olmuşlardır. Bunun bir sonucu olarak geniş bir tefsir
külliyatı oluşmuştur. Tefsirler dönemlerindeki sosyal, siyasal, kültürel
tartışmaları da muhtevi olmaları bakımından önemli veriler sunarlar. 20.
yüzyıl başları İslam dünyası için olduğu gibi Muhammed Ferid Vecdi’nin
yaşadığı Mısır için de önemli sosyal, siyasal ve kültürel değişimlerin
yaşandığı son derece çalkantılı bir dönem oldu. O, pozitivizmin adeta bir
din gibi algılandığı, modernizmin kutsandığı, Batı medeniyetinin
etkilerinin hemen her alanda kendini gösterdiği bir vasatta yaşamıştır.
(Anay, 2001: 14-15). Bu çalışmada son dönemin önemli tefsircilerinden
kabul edilen Muhammed Ferid Vecdi’nin tefsiri yaşadığı dönem
açısından ele alınacaktır. Değerlendirme Vecdi’nin yaşadığı 20.asır
üzerinden değil Mısır özelinde yapılacaktır.
Ferid Vecdi, içtimai tefsir ekolünün kurucularından olan Muhammed
Abduh’la aynı dönemde yaşamıştır. Vecdi, Abduh ekolünden kabul
edilmekte ise de her konuda ona tabi olduğu söylenemez. Bu
etkilenmenin boyutlarını görebilmek için Vecdi’nin tefsiri kısmen
Abduh’un tefsiriyle mukayese edilecektir.
Çalışmamızda temel kaynağımız elbette Vecdi’nin tefsiri olmuştur. Ancak
o, tefsirini kısa tutmak gayesiyle olsa gerek tefsir görüşlerine, tefsirle
ilgili tartışmalara hatta bazı tartışmalı ayetlerin açıklamalarına dahi
tefsirinde girmemiştir. Bunlara kısmen tefsirinin öncesinde kaleme aldığı
mukaddimede ve başka eserlerinde değinmiştir. Özellikle Dâiratu
Me’ârifi’l-Karni’l-‘İşrin adlı meşhur ansiklopedisinde tefsirle ilgili bazı
kavramların açıklamalarını yapmıştır. Vecdi’nin eserleri dışında yaşadığı
dönemi anlayabilmek amacıyla ilgili eserlere müracaat edilmiştir. Yine
son dönemlerde değişen Kur'an ve tefsir algısıyla ilgili yazılan eserler de
başvurduğumuz kaynaklar arasındadır.
Vecdi’nin tefsiri hakkında yapılmış çok fazla çalışma yoktur. Ülkemizde,
H. Mehmet Soysaldı, M. Ferid Vecdi ve “el-Mushafu’l-Müfesser” İsimli
120
Geyin, Muhammed Ferid Vecdi’nin Tefsir Anlayışı ve Yaşadığı Dönem Açısından
Eserinin Tahlili, adıyla bir yüksek lisans çalışması yapmıştır (Soysaldı,
1990). Yine aynı müellif, M. Ferid Vecdi, Tefsiri ve Tefsirdeki Metodu,
adıyla bir makale yayınlamıştır (Soysaldı, 1999: 1-30). Ayrıca Şahin
Güven tarafından Muhammed Ferid Vecdi ve el-Mushafu’l-Müfesser İsimli
Tefsiri isimli bir makale kaleme alınmıştır (Güven, 2010: 137-152).
Bunların yanında tarafımızdan 2011 yılında “Son Devir Müfessirlerinden
Muhammed Ferid Vecdi’nin Tefsir Görüşleri” adıyla bir doktora çalışması
yapılmıştır. 2013 yılında bu çalışma aynı adla basılmıştır (Geyin, 2013).
Bunların dışında ülkemizde veya yabancı kaynaklarda Vecdi’nin
tefsiriyle ilgili müstakil bir çalışmaya rastlanmamıştır.1
MUHAMMED FERİD VECDİ’NİN HAYATI VE İLMİ KİŞİLİĞİ
M. Ferid Vecdi, 19. yüzyılın son çeyreğinde dünyaya geldi. Doğum tarihi
tam olarak bilinmemekle birlikte 1878 veya 1875 tarihleri genel kabul
görmektedir..2
Türk kökenli bir ailenin çocuğu olarak İskenderiyye’de doğmuştur .
Babası, Mustafa Vecdi, dedesi ise Ali Reşad’dır (el-Haciri, 1970: 24).
Ahmed isminde bir kardeşinin olduğu söylenir (el-Hâciri, 1970: 97).
Yaşamının ilk yıllarını doğduğu yerde geçirmiştir. 1882 yılının mayıs
ayında
İngiliz-Fransız
donanmasının
İskenderiye
limanına
demirlemesiyle başlayan olaylar İskenderiye şehrinden bir göç
1 Ancak Muhammed Hüseyin kitabında 1947 yılında Princeton Üniversitesinde H. A. R.
Gibb’in yönetiminde Wilfred C. Smith tarafından hazırlanan bir doktora tezinden
bahsetmektedir. Tezin ismi: Mecelletu’l-Ezher: Arz ve Nakd-The Azher Journal: Survey
and Ciritique. Çalışmada Ezher dergisinin iki yazı işleri müdürü olan Muhammed Hıdır
Hüseyin ve Muhammed Ferid Vecdi’nin yönetimleri karşılaştırılmış. Hüseyin’e göre
çalışmanın asıl amacı taklidi temsil eden Muhammed Hıdır ile büyük oranda Batılı
düşünceye dayanan Muhammed Ferid’i karşılaştırmaktır. Hüseyin kitabının bir
bölümünü bu çalışmaya ayırır. Bkz. (Hüseyin, 2004: 127-144).
2 Doğum tarihiyle ilgili tartışmaların detayları için bkz. (el- Hâciri, 1970: 16-19). Bunun
yanında talebesi Mühendis Muhammed Tevfik Ahmed, özel bir sohbette doğum tarihinin
1869 olduğunu kendisinden işittiğini söylemektedir. Bkz. (el-Cündi, 1974: 84). Kehhale
doğum tarihini 1875, Zirikli de 1878 olarak vermiştir. Bkz. (Kehhale: 126). (Zirikli, 1997:
220-221).
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dalgasının yayılmasına sebep olmuştu. Bu olay ve İngilizlerin Mısır’ı
işgali onun hayatında önemli izler bırakmıştır (el-Hâciri, 1970: 20).
Babasının işi sebebiyle yaklaşık 14 yaşlarındayken 1892’de Kahire’ye;
1894’de Dimyat’a; 1899’da da Süveyş’e taşınırlar (el- Hâciri, 1970: 24–
26). Burada 6 yıl kadar kalan Ferid, son olarak 1905 yılında Kahire’ye
taşınır ve orada kalır (el- Hâciri, 1970: 49).
Orta halli bir memur ve ilme son derece düşkün bir babanın oğlu olan
Ferid Vecdi’nin eğitim süreci aslında evlerinde oluşturulan ilmi
sohbetlerle başlar.. Babasının Fransızca, Türkçe ve Arapça kitaplardan
oluşan zengin bir kütüphanesi bulunmaktadır. Oğlundaki ilme yatkınlığı
fark eden babası onun da evlerinde yapılan bu ilmi sohbetlere
katılmasını isterdi (el- Hâciri, 1970: 22).
Ailesi ve okuduğu okullar hakkında çok fazla bilgi yoktur. Her ne kadar
H. Mehmet Soysaldı “örgün eğitimde okuduğuna dair bir bilgi
kaynaklarda mevcut değildir”, diyorsa da ( Soysaldı, 1999: 1) Hâciri,
kendisinin çocukluğunda gittiği üç okulun ismini zikrettiğini aktarmıştır:
İsmail Hakkı Efendi Okulu, Hamza Kaptan Okulu ve Monsieur Valon
Okulu. İlkokula dört yaşındayken gittiğini kendisi aktarır. Orada 4 yıl
kalmış ve ikinci okuluna geçmiştir. Orada okuma yazmayı
sağlamlaştırana kadar kalmıştır. Üçüncü okulundaki öğrenim hayatı ise
babası Mustafa’nın Kahire’ye taşınmasına kadar sürmüştür. Bu sıralarda
Ferid yaklaşık 14 yaşlarındadır (el- Hâciri, 1970: 19–20).
Bilindiği kadarıyla Ferid Vecdi’nin resmi eğitim süreci Dimyat’a
taşınmalarıyla son bulmuştur. Ancak Ferid kendini eğitmeye tüm gücüyle
devam etmiştir.3
Muhammed Ferid Vecdi, Dimyat’taki günlerinin dini çalışmalara
yöneldiği ve entelektüel hayatının başladığı dönem olduğunu ifade eder.
O, 1899 yılının Ağustos ayında “el-Hayât” dergisinin ilk sayısını Reşid
3 Ğarib Cum’a, bir makalesinde Vecdi’nin iki yıl hukuk fakültesine gittiğini ancak
fakültenin kendisini tahsil etmek istediği ilimlerden alıkoyması üzerine yarım bıraktığını
kaydeder. Bkz. (Cum'a, 1456: 51).
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Rıza’nın da yardımlarıyla çıkardı. Dergi, Menar dergisinin matbaasında
basılıyordu (el- Hâciri, 1970: 50–51).
Dergiyi çıkarma amacını ilk sayısında “el-Hayât’ın Amacı” adlı yazıyla
açıklamıştır. Yazısında dönemindeki sosyal gelişmelerden, Doğu - Batı
etkileşiminden, Doğu halklarının Batı taklitçiliğinden ve bu taklitçiliğin
inanç alanında yol açtığı zafiyetlerden bahsettikten sonra amacını şöyle
ifade eder:
“İlk amacımız İslam’ın medeniyetin ruhu olduğunu en kuvvetli delillerde
açıklamak ve zihinlerde bir şüphe bırakmamaktır. Ayrıca İslam’ın
öğretilerini hissi felsefenin delilleri ile te’yit etmektir. İkincisi din ile ilgili
Allah’ın varlığının ispatı, ruh ve ahiret gibi konularda akla gelen sorulara
ikna edici delillerle cevap vermektir. Bu konularda çağın âlimlerinin
görüşlerine dayanacağız. Böylece inancın temellerini zihinlere çağdaş
üsluplarla nakşedeceğiz…” (el- Hâciri, 1970: 52-53) 4
el-Hayât dergisi her hicri ayın başında çıkıyordu. Bir yıl sonra hiçbir
açıklama yapılmadan derginin yayını durduruldu (el- Hâciri, 1970: 56).
Vecdi aynı zamanda el-Livâ ve el-Müeyyed gazetelerinde çeşitli dini ve
sosyal konularda yazılar yazıyordu.
Vecdi, 1905 yılında resmi bir görevle Kahire’ye taşındı. Vakıflar
idaresinde kısa bir süre çalıştı.
Kahire’ye taşınmasının ardından bir süredir ara verdiği el-Hayât
dergisini 1906 yılında tekrar çıkarmaya başladı. Bu dönemde el-Hayât üç
yıl boyunca düzenli olarak yayınlanmıştır. Ferid Vecdi, dördüncü yıl
günlük bir gazete çıkarmayı düşünmeye başladı ve ed-Düstûr gazetesini
4 Bu ifadeler, Ferid Vecdi’nin de çağının düşünürlerinden pek çoğu gibi Batılı zihniyete
karşı dururken Batı’nın zihin yapısını kullandığını göstermektedir. Zira o, “İslam’ın
öğretilerini hissi felsefenin delilleri ile te’yit etmek”ten bahsetmektedir. İngilizce’de
“sensualizm” olarak ifade edilen hissi felsefe, Türkçe’ye “duyumculuk” olarak tercüme
edilmektedir. Sensualizm şöyle tanımlanmaktadır: “1-Bütün bilgilerin yalnızca
duyumlardan geldiğini, duyu algılarına dayandığını ileri süren öğreti… 2- (Ruhbilimsel
açıdan) Bütün ruhsal olayları duyumlara geri götüren (indirgeyen) anlayış, 3- (Ahlak
Felsefesi açısından) Yaşamın anlam ve ereğini duyu hazlarında bulan öğretiler...” (Akarsu,
1994: 62). Ferid Vecdi’nin böyle bir felsefi anlayışı İslam’ın öğretilerini teyit etmek için
kullanması nasıl bir kafa karışıklığı içinde olduğunu göstermesi açısından anlamlıdır.
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çıkardı. Bu sebeple dergiye uzunca bir süre ara verdi. Ancak gazetesini
durduran Vecdi, dergiye tekrar geri döndü (el- Hâciri, 1970: 106-111).
Vecdi’nin gazeteciliğe başlaması ve siyasete yakınlaşması Mustafa Kamil
ile tanışmasıyla başlamıştır. Mustafa Kamil onun üzerinde derin izler
bırakmış ve kendini birdenbire milliyetçilerin safında bulmuştur.(elHâciri, 1970: 157).
Ferid Vecdi Kahire’ye taşınınca yazdığı konular da farklılaşmaya başladı.
Süveyş gibi sakin bir ortamda daha çok dini, felsefi ve sosyal konularda
yazıyordu. Kahire’de değişik ortamlarda bulunan Vecdi yazılarını daha
çok toplumsal sorunlar üzerine yoğunlaştırmaya başladı. Bunlardan ilki,
Abduh’un da etkisiyle ( el- Hâciri, 1970: 127). Ezher Üniversitesi ve onun
eğitim programı oldu (el- Hâciri, 1970: 114).
Vecdi, hayatının son dönemlerinde Ezher Dergisi’nin başına geçirilmiştir.
Başarılı yöneticiliğiyle derginin seviyesini yükseltmiştir. Orada nitelikli
yazılar yazan Vecdi’nin şöhreti daha da artmıştı (Beyyumi, 1995: 97).
Vecdi, edebiyat, bilim, fıkıh, tarih, hukuk ve Kur'an gibi pek çok alanda
okumalar yapmış, asrının meseleleri, materyalist felsefeye meydan
okuma, insanları imana ve dine davet etme ve benzeri pek çok alanda
yazmıştır. O, modern Arap İslam kültürünü oluşturmak için eski ve yeni,
doğulu ve Batılı kültürleri döneminin insanlarına sunmuştur. Bu konuda
Dâiretu Me’ârifi’l-Karni’r-Râbi’ ‘Aşera ve’l-‘İşrin adlı eseri önemlidir (elCündi, 1974: 4). Vecdi’nin yeni bir kültür oluşturma çabası içinde olduğu
anlaşılmaktadır. Modern Arap düşüncesinin temel değer ve
mefhumlarına dayanan bir bakış açısıyla eski ve yeni kültürlerin
birleştirilmesi gerektiğini savunmuştur (el-Cündi, 1974: 6).
Ferid Vecdi, çağının dertlerine karşı kayıtsız kalamamıştır. Hatta
düşünce hayatının, yaşadığı dönemde Müslümanların karşılaştığı
sorunların etkisiyle şekillendiği söylenebilir. Sadece kitaplarının
isimlerine bakarak bile bunu anlamak mümkündür. “el- Medeniyyetu
ve’l-İslam”, “el-İslamu fi-‘Asri’l-‘İlm”, “el-İslamu Dinu’l-Hidayeti ve’lIslah”, onun kitaplarından sadece birkaçıdır. Aslında yine kitaplarının
isimlerinden yola çıkarak onun da bazı çağdaşları gibi Batıya hayranlık
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hisleriyle yazdığı sonucuna varılabilirse de bu yanlış bir düşünce
olacaktır. Zira o, “Tatbiku’t-diyaneti’l-İslâmiyyeti ‘alâ nevâmisi’lmedeniyye” isimli kitabında İslam öğretisinin modern bilimler
karşısındaki durumunu açıklar. Bunu Avrupalılar ve onlardan etkilenen
Müslümanlar için yapar. Kitabının başında da aslında İslamiyet’in
bunlara ihtiyacı olmadığını vurgulayarak şöyle söyler:
“Hayır, İslam bütün bunlardan çok daha yüce ve uludur. Benim amacım
Avrupalıların ulaştığı bütün bu modern kanunların İslam’ın kanunları
yanında güneşin ışıklarından biri ya da denizin damlalarından biri
olduğunu kanıtlamaktır” ( el- Hâciri, 1970: 44).
Yine kitaplarının isimlerinden yola çıkarak çağındaki problemlerin neler
olduğu ile ilgili fikir edinmek de mümkündür. Ele aldığı konuların ana
eksenini İslam’a yöneltilen saldırılar ve imâni konularda insanların
bilinçlendirilmesi oluşturmaktadır.
Döneminin düşünürlerinin pek çoğu gibi Vecdi de C. Afgani (v. 1897) ve
M. Abduh (v. 1905) ekolünden kabul edilmektedir. Genel bir yargı olarak
bu doğru kabul edilebilirse de onun bütün ilmi birikiminin M. Abduh’un
görüşleri etrafında şekillendiğini söylemek doğru olmayacaktır. Vecdi, M.
Abduh dışında Abdülaziz Caviş gibi dönemin yenilikçi isimlerinden
etkilenmiştir denilebilir (Üveys, 1397: 460).
Tahsil hayatı uzun sürmediğinden Vecdi kelimenin tam anlamıyla kendi
kendini yetiştirmiş bir şahsiyettir. Dolayısıyla onun zihin dünyasını asıl
şekillendiren, ilmi bir merakla okuduğu kitaplar olmuştur. Vecdi, çok
yönlü okumalar yapardı. Bunun için de düşünceleri hem Gazali, Farabi,
İbn Sina gibi İslam âlimlerinden hem de Batılı bilim adamlarının
eserlerinden beslenmiştir (Üveys, 13: 460-461).
M. FERİD VECDİ’NİN ESERLERİ
İlme olan düşkünlüğüyle tanınan Vecdi son derece üretken bir yazardır.
Buraya aldığımız eserlerinin yanında farklı gazete ve dergilerde
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yayınladığı ve kitap haline getirmediği pek çok makalesi de
bulunmaktadır (Üveys, 1397: 476-477)
Vecdi’nin asıl meşhur olduğu alan Kelam olmakla beraber o, tefsir ve
felsefe alanlarında da eserler vermiştir. Eserlerininin çoğu yaşadığı
dönemdeki Müslümanlara yapılan saldırılara cevap niteliğindedir. İlgi
alanı son derece geniş olan müellif on ciltlik bir ansiklopedinin de
sahibidir.
Vecdi’nin kaynaklarda yer alan eserleri iki başlık altında incelenebilir.
1. Tefsirle İlgili Eserleri
a. Safvetü’l-‘irfân fî tefsîri’l-Kur’ân
Eserle ilgili detaylı bilgi sonraki bölümde verilecektir.
b. el-Edilletü’l-‘ilmiyyetu ‘alâ cevâzi tercemeti’l-Kur'an
Vecdi’nin yaşadığı dönemde Kur'an’ın tercüme edilip edilemeyeceği
tartışılmakta idi. Vecdi de bu eserinde konuyla ilgili görüşlerini ortaya
koymaktadır. O, meseleyi ilmi bir üslupla ele almış ve aksini savunanlara
karşı Kur'an’ın tercüme edilebileceğini dahası edilmesi gerektiğini
savunmuştur. Kur'an’ın tercüme edilmesinin faydalarını, bu tercümeleri
okuyan Batılı bilim adamlarının sözleriyle delillendirmiştir (er-Rumi,
1983: 411-441). (Üveys, 1397: 484).. Üveys’in söylediğine göre bu kitap
tefsirin mukaddimesine dâhil edilmiştir (Üveys, 1397: 485).
Bunların dışında Abdu’s-settar er- Râvi, Vecdi’yle ilgili yazdığı bir
ansiklopedi maddesinde Vecdi’nin “Hukuku’l-İrfan fi Tefsiri’l-Kur'an”
adlı bir eserinden bahseder. Ancak başka bir kaynakta bu isimde bir
eserine rastlanmamıştır (er-Ravi, 2000: 509).
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2. Diğer Sahâlârdaki Eserleri
a. el-Medeniyye ve’l-İslâm:
İlk baskısı 1904 yılında yapılan bu kitap 162 sayfadır. Kitap, medeniyet
ve İslam hakkında belli başlı konulara yer vermiştir (Vecdi, 1992: 8–
158).
b. Tatbîku’d-diyâneti’l-İslâmiyye ‘alâ nevâmisi’l-medeniyye
1898’de telif ettiği bu kitapta (el- Hâciri, 1970: 32). Vecdi amacının,
İslam’ı modern ilmin karşı çıkamayacağı, çağın âlimlerinin inkâr
edemeyeceği ve modern bilim öğrencilerinin bir eksiklik bulamayacağı
şekilde ortaya koymak olduğunu ifade etmektedir. Ona göre bunu
yapmak için İslam’ı ilk asrına döndürmek ve ona sokulan şeylerden
temizlemek yeterlidir. Bunu yaparken o, Abduh’un yöntemini
uygulamıştır (el- Hâciri, 1970: 43).
Kitabın 1904 yılında ikinci baskısı, 1916’da da üçüncü baskısı yapılır.
Türkçenin yanında Farsçaya, Urducaya ve Tatarcaya çevrilir. Bir çevirisi
de “Sırat-ı Müstakim-i Osmaniyye” dergisinde yayınlanmıştır (el- Hâciri,
1970: 48).
c. el-Felsefetü’l-hakka fî bedâi’l-ekvân
Ferid Vecdi bu kitabı 17 yaşında iken yazmıştır ve 84 sayfadan
oluşmaktadır. Kitabı önce Fransızca yazmış daha sonra Arapça’ya
çevirmiştir. Eser, Halil Nimetullah tarafından “Felsefe-i Hakka” adıyla
Osmanlı Türkçesine tercüme edilmiş ve Sırât-ı Müstakîm dergisinde
yayınlanmıştır.
d. el-Hadîkatü’l-fikriyye fî isbâti vucûdillâhi bi’l-berâhîni’t-tabîiyye
1901 yılında basılan eser Mehmet Akif Ersoy tarafından “Hadîka-i
Fikriyye” adıyla tercüme edilerek Sırât-ı Müstakîm dergisinde yayınlanır.
(Sırat-ı Müstakim, C. II)
e. el-Mer’etü’l-müslime reddu ‘alâ kitâbi’l-cedîde
Ferid Vecdi’nin, 1900 yılında Kasım Emin’in “el-Mer’etü’l-Cedîde” isimli
kitabına yazdığı reddiyedir.
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Vecdi, kitabında erkek ve kadının yaratılışlarındaki farklılıklara
değinerek her iki cinsin de birbirlerini tamamlayacaklarını ifade etmiştir.
Sözleri çarpıtılan Vecdi bazı kesimlerce kadını dışladığı, onun
köleleştirilmesi yönünde çağrılar yaptığı, eğitimine ve kültürel birikimler
edinmesine karşı çıktığı iddialarıyla açıkça eleştirilmiştir (Beyyumi,
1995: 99-100).
Eser, M. Akif Ersoy tarafından tercüme edilerek “Müslüman Kadını”
adıyla Sırât-ı Müstakîm dergisinde neşredilmiştir. (Sırat-ı Müstakim, C. I).
Daha sonra Mahmut Çamdibi tarafından sadeleştirilerek 1972 yılında
aynı adla tekrar basılmıştır.
f. el-İslâmu fi-‘asri’l-‘ilm
Ferid Vecdi, “Müslüman Kadını” isimli kitabına yazdığı ekte İslam
medeniyeti ve onunla ilgili konular, insanın yaratılış amacı, üstün
medeniyet ve ona ulaşma, medeniyet çeşitleri gibi konulara değinmiştir.
Daha sonra bu konularla ilgili bir kitap yazmaya karar verir. Vecdi’nin
kitabı yazma sebeplerinden biri de Ernest Renan (v. 1892) gibi Batılıların
kitaplarında ruh, din ve İslam hakkında ileri sürdükleri itham ve
şüphelere cevap vermektir (el-Cündi, 1974: 22).
Çalışma tamamlandığında iki ciltlik ve 1400 sayfalık bir kitap ortaya
çıkar. Vecdi, bu kitabı yazdığında henüz 23 yaşındaydı (Üveys, 1397:
478).
g. Kenzu’l-‘ulûm ve’l-luga
Basım tarihinden anladığımız kadarıyla kitabı Kahire’ye yerleştikten
sonra 1905 yılında yazmaya başlamış, 1907 yılında bitirmiştir. Bu kitap,
10 yıl sonra çıkaracağı 20. Yüzyıl ansiklopedisinin temelini teşkil
etmektedir (el- Hâciri, 1970: 140–143).
h. Vecdiyyât
Bu kitap Vecdi’nin kısa hikâyeler şeklinde yazdığı düz yazılardan oluşur.
Kitaba önce “el-Fennu’l- cedîd” ismiyle başlar. Sonradan adını “Vecdiyyât
olarak değiştirir. Kitabını Harîrî ve Hemezânî’nin makamat tarzı
eserlerinin üslubuyla kaleme almıştır (el-Cündi, 1974: 24).
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ı. Mecmu’atu resâili’l-felsefiyyeti
Bu eser, bazı felsefi konularda yazılmış risalelerin toplandığı bir kitaptır.
1914 yılında basılmıştır.
i. Dâiretu me’ârifi’l-karni’l-‘işrîn
Bu, Vecdi’nin yazmış olduğu en büyük ve değerli eserlerin başında gelir
(Zirikli, 1997: 220; Jansen, 1993b: 439). Arap vatanında ortaya çıkan ilk
Arapça ansiklopedi olduğu söylenir (er-Ravi, 2000: 509). 10 cilttir. Her
cilt 800 sayfadan oluşur. Vecdi bu eserine 1910 yılında başlamış 1918’de
tamamlamış ve ilk baskısını da Dâiretu Me’ârif isimli kendi matbaasında
yapmıştır. 1923 yılında bazı ilavelerle yine 10 cilt olarak ikinci baskısını
yapmıştır. Eser, alfabetik sıraya göre yazılmıştır.
j. Kitâbu’l-mu’allimîn
Bu eser, Mısır Milli Eğitim Bakanlığının çıkardığı “Eğitim Metodları”
isimli kitabın ayrıntılı bir şerhi mahiyetindedir. 576 sayfa olan eserin ilk
baskısı 1918 yılında Mısır’da Dâiretu Me’ârif matbaasında yapılmıştır.
k. ‘Alâ itlâli’l-mezhebi’l-maddî
İlk olarak Mısır’da Dâiretu Me’ârif matbaasında 1921 yılında basılan bu
eserde müellif maddeciliğe reddiye yazarak maddecilerin metotlarını
çürütmeye çalışmıştır. Er-Ravi, Vecdi’nin bu eserinde ruhçuluk
mezhebinin
(el-mezhebu’r-rûhiyyu)
propagandasını
yaptığını
söylemektedir (er-Ravi, 2000: 509).
l. Düstûru’t-tegazzî
Vecdi, bu eserinde vejetaryenlikle ilgili görüşlerini ve bu husustaki
metodunu ortaya koymuştur. Ayrıca et yemeklerinin zararlarını da
açıklamış ve tıp bilim adamlarının yemek çeşitleri ve besin değerleri
hakkında yazdıkları birçok makaleyi aktarmıştır. Ferid Vecdi’nin konuyla
ilgili görüşlerinden Muhammed Tevfik Ahmed gibi pek çok talebesi de
etkilenmiştir. Bunların dışında Vecdi eserinde zihni işlerle uğraşanlar
için özel bir beslenme metodu da açıklamıştır. Kitap ilk olarak 1921
yılında Mısır’da basılmıştır.
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m. Nakdu kitâbi’ş-şi‘ri’l-câhilî
Taha Hüseyin’in fiş-şi‘ri’l-câhilî isimli kitabına5 reddiye olarak kaleme
alınan eser 1926 yılında Dâiretu Me’ârif matbaasında 152 sayfa olarak
basılmıştır. Beyyumi, Vecdi’yi bu kitabıyla söz konusu tartışmada edebi
mirası en güzel şekilde savunduğu için övmektedir (Beyyumi, 1995: 99).
n. el-İslâmu dînu’l-hidâyeti ve’l-ıslâh
Vecdi, Amerika Üniversitesinde “Mesâ’ilu fi’l ‘ilm” adıyla yayınlanan
İslam’a, Kur'an’a ve Hz. Peygamber’e saldıran ve şüpheler ortaya atan bir
kitaba el-Cihad isimli bir gazetede yazdığı makalelerle cevap vermiştir.
Daha sonra onları ilk olarak “el-İslâmu dînun ‘ammun hâlidun” adıyla
190 sayfalık bir kitapta topladı. İlk baskısı 1932 yılında6 Dâiretu Me’ârif
matbaasında yapılmıştır. 1962 yılında da Dâru’l-Hilâl matbaasında Tahir
et-Tanahi tarafından “el-İslâmu dînu’l-hidâyeti ve’l-ıslah” adıyla
muhtevasında ve bölümlenmesinde ciddi değişiklikler yapılarak
neşredilmiştir. 209 sayfadan oluşan kitap mukaddime ve altı bölümden
oluşmaktadır. Tanahi’nin kitaba eklediği bölümler Vecdi’nin
“Mühimmetü’d-dini’l-İslamiyyi fi’l-âlem” başlığıyla Ezher Dergisinde
neşrettiği bir kısım makalelerdir (Üveys, 1397: 480).
o. El-İslâmu ve’r-reddu ‘alâ müntekidiyye
Kitap, F. Vecdi, M. Abduh ve M. R. Rıza’nın (v. 1935) İslam’a eleştiriler
yöneltenlere verdiği cevaplardan oluşmaktadır (Üveys, 1397: 485).
ö. Şerhu li-menâhici’l-medârisi’l-ilzâmiyye
Yaklaşık iki yüz sayfaya ulaşan ve pek çok bölümden oluşan bir kitaptır.
Kitapta eğitim metotları ele alınmış ve öğretmenler için açıklanmıştır
(Üveys, 1397: 485).
5 Söz konusu kitap “Cahiliye Şiiri Üzerine” adıyla Şaban Karataş’ın çevirisiyle Ankara
Okulu Yayınları arasından çıkmıştır. Kitap Ankara’da 2003 yılında basılmıştır.
6 Üveys, kitabın ilk baskısının 1940 yılında yapıldığını yazmaktadır. Bk. (Üveys, 1397, s.
479)
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p. Sefîrü’l-İslâm ilâ sâiri’l-akvâm
Uluslar arası bir kongrede İslam’ı tanıtmak amacıyla yazdığı bir tebliğdir.
Hüsnü Efendizade Cemal tarafından tercüme edilerek Sırât-ı Müstakîm
dergisinin birinci cildinde yayınlanmıştır.
3. Makaleleri
Bizzat M. Ferid Vecdi’nin çıkardığı el-Hayât ve el-Vecdiyyât dergilerinde
ve ed-Düstûr adlı haftalık gazetelerde çıkan makalelerinin yanında
Mecelletü’l-Ezher, el-Ehram, el-Hilal, el-Ma’rife, er-Risâle ve el-Berîdü’lİslâmî gibi farklı dergi ve gazetelerde de çeşitli makaleleri yayınlanmıştır.
M. FERİD VECDİ’NİN TEFSİRİ
Ferid Vecdi, 1903 yılı sonları 1904 yılı başlarında “el-İslâmu fi-‘asri’l‘ilm”, kitabının çalışmasının yanında Safvetü’l-‘irfân fî tefsiri’l-Kur’an,
isimli yeni bir çalışmaya başlamıştı. Bunu da “el-İslâmu fi-‘asri’l-‘ilm”,
kitabı gibi aylık olarak yayınlıyordu. Çalışmayı bitirdiğinde uzunca bir
mukaddime şeklinde 180 sayfa olarak bastırdı. Daha sonra “el-Mushafu’lMüfesser” adını alan tefsiri de mushafa hamiş şeklinde basıldı (el- Hâciri,
1970: 88).
Vecdi mukaddimeyi tefsirinden ayrı olarak da bastırmış olduğu için
mukaddimeyi ayrı bir başlık altında incelemek uygun olacaktır.
1. Tefsirin Mukaddimesi
Müellif tefsiri için yaklaşık 180 sayfalık uzunca bir mukaddime kaleme
almıştır. Muhtevasına baktığımızda okuyucu için temel bir altyapı
hazırladığı dikkat çekmektedir. Vecdi yine mukaddimede bunun sebebini
okuyucuyu başka kaynaklara gitmeye muhtaç bırakmamak, olarak
açıklamaktadır. Zira daha sonra da ifade edileceği gibi, onun tefsir
yazmasının asıl sebebi insanları kelam-ı ilahi ile buluşturmak ve diğer
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tefsir kitaplarının insanlarla Kur'an arasına koyduğu engeli kaldırmaktır
(Vecdi, 1903: 10).
Aynı amaca matuf olarak Vecdi, diğer tefsir kitaplarında olmayıp kendi
tefsirinde olan yedi özellikten bahseder. Bunlar;
1. Yukarıda da ifade ettiğimiz gibi mukaddimede var olan Kur'an
hakkındaki zengin muhteva,
2. Kur'an lafızlarının anlamlarının ilave bir açıklamaya ihtiyaç
olmaksızın ortaya konması,
3. Nüzul sebeplerine işaret edilmesi,
4. Nasih ayetlere ve nesih sebebine işaret edilmesi,
5. Ayetlerde geçen ve her müslümanın mutlaka bilmesi gereken fıkıh
bilgilerinin bir cetvelinin olması,
6. Araştırmak isteyenlerin kolaylıkla istifade edebileceği ayetlerin
konularına göre gösterildiği bir fihrist,
7. Kıraat ihtilaflarının nakledilmesi.
Vecdi, bu özelliklerin Kur'an’ı anlamayı kolaylaştırdığını ve diğer tefsir
kitaplarında olmadığını iddia etmektedir (Vecdi, 1903: 11). Ancak
elimizdeki nüshada söz konusu cetveller ve fihristler bulunmamaktadır.
Mukaddimeye Kur'an’ın nazil olduğu toplumun bir tasvirini yaparak
başlayan Vecdi, o toplumun Kur'an gelmeden önceki durumu ile
geldikten sonraki durumunu karşılaştırmış, Kur'an’ın İslam ümmeti için
ne anlama geldiğini, nasıl bir etki bıraktığını, önemini anlatmıştır.
Döneminde İslam ümmetinde görülen gerileme ve çöküşün en önemli
sebebini Kur'an’dan uzak olmaya bağlamış ve bu şekilde de kendi Kur'an
algısını yaklaşık on bir sayfada ortaya koymuştur (Vecdi, 1903: 3–11). İki
sayfa kadar da mukaddimenin tertibi hakkında bilgi vermiştir.
Mukaddimenin asıl muhtevası bundan sonra başlamaktadır. Ana
başlıklarıyla muhteva hakkında bilgi vermek gerekirse şu şekilde
sıralanabilir:
Din Felsefesinin Özeti- Din Nedir?, İnsan ve İman, İnsan İlahi Yaratmanın
Tamamlanmasıdır, Asırlar Boyunca İman- İlk Devir (Fıtrat Devri), İkinci
Devir (Felsefe Devri), Üçüncü Devir (İlim Devri), İnsanın Fıtrat Dinine
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Dönüşü, İslam Fıtrat Dinidir, Akaidin Geçirdiği Evrelere Bir Bakış, İslam
Nedir? (İlave Açıklama), Evsat (Cahillerle Âlimler Arasında Kalan Kesim)
ve Din, Âlimler ve Din, Tevhid ve Tenzih Akidesinin Müslümana
Kazandırdığı Edep, Adı Geçen Şüphelerin Açıklaması, Kâinatın ve İnsanın
Yasası, Bu Akide Karşısında İnsanlar, Ruhani Âleme İnanan Kişinin
Durumu, İnanan Kişinin Varlıktaki Etkisi, Ruhani Âleme İnanmayan
Kişinin Durumu, Bu Kişinin Hayattaki Etkisi, Verasetle (Ebeveyninden
Görerek) İnanan Kişi, Fezail ve Rezail, Bu İki Esasın Tabiatını Beyan,
İslam Medeniyeti ve Modern Medeniyet, Asıl Maksada Dönmek, Nebi
(as)’ın Bi’setinden Önce Âlem Nasıldı? Makâsıdu’l-Kur'an, Kur'anî
Üslupla İlgili Hakikatleri Nasıl Araştırırız? Kur'an Nazarında İlah
Meselesi, Kur'an Nazarında Peygamberler, Peygamber İnancı, İslam,
Kur'an Nazarında Dinler, Kur'an Nazarında İnsanlar, Kur'an Nazarında
Müslümanlar, Kur'an Nazarında Kâfirler, Kur'an Nazarında İnsanlar,
Kur'an Nazarında Varlık, Kur'an Nazarında Dünya, Kur'an Nazarında
İlerleme, Kur'an Nazarında Şeriat, Kur'an Nazarında Hükümet, Kur'an
Nazarında Cihat, Kur'an Nazarında İbadetler, Kur'an Nazarında
Mucizeler, Kur'an’da Nasih Ve Mensuh, Velayet ve Keramet, Şefaat Ve
Tevessül, Kur'an Nazarında Kaza ve Kader, Uhrevi Mükâfat ve Ceza ve
Kur'an’ın Cem’i.
Vecdi, tefsirciliğinin yanında kelami konulara vukufuyle de öne çıkan bir
ilim adamıdır. Yaşadığı dönem göz önüne alındığında bunun sebebini
anlamak zor olmamaktadır. O dönemde genel olarak dine özelde de
İslam’a yapılan saldırılar Vecdi’yi dinin gerekliliği özellikle de İslam’ın
fıtriliği ve büyüklüğü üzerinde yazmak zorunda bırakmış olmalıdır.
Mukaddimeye din felsefesi konularıyla başlamış olması ve devamındaki
konular Vecdi’nin bu saldırılardan ne kadar rahatsız olduğunun açık
göstergesidir. Bu durum aynı zamanda müfessirin, dönemindeki pek çok
ilim adamında olduğu gibi, nasıl bir savunma psikolojisi içinde ve
saldırılara karşı gardını almış olarak durduğunu da göstermektedir.
Vecdi mukaddimede özellikle yabancı ilim adamlarının sözlerinden
fazlasıyla istişhadda bulunmuştur. Bu duruma muhtemel bir itiraza da
cevap vermiştir. Bunun sebebinin onları övmek veya dini konularda
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onlardan bilgi almak olmadığını bilakis amacının sözünü daha güçlü ve
sağlam bir şekilde delillendirmek olduğunu ifade etmiştir. O, düşmandan
getirilen delilin kendi görüşünde olan birinden getirilmesinden daha
inandırıcı olduğu ön kabulüyle hareket etmektedir. Bu davranışına da
selefin tefsirlerde ve siyer kitaplarında müsteşriklerin ve başka inanç
sahiplerinin sözleriyle istişhad etmesini dayanak yapar (Vecdi, 1903: 5).
Elbette Vecdi, sadece yabancı ilim adamlarından değil, Suyuti, İbn
Teymiyye, Ebu’l Beka gibi selef âlimlerinden de nakillerde bulunmuştur
(Vecdi, 1903: 10, 69).
Vecdi, Mukaddimeyi yazarken sorulması muhtemel soruları sormuş veya
konuyla ilgili yapılan ya da yapılabilecek itirazları dillendirmiş ve
cevaplarını da vermiştir (Vecdi, 1903: 15).
2. M. Ferid Vecdi’nin Safvetü'l-‘irfan fî tefsîri'l-Kur'ân Adlı Tefsiri
Eserin ilk baskısı Safvetü'l-‘irfan fî tefsîri'l-Kur'ânadıyla Kahire’de
Matabiü'ş-Şaab’da 1903 yılında yapıldı.7 Daha sonra eserin muhtelif
baskıları yapılmıştır. Çalışmada kullanılan nüsha 6.baskı olup Kahire’de
Mektebetü'l-Kahire matbaasında 1953 yılında basılmıştır. 815 sayfadır.
Tefsir büyük boy ve tek cilttir.
Muhammed Ferid Vecdi, eserini yazma amacını mukaddimede uzunca
anlatmaktadır. Mukaddimenin başlarında ümmetin şu andaki
durumundan ve Kur'an’a yaklaşımından bahseden Vecdi, bu ümmetin en
büyük ihtiyacının Kur'an’ı anlamak olduğunu, dönemindeki kötü
durumun da Kur'an’dan uzaklaşmaktan kaynaklandığını söylemektedir.
Müellif tefsirini tam da bunun için yazmak istediğini belirtir. Ancak o,
tefsiri yeni şeyler söylemek için değil, ilahi manayı dönemin Arapçasının
kalıplarına dökmek için yazmıştır. Bu şekilde modern dönem insanı onu
daha iyi anlayabilecektir. Selef-i Sâlihîn Kur'an’ın anlam zevkine ermiş
oldukları için onların söylediklerinin üstüne bir şey söylemeye ihtiyaç
7 Enver el el-Cündi ilk baskının 1907 yılında olduğunu ifade etmektedir. Bkz. (el-Cündi,
1974, s. 27). Ancak İSAM’da eserin 1903 baskılı bir nüshası bulunmaktadır.
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yoktur. Böyle düşünen Vecdi, daha önce söylenenlere ilave yapmadan,
kendi görüşlerini işin içine katmadan sadece ilahi manayı herkesin
anlayabileceği bir seviyeye indirgemek gayesiyle tefsirini kaleme almıştır
(Vecdi, 1903: 10).
Ferid Vecdi, ayetleri tefsir ederken iki aşamalı bir metod izler. Önce
tefsiru’l-elfaz yan başlığıyla lafızların tahlilini yapar. Burada gerekli
gördüğü lafızların kelime anlamlarını verir, lügavi açıklamalar yapar,
ravilerini, sıhhatini belirtmeden kıraat farklılıklarını vurgular. Bazen
farklı görüşlere, birden fazla rivayete yer verse de derin tahliller, uzun
açıklamalar yapmaz. Bazen rivayetleri vermekle yetinir bazen kendi
görüşünü belirtir. Bu bölümde Vecdi, açıklanmasını gerekli gördüğü bir
kelimenin anlamını her geçtiği yerde verir. Bu, onun tefsirini diğer
tefsirlerden ayıran bir özelliktir. Zira genellikle tefsirlerde bir kelimenin
anlamı ilk geçtiği yerde verilir, her yerde değil. Böyle yapması
okuyucunun Kur'an’ın anlamına nüfuz etmesini kolaylaştırdığı için onun
tefsiri yazma amacıyla bağlantılıdır (Güven, 2010: 149).
Vecdi’nin tefsirindeki ikinci kısım tefsiru’l-meani adını alır. Müfessir bu
bölümde ilave etmeyi gerekli gördüğü bir şey yoksa meal vermekle
yetinir. Bazı ayetlerde “ayetler açıktır, izaha gerek yoktur” gibi ifadelerle
açıklamayı kısa tutar (Vecdi, 1953: 230). Sebeb-i Nüzul rivayetlerine,
ayetten çıkarılması gerektiğini düşündüğü derslere bu bölümde yer
verir. Vecdi, bunların dışında ilave edilmesini gerekli gördüğü
açıklamaları da yine bu bölümde yapmaktadır.
Vecdi tefsirinde farklı kıraat vecihlerine işaret etmeyi de ihmal
etmemiştir. Ancak o, kıraat imamlarının isimlerini zikretmemiştir. Eğer
farklı kıraat vecihleri anlamın değişmesine sebep oluyorsa onu belirtmiş
ve ayeti ona göre tefsir etmiştir.
M. Ferid Vecdi önceki ve kendi dönemindeki tefsirleri gereksiz
ayrıntılara girmiş olmaları ve dili kullanmada yeterince özenli
davranmamış olmaları konularında eleştirmiştir (Vecdi, 1903: 8–10).
Vecdi, tefsirinde ayetlerin doğru anlaşılabilmesi için titiz davranmıştır.
Açıklamalarda parantez içi göndermelerle yanlış anlaşılmaların önüne
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geçmek istemiş olmalıdır. Mesela Maide sûresi 84.ayetin8 mealini
verirken parantez içinde “bu söz hristiyanların Salih olanlarına aittir. Bir
önceki sayfayı okuyun,” açıklamasını yapmıştır. (Vecdi, 1953: 160)
Vecdi tefsirini her ne kadar özlü yazmaya gayret etmişse de ilave
açıklamalara ihtiyaç hissettiğinde bunu da belirterek açıklamasını
yapmıştır. Enfal sûresi 17.ayetin önce diğer ayetler gibi mealini vermiş
ardından “bu ayetin açıklanmaya ihtiyacı vardır” diyerek açıklamaya
geçmiştir. Vecdi’nin yaptığı açıklama şöyledir:
Bedir hadisesinde Kureyş, Müslümanlarla savaşmak için bir araya
geldiğinde Rasulullah şöyle dua etti: “Kureyş bütün gurur ve kibriyle geldi.
Allahım senden bana vaat ettiğini istiyorum.” İki gurup bir araya gelince
eline çakıl taşları aldı, müşriklerin yüzüne “yüzünüz kurusun” diyerek attı.
Bu, müşriklerin yenilmelerine sebep oldu. Savaş bitince bazı mü’minler
“ben öldürdüm” demeye başladılar. Bunun üzerine bu ayet nazil oldu. Ayet
aynı zamanda mahzuf bir şartın cevabıdır. Takdiri; onları öldürmekle
övünmeyin, onları siz öldürmediniz, Allah öldürdü. Ve sen ey Muhammed
(sas), attığın zaman da Sen atmadın Allah attı”( Vecdi, 1953: 236).
Vecdi, nesih olgusunu kabul etmekte, nesih meselesi üzerinden İslam’a
saldıranları eleştirmektedir. Ona göre nesih bir tür toplumsal değişime
uyum mekanizmasıdır. Tefsirinde nasih-mensuh ayetler konusunda
bilgilendirmelerde bulunan müfessir, neshi ahkâm ayetleri için geçerli
kabul etmektedir (Vecdi, 1953: 22).
Vecdi, müteşabihatı yalnız Allah’ın bilebileceğini savunan gurubun içinde
yer almış (Vecdi, 1953: 67), tefsirinde mukattaa harfleri geçtikçe konuyla
ilgili rivayetleri sıralamış ancak genellikle tercih belirtmekten
sakınmıştır.
Vecdi, fıkhî ayetlerin açıklanmasında seçici davranmış, her fıkhî ayeti
tefsir etmemiş, özellikle zina, zina iftirası, adam öldürme konularında
açıklama yapmıştır. Yaptığı açıklamalarda gereksiz tafsilata girmekten
8 “Rabbimizin, bizi salihler topluluğuyla beraber (cennete) koymasını umarken, Allah’a ve
bize gelen gerçeğe ne diye inanmayalım?”
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sakınmış, görüşleri bazen ‫ قيل‬lafzıyla, bazen “usulcüler” diyerek, bazen
görüşü kendine izafe ederek aktarmış, bazen de ayette verilen hükmün
hikmetine işaret etmiştir.
Vecdi’nin tefsirinin rivayet malzemesi açısından zayıf olduğu
görülmektedir. Tefsirde Kur'an’ın Kur'an’la tefsirine bir kez yer
verilmiştir (Vecdi, 1953: 582). Sadece sebeb-i nüzul rivayetlerini aktaran
Vecdi’nin bazen sözlerini hadislerle desteklediğini görmekteyiz. Ancak
onun hadislere yaklaşımı, dönemindeki düşünce kalıplarının da etkisiyle,
fazlaca ihtiyatlıdır. Pek çok muhaddise göre mütevatir hadislerin toplamı
yaklaşık olarak 17’dir, der ve hadislerin kullanımında titiz davranılması
gerektiğine vurgu yapar. Fakat tüm bu hassasiyetine rağmen Hâciri’den
öğrendiğimiz kadarıyla Vecdi, hadis ilimleri ve rivayet yöntemleri
konusunda bilgi sahibi değildir. O, Gazali’nin İhyası, Suyuti’nin Camiu’sSağir’i gibi kitaplarla yetinmektedir (el-Hâciri, 1970: 45). Mezhebi ve sufi
yorumlardan da kaçınan Vecdi’nin bu tavrı, tefsirini kısa ve özlü olarak
kaleme alma isteğinden kaynaklanıyor olmalıdır.
Tefsirinde nüzul sebebi rivayetlerine yeri geldikçe değinmiş ve sebeb-i
nüzul rivayetlerinin Kur'an’ı anlama noktasındaki önemine vurgu
yapmıştır. Bu rivayetleri aktarırken ‫نزلت‬, ‫روي‬, ‫نزلت هذه االية‬, ‫ كان سبب نزوله‬gibi
kalıp ifadeler kullanmaktadır. Müfessir sebeb-i nüzule dini pratiğe
geçirme yöntemi bilgisi olarak bakmaktadır ( Vecdi, 1903: 11). Ancak
müfessir bazı zayıf sebeb-i nüzul rivayetlerini de tenkitsiz olarak
aktarmaktadır. Örneğin Felak ve Nas sürelerinin tefsirinde söz konusu
tavrı görmek mümkündür. Burada tartışmalı ve müsteşriklerin
kullandığı bir rivayeti tenkitsiz bir şekilde aktarmaktadır: “ Rivayet edilir
ki, Allah Rasulüne sihir yapılmıştır. O da bu sihrin etkisiyle yaptığı bir şeyi
yapmadığını zannediyordu. Bunun üzerine Allah muavezeteyni inzal
buyurdu. Hz. Peygamber bunları okuduğunda bu hal ondan uzaklaştı.”
(Vecdi, 1953: 815).
Vecdi, kıssalarla ilgili rivayetleri aktarırken rivayeti bazen tenkitsiz
aktarmış, bazen birden fazla rivayet nakledip içlerinden birini tercih
etmiş, bazen de tercih belirtmeksizin rivayetleri sıralama yoluna
gitmiştir. Bazen de o, kıssayı Kur'an’ın aktardığı şekilde mealen aktarmış,
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çıkarılması gereken dersi belirtmekle yetinmiştir ( Vecdi, 1953:
15).Vecdi en genel anlamıyla israiliyattan ise uzak durmuştur.
E. TEFSİRİNİN YAŞADIĞI DÖNEM AÇISINDAN DEĞERLENDİRİLMESİ
Öncelikle her müfessirin tefsirine yaşadığı çağı yansıtacağı gerçeği
hatırlanmalıdır. Vecdi’nin tefsirle ilgili görüşleri de bir anlamda yaşadığı
çağda Kur'an’a ve tefsire bakışın bir aynası durumundadır. Özellikle
tefsirinin öncesinde kaleme aldığı mukaddime dönemin tartışmalarını ve
sorunlarını gözler önüne sermektedir.
Bu bölümde Muhammed Ferid Vecdi’nin tefsir görüşlerini yaşadığı
dönem açısından değerlendirmek derken kastedilen Mısır özelinde
yapılacak bir değerlendirmedir. Zira XX. asır her alanda olduğu gibi tefsir
açısından da değişim ve buna bağlı olarak da çeşitliliğin arttığı bir asır
olmuştur. Burada çalışmanın sınırlarını aşmamak adına Vecdi’nin tefsir
görüşleri daha çok Mısır’daki değişimler dikkate alınarak yapılacaktır.
Mısır bu anlamda öncü bir yerdir. Müslüman dünya Batıyla ilk kez
1798’de Napolyon’un Mısır’ı işgaliyle karşılaşmış pek çok alanda olduğu
gibi tefsir alanında da değişimler orada ortaya çıkmıştır.
“Değişmeyen tek şey değişimdir” sloganının adeta nas gibi kabul edildiği
bir dönemde Kur'an’a ve tefsire yaklaşım da eski anlayış çerçevesinde
kalmamıştır. Modern zamanlarda tefsirden beklenenler ve tefsirin işlevi
değişmiş görünmektedir. Bu değişimin bir sonucu olarak özellikle de son
yüzyılda tefsirin işlevi, bugün nasıl bir şekil alması gerektiği
sorgulanmaya başlamıştır ve bu sorgulama halen devam etmektedir.9
Kur'an tefsiri her dönemde o dönemin ihtiyaçlarını karşılama görevi
görmüştür, denilebilir. Hz. Peygamber döneminde yapılan tefsirle
sonraki dönemlerde yapılan tefsirlerin muhtevaları dikkate alındığında
9 Örnek olarak , Mustafa Öztürk’ün Kur'an ve Tefsir Kültürümüz (Öztürk, 2008),
Fazlurrahman’ın İslam ve Çağdaşlık (Rahman, 1998), Şehmus Demir’in Kur'an’ın
Yeniden Yorumlanması (Demir, 2005), Mehmet Paçacı’nın Çağdaş Dönemde
Kur'an’a ve Tefsire Ne Oldu? (Paçacı, 2008),isimli çalışmalarına; ayrıca Şehmus
Demir’in “Değişim Süreci Açısından Kur'an Yorumu Üzerine” (Demir, 2001) isimli
makalesine bakılabilir.
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bu farklılık ortaya çıkmaktadır. Özellikle Raşit Halifeler dönemiyle
başlayan genişleme ve farklı kültürlerle karşılama pek çok problemi de
beraberinde getirmiştir. Bunun tabii bir sonucu olarak Müslümanlar
problemlerinin çarelerini öncelikle Kur'an’da aramışlar bu da tefsirlerde
görünür olmuştur. Örneğin Razi’nin tefsirinde ortaçağ Helen kültürüyle
karşılaşmanın izlerinin görüldüğü söylenmiştir (Baljon, 1999: 13-14).
Hemen bütün araştırmacılar söz konusu karşılaşmaların en sarsıcı
olanının 18.yüzyıldan itibaren Müslüman toplumların etkisi altına girdiği
modern Batı medeniyetiyle karşılaşması olduğu konusunda ittifak
etmişlerdir (Baljon, 1999: 14).
Özellikle modern Mısır’da Kur'an genel olarak üç bakış açısıyla
yorumlanmıştır: filoloji, doğa bilgisi, Müslümanların nasıl yaşaması
gerektiği (Jansen, 1993a: 35–36). Vecdi’nin tefsirinde de bu üç noktanın
önemli olduğu görülmektedir. O, mukaddimede dili doğru ve güzel
kullanmanın önemli olduğuna, kendisinin de amacının dönemin dil
özelliklerini kullanarak insanlara Kur'an’ın mesajını ulaştırmak olduğuna
vurgu yapar. Ancak Vecdi’de uzun dilbilgisi tahlilleri, kelime analizleri
aramamak gerekir. Zira onun amacı Arapça konusundaki maharetini
ortaya koymak değil, mesajı insanlara ulaştırmak olunca gramere ihtiyaç
duyduğu kadar yer vermiştir.
Jansen, Vecdi’nin tefsiri için, “içinde çağdaş bilimsel yorumun
bütünleştirildiği ilk genel Kur'an tefsiridir” dese de tefsirin sadece bu
konuya tahsis edilmediğini ayrıca belirtmektedir (Jansen, 1993a, s. 100–
102). Her ne kadar Vecdi’nin tefsiri modern bilimleri içeriyor olsa da bu
sadece bazı ayetlerde yeni bulgulara değinme şeklindedir. Yoksa Vecdi,
Tantavi Cevheri’nin (v. 1940) veya el- İskenderani’nin (v. 1889) yaptığı
gibi ayetleri modern teorilerle uzun uzun açıklıyor değildir. Buna Enbiya
Sûresi 30.ayete10 parantez içinde getirdiği açıklama örnek olarak
gösterilebilir. Vecdi, söz konusu ayetleri mealen verdikten sonra “Bu,
Kur'an’ın en ilginç mucizelerindendir. Çünkü modern astronomi ilmi bu
10 “İnkâr edenler, göklerle yer bitişikken, bizim onları ayırdığımızı ve diri olan her şeyi
sudan meydana getirdiğimizi görmediler mi? Hâlâ inanmayacaklar mı?”
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ayetleri harfiyen tekrarlar”, demektedir (Vecdi, 1953: 429). Görüldüğü
gibi Vecdi burada sadece ayetin modern ilmin verileriyle örtüştüğüne
değinmiş, detaylı bilgi vermekten kaçınmıştır.
İlmi tefsir taraftarları genellikle En’am Sûresi 59.ayette11 geçen “ ‫ِكتَاب‬
‫”مبين‬i elimizdeki Mushaf olarak yorumlarlar ve buradan yola çıkarak da
Kur'an’da her şeyin bulunduğunu iddia eder, yorumlarına bu ayeti
dayanak yaparlar (Öztürk, 2008: 156). Vecdi’nin bu konuda onlardan
ayrıldığı dikkati çekmektedir. O, Abduh gibi (Rıza & Abduh, 1954, s. 457),
ayette yer alan “‫” ِكتَاب مبين‬i “Allah’ın ilmi” olarak yorumlar ve ayrıntıya
girmez (Vecdi, 1953: 178).
Klasik İslam modernizminde12 tefsir, “ilk asırlardaki Müslümanlar saf
İslam’ı yaşadıkları için gelişmişlerdi. Bugünkü geri kalmışlığımızın
sebebi onlar gibi yaşayamayışımızdır. Bu durumdan kurtulmak için
Kur'an’ı onların anladıkları gibi anlamalıyız”, iddiasını temellendirmek
için kullanılmıştır (Öztürk, 2008: 187). Abduh başta olmak üzere klasik
İslam modernistleri bu iddiayı delillendirmiş ve tefsiri bu amaç için
kullanmışlardır. Vecdi de bu görüşü hararetle savunmuştur. O,
mukaddimenin başında Kur'an’ın nazil olduğu toplumun bir tasvirini
yaparak başlamış, o toplumun Kur'an gelmeden önceki durumu ile
geldikten sonraki durumunu karşılaştırmış, Kur'an’ın İslam ümmeti için
ne anlama geldiğini, nasıl bir etki bıraktığını, önemini anlatmıştır.
Döneminde İslam ümmetinde görülen gerileme ve çöküşün en önemli
sebebini Kur'an’dan uzak olmaya bağlamış ve kendi Kur'an algısını bu
anlayış çerçevesinde ortaya koymuştur (Vecdi, 1903: 3–11).
Aslında Vecdi’nin tefsir anlayışını, eserinin kapak sayfasında, eser
isminin hemen altına yazdığı şu cümle özetlemektedir: “Bu tefsir, ilmi
ıstılahlardan arınmış olarak, bu asrın insanının ihtiyaçlarını karşılama
11 “Gaybın anahtarları yalnızca O’nun katındadır. Onları ancak O bilir. Karada ve denizde
olanı da bilir. Hiçbir yaprak düşmez ki onu bilmesin. Yerin karanlıklarında da hiçbir tane,
hiçbir yaş, hiçbir kuru şey yoktur ki apaçık bir kitapta olmasın.”
12 “Klasik İslam Modernizmi” tabiri Şehmus Demir’in Kur'an’ın Yeniden Yorumlanması
isimli kitabında kullanılmaktadır. Demir, bu tabiri kullanmakla birlikte yazdığı dipnotta
bu tanımlamanın “şüpheli” olduğunu söyler ve çekincelerini aktarır (Demir, 2005: 171).
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amacıyla sadece ehl-i sünnet imamlarının ve müfessirlerin önderlerinin (
‫ )اقطاب‬görüşlerine dayanarak kaleme alınmıştır.”
Bu cümle o dönemin öne çıkan değerlerini barındırması, bu özellikleri
taşımıyor oluşlarına işaretle kendisinden önce yazılan tefsirlere bir
eleştiri mahiyetinde olması açısından önem arz etmektedir. Tefsirin “ehli sünnet imamlarının ve müfessirlerin önderlerinin ( ‫ )اقطاب‬görüşlerine
dayanarak kaleme alınmış” olması gereksiz rivayetlerin tefsirde
bulunmadığını, “ilmi ıstılahlardan arınmış” olması halkın Kur'an’ı
anlamasının önünde engel olarak gördüğü bilgilerden tefsirini uzak
tuttuğunu vurgulamaktadır. Aynı zamanda daha tefsirin başında onu
okumaya yönelecek insanlara “korkmayın, içinde anlamayacağınız bir
şey yok” rahatlığını vermek amacında olmalıdır. “Bu asrın insanının
ihtiyaçlarını karşılama” vaadi dönemindeki tefsirlerin böyle bir
özelliğinin olmadığına yapılan bir göndermedir. Zaten mukaddimede
böyle bir ihtiyacın olduğunu uzun uzun anlatır. Yaşadığı çağın
ihtiyaçlarına cevap verme vaadinin Menar tefsirinde de vurgulandığı
dikkati çekmektedir (Rıza & Abduh, 1954: 10).
Tefsirin “sadece (‫ )اِيّاه‬ehl-i sünnet imamlarının ve müfessirlerin
önderlerinin görüşlerine” dayanıyor oluşu, o dönemde ortaya çıkan
sapkın görüşleri ihtiva etmediğini göstermek ve tefsirin güvenirliğini
artırma çabası olarak da okunabilir.
Tefsir tarihiyle ilgili yapılan araştırmalarda eski tefsirler, ilmi ıstılahları
barındırdığı dolayısıyla belli bir elit zümreye hitap ettiği, bunun için de
halkın Kur'an’ın hitabıyla doğrudan muhatap olamadığı iddialarıyla
eleştirilmektedir (Öztürk, 2008: 176-177). Tefsirin halka hitap etmesinin
Muhammed Abduh’la başladığı söylenir (Öztürk, 2008: 177-179). Bu
ihtiyaç Vecdi’nin tefsirinde de kendini göstermektedir. Aslında Vecdi
tefsirine aldığı modern ilimlerle ilgili ayet yorumlarını bu ihtiyacın bir
yansıması olarak kabul ediyor olmalıdır. Zira müfessirin yaşadığı dönem
modern ilimlerin kutsandığı ve bu ilimlere sahip milletlerin üstün kabul
edildiği bir dönemdi. Kur'an’ın bu ilimleri kapsıyor en azından onlara
işaret ediyor olması söz konusu dönemin insanlarının içinde bulunduğu
aşağılık kompleksini tamir etme işlevi görüyor olmalıdır. Aynı zamanda
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te’vilden kaçınma iddiasında olan birinin tefsirinde ayetleri pozitif
bilimin verileriyle açıklama girişiminde bulunması yaşadığı dönemin ona
dayatması olarak da yorumlanabilir.
Vecdi, tefsirini özlü bir şekilde kaleme almayı amaçladığı için ayetlerde
uzun açıklamalara, derin tahlillere rastlanmaz. O, Kur'an ve tefsirle ilgili
görüşlerini veya herhangi bir ayetle ilgili uzun açıklamalarını
mukaddimede veya diğer kitaplarında yapmıştır. O yüzden tefsirinde
kısa göndermeler yapmakla yetinmektedir.
Muhammed Ferid Vecdi, Abduh ekolünden kabul edilir. Vecdi’nin pek
çok konuda ondan etkilendiği açıktır. Bunun en bariz örneği Fil
süresindeki ebabil kuşlarının attığı taşlarla ilgili olan yorumu Vecdi’nin
de benimseyip tefsirine almasıdır. Abduh, ebabil kuşlarını “mikroplar”
olarak yorumlamıştı. (Cerrahoğlu, 1996: 422). Vecdi de “ebabil”
kelimesinin “taun mikropları olabileceğini” söylemiştir (Vecdi, 1953:
811).
Vecdi her ne kadar Abduh ekolüne mensup bir müfessir olarak kabul
ediliyor olsa da her konuda ona tabi değildir. Örneğin Menar’da Kur'an’ın
en iyi tefsirinin yine Kur'an vasıtasıyla gerçekleştirilebileceği
savunulmuştur. Oysa –daha önce de ifade edildiği gibi-Vecdi’nin
tefsirinde bu şekilde tefsir edilen sadece bir ayet bulunmaktadır. Yine
Menar’da sebeb-i nuzül rivayetleriyle tefsirin eleştirildiği görülmektedir.
Menar yazarlarına göre sebeb-i nuzül rivayetleri ayetlerdeki genel
anlamın tarihe hapsedilmesine ve ortaya çıkmamasına sebep olmaktadır
(Rıza & Abduh, 1954: 10). Vecdi ise söz konusu rivayetleri önemsemekte,
nüzul sebepleri bilinmeden anlamın ortaya çıkamayacağını
belirtmektedir. Vecdi Abduh’a göre daha selefi bir çizgide yer almıştır.
Tefsir görüşleri açısından ele alındığında Vecdi modernist olarak
konumlandırılabilir. Ancak bütün modernist düşünürleri de aynı
kategoride
ele almamak gerekmektedir. O,
genel olarak
değerlendirdiğimizde, pozitivist bir modernist değildir. Bu, Kur'an’da yer
alan cennet ve cehennem tasvirleriyle ilgili düşüncelerinde kendini
göstermektedir. Vecdi, bazı Avrupalı müelliflerin ve onlara meyleden
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mukallit Müslümanların görüşü olarak naklettiği ve kendisinin “sapma”
olarak nitelendirdiği bir görüş nakletmektedir. Bu iddiaya göre, mükâfat
ve ceza konusuyla ilgili ayetleri Allah, Arapların düşüncelerinin ve
sevdiği şeylerin etkisiyle göndermiştir. Bunlar sırf ruhanidir. Bunun gibi
tekrar diriliş de sadece ruhla olacaktır, cesetle değil. Vecdi’ye göre
onların bu te’viline sebep olan şey doğum olmaksızın cesetle dirilişi
imkânsız görmeleridir (Vecdi, 1903: 176).
Vecdi, araştırmalarının sonucu olarak ruh ve cesedin birlikte dirileceği
sonucuna ulaştığını söylemektedir. Cennet de Allah’ın bize anlattığı gibi
içinde ağaçlar, nehirler, süt, bal… olan bir yerdir, maddidir. Vecdi,
ayetlerde tekrar tekrar belirtildiği halde kelam-ı ilahiyi te’vili
gerektirecek bir şey olmadığının altını çizmektedir (Vecdi, 1903: 177).
Vecdi aynı konunun devamı olarak cehennem konusunda da benzer
tartışmalara değinmektedir. Cumhur, ayetleri zahiri olarak anlamıştır.
Ancak sufilerden ve mutezileden az bir topluluk bunun manevi bir ateş,
ayetlerin hakikat değil, mecaz olduğunu belirtmişlerdir. Döneminde din
konusunda görüş bildirenlerden bir kısmı da bu fikirdedir. Vecdi, bu
görüşleri de uzun uzadıya verdikten sonra bunların zanlardan ibaret
olduğunu “hakkında bilgin olmayan şeyin peşine düşme”(İsra 17/36)
ayetinde de buyrulduğu gibi zanlardan uzak kalmak gerektiğini
vurgulamaktadır (Vecdi, 1903: 179). Söz konusu ayetleri değerlendirme
şekli itibariyle Vecdi selefi bir çizgidedir. Ancak o, kelami meselerde
kelamiyenin metodunu kullanıp ayetleri te’vil yoluna gitmektedir. Bazı
ayetleri ise modern ilmin verilerini esas alarak açıklayan Vecdi bu
yönüyle de ilmi tefsir taraftarı olarak kabul edilir. Bu durum onun
ayetleri yorumlarken belli bir ekole bağlı kalmadığını göstermektedir.
Vecdi’nin mucizeler konusuna bakışı biraz daha farklıdır. Onun bu
konuya yaklaşımı modernizmin Vecdi’nin zihninde meydana getirdiği
kırılmayı göstermesi açısından önemli bir örnek olarak kabul edilebilir.
Gerçi o, mucizeleri inkâr etmese de –ki mucizeleri inkâr etmekle de
itham edilmiştir- tam da selef âlimlerinin gösterdiği teslimiyeti
göstermez. Vecdi, mukaddimede bu konuyu ele alırken peygamberlerin
mucizeleri ve Salih kimselerin kerametlerinden bahsedildiğini belirterek
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ateşin İbrahim (as)’ı yakmaması, Musa (as)’ın asasının yılana dönüşmesi,
İsa (as)’ın ölüleri diriltmesi, Ashab-ı Kehf’in durumu, Hızır kıssası gibi
ayetlerde yer alan mucizeleri örnek olarak gösterir. Hatta o,
Peygamberimizin parmaklarından suların fışkırmasını da örnek olarak
verir. Bütün bunları inkâr etmemekle birlikte pozitivst bir temele
oturttuğu dikkati çekmektedir. Vecdi bu tür olayları şöyle açıklar: Nasıl
ki insan akli gücünü geliştirip maddeye hükmedebiliyor, önceden
olmayan bir şeyi icat edebiliyorsa bunun gibi nefsini bayağı şeylerden
uzaklaştırıp kalbini Allah’ın gayrından saflaştırabilirse bazı dereceler
elde edebilir. Allah kendisine kâinat üzerinde tasarruf gücü verir. Bunun
için insan ruhi olgunluğunu ehl-i kurb ve marifet seviyesine getirmeli,
ruhani güçlerini bu kesif cesedin ilgilerinden kurtarmalıdır. Vecdi
bunların yanında ilmin ve aklın da dışlanmaması gerekliliğine vurgu
yapmayı gerekli görür ve sözü Avrupa’da yapılan madde ötesi ile ilgili
çalışmalara getirir. Orada insanın ruhani güçlerini keşif çalışmaları
yaptığı bilgisini verir. Son olarak da tevatüren ve sahih rivayetle gelen
peygamber mucizelerinin ve evliya kerametlerinin sahih olduğunu söyler
(Vecdi, 1903: 169–170). Görülebileceği gibi Vecdi, sahih rivayetleri
dışlamamakla beraber nispeten pozitivist bir açıklamayla konuyu “ilmi”
bir şekilde ele almaktadır. Düşünür, kendi döneminin insanlarına İslami
konuları anlatırken modern ilmin verilerinden istifade etmenin daha
ikna edici olacağını düşünmüş ve maddeci zihniyetle mücadele edeyim
derken dini maddeci bakış açılarıyla açıklama yoluna gitmiştir.
Vecdi’ye yöneltilen eleştiri noktalarından biri de yaşadığı çağın
değerlerini İslam üzerinden meşrulaştırma gayreti içinde olmasıdır
(Üveys, 1397: 453). Aslında bu çok da haksız bir eleştiri sayılmaz. Şefaat
konusuna yaklaşımı bu duruma örnek olarak gösterilebilir. Vecdi bu
konuyu yaşadığı çağın yükselen değerlerinden olan “hürriyet”
meselesiyle bağlantılı olarak ele alır. Ona göre diğer dinlerde insanların
kurtuluşları az bir topluluğun veya bir kişinin şefaatine bağlıdır. Onlar
Allah’ı yeryüzünün sultanları gibi tasavvur etmekte ona yaklaşımın
ancak ona yakın olanların veya ileri gelenlerden birinin vesilesiyle
olacağını düşünmekteydiler. Oysa Müslümanın Hâlıkı mahlûka
benzetmekten münezzehtir. O Erhamurrahimindir. Onunla kulları
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arasında perde yoktur. O, dualara icabet eder. Mü’minin Allah’a ulaşmak
için ihtiyacı olan şey salih ameldir. Başkasına ihtiyacı yoktur. Şefaatin
olması ancak Allah’ın izniyle sınırlı ve bağışlanmayı hak eden bazı
kişilere nispetledir. Vecdi’nin Hz. Peygamber’in günahkârlara şefaat
edeceğiyle ilgili hadisi doğru kabul ettiğini de burada belirtmiş olalım
(Vecdi, 1903: 174).
Vecdi’ye göre Avrupa’nın dinden uzaklaşmasının en önemli sebebi şefaat
ve vasıtalardır. Bu son asrın insanı hürriyet ve eşitlik duygularıyla
gönderilmiştir. Bu tasavvur da sadece İslam’da vardır. İslam insanla
Allah arasındaki perdeleri kaldırmıştır (Vecdi, 1903: 47–48) Vecdi
sözlerine En’am Sûresi 161–164.ayetleri delil getirmiştir.13
Görüldüğü üzere Vecdi şefaati dönemindeki benzer görüşler gibi en
genel anlamıyla reddetmiştir. Onu diğerlerinden ayıran husus Vecdi’nin
bu reddedişi çağının yükselen değerleri olan hürriyet ve eşitliğe aykırı
olması ile temellendiriyor oluşudur.
Vecdi’nin genel olarak İslam’ı, özelde de Kur'an ve tefsiri yorumlayışında
ruhçuluğun da rol oynadığı görülmektedir. Bu, onun yaşadığı dönemin
bakış açsından ne kadar etkilendiğini gösteren en çarpıcı yönüdür.
Hayatını materyalizmle mücadeleye adayan Vecdi konuyla ilgili eserler
kaleme almış, çıkardığı dergilerde, yazdığı gazetelerde bu konuya sıklıkla
değinmiş14, ruhun, dolayısıyla da madde ötesi âlemin varlığını
13 De ki: “Şüphesiz Rabbim beni doğru bir yola, dosdoğru bir dine, Hakk’a yönelen
İbrahim’in dinine iletti. O, Allah’a ortak koşanlardan değildi.” Ey Muhammed! De ki:
“Şüphesiz benim namazım da, diğer ibadetlerim de, yaşamam da, ölümüm de âlemlerin
Rabbi Allah içindir.” “O’nun hiçbir ortağı yoktur. İşte ben bununla emrolundum. Ben
müslümanların ilkiyim.” De ki: “Her şeyin Rabbi O iken ben başka bir Rab mı arayayım?
Herkes günahı yalnız kendi aleyhine kazanır. Hiçbir günahkâr başka bir günahkârın günah
yükünü yüklenmez. Sonra dönüşünüz ancak Rabbinizedir. O size, ihtilaf etmekte olduğunuz
şeyleri haber verecektir.
14 El-İslam fi Asri’l-İlm ve ‘ala İtlali Mezhebi’l-Maddi gibi sadece bu konuya tahsis
ettiği kitaplarının yanında kendi çıkardığı el-Hayât dergisinde konuya özel bir köşe
ayırarak mücadelesini sürdürmüştür. Bunların yanında materyalistlerin iddialarına da
cevaplar vermiştir. Örneğin Dr. İsmail Ahmed Ethem’in “Niçin Mülhidim”isimli kitabında
ileri sürdüğü iddiaları Ezher Dergisinin 9.sayısında yerle bir ettiğini Beyyumi’nin
kitabından öğrenmekteyiz. Bk. (Beyyumi, 1995: 105).
145
ispatlayabilmek adına ruhçuluk öğretilerine sarılmıştır. Vecdi’nin bu
tavrı eleştirilere sebep olmuştur (Yavuz, 1988: 395; er-Ravi, 2000: 508).
Muhammed Hüseyin kitabında onun “kendilerini “ruhçu” kabul eden
kimselerin önde gelen davetçilerinden” olduğunu söyler (Hüseyin, 2004:
155). Batıda ruhla ilgili yapılan çalışmaların, ruh çağırma seanslarının
ruhun varlığını ispatladığına inanmaktadır. Peygamberlere iman,
mucizeler gibi bir takım imânî meseleleri de ruhçuluk üzerinden anlatan
müfessir (Vecdi, 1922-1925: 134-140) ruhçuluğun bazı ayetleri
anlamada kolaylık sağladığını savunmaktadır. Örneğin; “Hani İbrahim,
“Rabbim! Bana ölüleri nasıl dirilttiğini göster” demişti. (Allah ona)
“İnanmıyor musun?” deyince, “Hayır (inandım) ancak kalbimin tatmin
olması için” demişti. “Öyleyse, dört kuş tut. Onları kendine alıştır. Sonra
onları parçalayıp her bir parçasını bir dağın üzerine bırak. Sonra da onları
çağır. Sana uçarak gelirler. Bil ki, şüphesiz Allah mutlak güç sahibidir,
hüküm ve hikmet sahibidir.” (Bakara 2/260) ayetini açıklarken şöyle
demektedir:
“Kur'an’ın İbrahim’in mucizesine işaret etmesi, cansız varlıklara hayat
verme konusunda Allah’ın yardımıyla insanın ilahi bir gücünün olduğuna
işarettir. Asrımızda canlılıkla ilgili manyetizma konusunda yapılan
araştırmalar bu mucizenin ilmi açıdan makul olduğuna işaret eder”
(Vecdi, 1953: 58).
Konuyla ilgili olarak gösterebileceğimiz bir diğer örnek, “Kendisine
âyetlerimizden bir kısmını gösterelim diye kulunu (Muhammed’i) bir gece
Mescid-i Haram’dan çevresini bereketlendirdiğimiz Mescid-i Aksa’ya
götüren Allah’ın şanı yücedir. Hiç şüphesiz O, hakkıyla işitendir, hakkıyla
görendir,” (İsra 17/1) ayetidir. Vecdi, bu ayeti açıklarken öncelikle isra
olayının nasıl olduğuyla ilgili rivayetleri sıralamış ve çoğu âlimin söz
konusu olayın yakaza halinde ceseden ve ruhen gerçekleştiği görüşünde
olduğunu ifade ettikten sonra icaz açısından da böyle olmasının imkânsız
olmadığını ifade etmiştir. Ona göre Avrupa’da gelişen ruhi ilimler de bu
durumu akla yaklaştırmaktadır (Vecdi, 1953: 370).
Vecdi’nin ruhçuluğun temel iddialarından olan tenasühe inanmadığını da
ayrıca belirtelim (Vecdi, 1925: 172–182). Yine de dini hurafelerden
146
arındırma amacında olan birinin “modern hurafe” diyebileceğimiz böyle
bir şeye bu denli inanması paradoksal görünmektedir.
Aslında nüzul sebepleri dışında rivayetler aktarmaktan kaçınan
Vecdi’nin bazen ayetin anlaşılması açısından çok da önemli olmayacak
rivayetler aktardığı dikkat çekmektedir. Örneğin Bakara sûresi 55–
59.ayetlerde15 Musa (as)’ın kavmiyle ilgili kıssanın tefsirinde ilginç
ayrıntılara yer verir. Hz. Musa’ya Allah’ı görmek istediğini söyleyen
kişilerin İsrailoğullarından 70 kişi olduğunu, 58.ayette geçen َ‫ هـ ِذ ِه ْالقَرْ يَة‬nin
Beyt-i Makdis veya Eriha şehri olduğunu, Allah’ın zalimler üzerine gökten
indirdiğini söylediği ‫رجْ ًزا‬in
taun olduğunu onların çoğunu helak ettiğini
ِ
aktarmıştı (Vecdi, 1953: 12). Bu rivayetlerin hepsini ‫ قيل‬lafzıyla da vermiş
olsa gereksiz ayrıntıdan kaçındığını söyleyen birinin böyle ayrıntıları
nakletmesi bir anlamda kendi iç tutarlılığını koruyamama olarak kabul
edilebilir.
Vecdi’nin yaşadığı dönemde kıssaların tarihi olarak gerçek olup olmadığı
tartışılmıştır. Örneğin Taha Hüseyin Cahiliye Şiiri isimli kitabında bu
konuyu tartışmış ve büyük tepki almıştır. Hüseyin’in kitabına yazdığı
reddiyede bu iddiayı reddeden Vecdi’nin gerek mukaddimede gerekse
tefsirinde bu konuya değinmemiş olması dikkat çekicidir.
Döneminin sosyal konularıyla yakından ilgili olan Vecdi tefsirinde çok
eşle evlilik, kadının şahitliği, kocası tarafından dövülmesi, faiz gibi
sorunlu alanlara girmemiştir. O bu tür konulara genellikle diğer
eserlerinde yer vermeyi tercih etmiştir. Örneğin kadın meselesiyle ilgili
İslam’a yöneltilen eleştirilere Kasım Emin’in “el-Mer’etü’l-Cedide” isimli
15 Hani siz, “Ey Mûsâ! Biz Allah’ı açıktan açığa görmedikçe sana asla inanmayız”
demiştiniz. Bunun üzerine siz bakıp dururken sizi yıldırım çarpmıştı. Sonra, şükredesiniz
diye ölümünüzün ardından sizi tekrar dirilttik. Bulutu üstünüze gölge yaptık. Size, kudret
helvası ile bıldırcın indirdik. “Verdiğimiz rızıkların iyi ve güzel olanlarından yiyin” (dedik).
Onlar (verdiğimiz nimetlere nankörlük etmekle) bize zulmetmediler, fakat kendilerine
zulmediyorlardı. Hani, “Şu memlekete girin. Orada dilediğiniz gibi, bol bol yiyin. Kapısından
eğilerek tevazu ile girin ve “hıtta!” (Ya Rabbi, bizi affet) deyin ki, biz de sizin hatalarınızı
bağışlayalım. İyilik edenlere ise daha da fazlasını vereceğiz” demiştik. Derken, onların
içindeki zalimler, sözü kendilerine söylenenden başka şekle soktular. Biz de haktan
ayrılmaları sebebiyle, o zalimlere gökten bir azap indirdik.
147
kitabına reddiye olarak “el-Mer’etü’l-müslime”, cahiliye şiiri ve Kur'an’da
yer alan kıssalarla ilgili Taha Hüseyin’in kaleme aldığı “Fi’ş-şi’ri’l-câhilî”
isimli kitabına reddiye olarak “Nakdu kitabi’ş-şi‘ri’l-câhilî” isimli
kitaplarını yazmıştır. Ayrıca müsteşriklerin saldırılarına da çeşitli kitap
ve makalelerle cevaplar vermiştir. Bu tartışmaları tefsirine taşımaması,
tefsiri kısa tutma isteğinden kaynaklanıyor olmalıdır. .
Sonuç
Muhammed Ferid Vecdi, tefsirinin mukaddimesinde tefsiri yazma
sebebini anlatırken amacının yeni şeyler söylemek olmadığını ifade
etmektedir. Onun derdi tefsir ilmine katkı sağlamak veya tefsir ıstılahına
yeni kavramlar kazandırmak değil, insanları Kur'an’ın asıl anlamıyla
buluşturmaktır (Vecdi, 1903: 10). Kanaatimizce daha kendisi
hayattayken eserinin altı baskı yapması16 tefsirin dönem insanının hüsnü kabulüne mazhar olduğunu göstermesi açısından anlamlı bir veri
olarak kabul edilebilir. Ayrıca Beyyumi’nin tefsirin pek çok dile
çevrildiğini aktardığına bakılırsa Vecdi’nin tefsirinin ünü ülke sınırlarını
da aşmıştı (Beyyumi, 1995: 95).
Kanaatimizce Vecdi’nin tefsirinin bu kadar geniş bir kabul görmesinin en
önemli sebebi son derece muhtasar bir tarzda kaleme alınmış olmasıdır.
Bu özelliğinden dolayı Vecdi’nin tefsiri “cep tefsiri” olarak
adlandırılmıştır. Tefsir bu yönüyle döneminde yeni bir tarz olarak kabul
edilmiştir (Üveys, 1397: 95).
Tefsirde ilgi çeken yönlerden biri de mukaddimesinin uzunluğu ve
muhtevasıdır. Mukaddime, bir tefsir mukaddimesinden beklenmeyecek
yoğunlukta felsefi bilgiler ihtiva etmekte buna karşın tefsir ilmiyle ilgili
daha az bilgi bulunmaktadır. Mukaddime bu yönüyle sorunlu kabul
edilmektedir (Güven, 2010: 146-147).
Vecdi’nin tefsirini farklı kılan bir başka yönü basılış şeklidir. Müfessirin
Kur'an’ı yazma amacı okuyucunun Kur'an’ın ruhuna en kolay şekilde
16 Tefsirin elimizdeki nüshası 6. Baskı olup 1953 yılında basılmıştır.
148
nüfuz edebilmesi olduğu için tefsiri de bu amaca uygun bir şekil almıştır.
Vecdi tefsirini mushafın kenarına hamiş şeklinde bastırmıştır. Böylece
okuyucu ayetlere istediği zaman dönebilecektir. Jansen bu şeklin daha
sonra başka müfessirler tarafından da taklit edildiğini ifade etmektedir
(Jansen, 1993a: 101). Basılış şekli itibariyle Vecdi’nin tefsiri bugünkü
meal-tefsirlerin atası olarak kabul edilebilir. Yine Jansen’in ifadesiyle
Vecdi’nin ayetleri dönemin Arapçasının kalıplarına dökerek açıklaması
kendisinden sonraki pek çok müfessir için örneklik teşkil etmişti (Jansen,
1993a, s. 101).
Her müfessir gibi Vecdi de döneminin değerlerinden ve bakış açısından
etkilenmiş, bunu ayet yorumlarına yansıtmıştır. Mücadele ettiği maddeci
zihniyeti ayetleri yorumlarken de kullanması son derece dikkat çekicidir.
Onun mucizeler konusuna yaklaşımında bunu görmek mümkündür. Yine
şefaat meselesini açıklarken çağının yükselen değerleri çerçevesinde
konuyu değerlendirmesi manidardır. Bunların yanında Vecdi’nin bazı
zayıf sebeb-i nüzul rivayetlerini tenkitsiz olarak aktarması, diğer
tefsirlerde eleştirmesine rağmen ayetleri anlamlandırmada çok da
gerekli olmayan bir kısım bilgilere yer vermesi, bir müfessirin te’vilden
kaçınması gerektiğini söylemesine rağmen ayetleri modern ilmin
verileriyle açıklama çabası onun tefsirinde tenkit edilecek noktalar
olarak karşımıza çıkmaktadır (Yavuz, 1988: 394-395).
Kaynakça
Abalı, N. (2003). Geleneksellik ve Modernizm Açısından Kılık Kıyafet
(Basılmamış Doktora Tezi). Istanbul: Marmara Üniversitesi SBE.
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