Contemporary Rationalist Islam in Turkey

The Religious Opposition to Sunni Revival

Gokhan Bacik

• Publisher: I.B. Tauris
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780755636761
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Teologia e religione
• Subtopic: Teologia islamica

Nineteenth-century Istanbul was an intellectual hub of rich discussions about Islam, in which leading reformists had a significant role. Turkey today appears to be an intellectual vacuum to anyone searching for ongoing critical engagement with Islam. The main purpose of this book is to adjust this view of Turkey by showcasing the modern Turkish theologians who challenge mainstream Sunni interpretations of Islam. Labelling these theologians as 'rationalist' rather than 'reformist', the author reveals that their theology is inherently anti-establishment and thus a religiously-oriented challenge to the hegemony of the state-sanctioned Islam: for the rationalists, Turkey's problems have their origins in the Sunni interpretation of Islam. Contemporary Rationalist Islam in Turkey analyses nine prominent scholars of Islam who provide a religious opposition to the Sunni revival in Turkey: Hüseyin Atay, Yasar Nuri Öztürk, M. Hayri Kirbasoglu, Ilhami Güler, R. Ihsan Eliaçik, Ömer Özsoy, Mustafa Öztürk, Israfil Balci, and Mehmet Azimli. These scholars' writings are almost exclusively published in Turkish, so this book makes their ideas available in English for the first time. It also examines the scope, methodology and argumentation of the scholars' theology, categorizing their theological interpretations from 'historicist' to 'universalist' and from 'empiricist' to 'rationalist'. In identifying a new 'rationalist' school of Turkish theology and outlining its different manifestations, the book breaks new ground. It fills a significant gap in the literature on Islamic studies and reveals an understudied dimension of Turkey and Turkish Islam beyond the well-known ideas of the AKP and the Gulenists.

Chapter 1

The Fundamentals

Quran and Hadith

The trajectory of Islamic thought can be imagined as a discourse that plots the nature of Quran and hadith (the fundamentals), and the effects of that discourse in the various societal fields, such as law and politics. The rationalists, too, acquire their intellectual distinctiveness in general, and their reputations vis-à-vis Sunnism in particular, for their opinions on Quran and hadith. Logically, the top prerequisite of an inquiry into the works of the rationalists is an examination of their views on the fundamentals, and of the methods they propose for interpreting them. That is the subject matter of this chapter. In regard of the rationalists, it is a methodologically important chapter, for it will help them synthesize their views on other aspects of Islam, including Islamic law, with their understanding of Quran and hadith/traditions. The rationalists’ position on Quran and traditions constitutes their theoretical framework.

The Rationalists on Quran

Quran (8:60)¹ asks Muslims to prepare whatever forces they can muster, including warhorses. Though it spells out “horses,” Muslims interpret the verse broadly, and invest in modern weapons. Speaking of this broad interpretation, Özsoy states that the substantial question in Islamic thought is how Muslims interpret Quran.² But, what makes it possible to understand “warhorses” in Quran as “modern weapons”? Öztürk interjects that Muslims do not propose a similarly progressive interpretation on the status of women.³ Such contending approaches to the interpretation of Quran reveal much about the nature of Islam in practice. However, interpreting Quran is essentially linked to another subject: the nature of Quran. Naturally, contending arguments on the nature of Quran enable different conclusions on the meaning of its verses.

With this in mind, I shall conduct my study of the rationalists in the light of how they answer two interrelated questions: What is the nature of Quran? What is the correct method of interpreting its verses? When analyzing rationalists in this regard, in the interest of clarity, I will study them separately as historicists and universalists according to the distinction I made in the previous chapter.

Historicists on the Nature of Quran

Historicism is a method that insists on the prime importance of the historical context to the interpretation of texts of all kinds.⁴ Applied to the study of Quran, it is de rigueur to interpret the verses with reference to their historical context, the time of Prophet Muhammad, and of the early Muslims. Historicism recognizes the authentic meaning of a verse (i.e., how it was understood in its historical context) as the objective framework for understanding it now.⁵ Thus, as I noted in the Introduction, historicism is comparable to empiricism inasmuch as both schools of thought are committed to the view that reasoning and the knowledge acquired through the senses together affect how one interprets a verse and draws religious conclusions. That the historicist method is at all possible is owed to a set of peculiar views on the nature of Quran. I shall first summarize those views, then explain the method in detail.

Quran Has No Divine Nature

Historicism rejects Quran’s divine nature. Instead, it is created, and therefore not eternal.⁶ In The Mu‘tazili Interpretation of Quran, reminding of various verses like 50:38, which read as “we created the heavens, the earth, and everything between,” Öztürk deduces that God could have spoken so only after he had created the earth, which entails that Quran is not eternal: Any argument that proposes that certain verses existed before the creation of the earth is committed to the conclusion that God made a claim that something that happened did not in fact happen. That, of course, is not in harmony with the nature of the deity.⁷

The “createdness” thesis is the foundational principle of historicism that proposes the hermeneutical method of interpreting Quran. As importantly, historicists exit Sunnism by embracing the thesis attributed to the Mu‘tazila. Güler correctly alerts that Sunnis would brand them with the label “heretics.”⁸ In Sunnism, Quran is not created; it is divine and eternal. Quran is the Word of God in meaning and style.⁹ İlmihal—the two-volume catechist book by the Diyanet prepared for households, mosques, and schools that shapes the popular understanding o f Sunni Islam—defines Quran as a divine speech.¹⁰ The origin of the Sunni dogma is a theological opinion promoted by Ash‘arism and Maturidism, the two major schools of Sunni theology. Accordingly, God’s attributes, including his kalam (speech), are divine.¹¹ The logical conclusion is Quran’s divinity, since it is God’s speech.¹² In contrast, the Mu‘tazila School accepts the “created Quran” tenet, and rejects its divinity, and the “God’s speech” canon.¹³

A soft version of the Sunni dogma emerged later, arguing that there is an eternal Quran in heaven (kalam nafsi), and another in this world (kalam lafdzi).¹⁴ The soft theory was advanced by Ibn Kullab (d. 855) as a compromising formula during the Mihna.¹⁵ (The Mihna was introduced by the Abbasid caliph al-Ma’mun (d. 833) to enforce the doctrine of the createdness of the Quran. It eventually failed, due to the resistance of traditional scholars. Caliph al-Mutawakkil (d. 861) abandoned it altogether.¹⁶ ) However, historicists see the soft theory as a tactical attempt to challenge the Mu‘tazili view.¹⁷ Thus, they reject the heavenly Quran, too.¹⁸ Öztürk dismisses the soft theory as a theological metaphor that brought no real change. He observes that Muslims are still loyal to the traditional Sunni dogma of the divine Quran.¹⁹

Indeed, the “uncreated Quran” is a strong theological argument. W. Cantwell Smith, commenting on the Sunni dogma, wrote that according to the “uncreated Quran” tenet, Quran is to Muslims as Jesus is to Christians.²⁰ As expected, attributing a divine nature to Quran is rigorously criticized by historicists. Lambasting Sunnis for proclaiming Quran a Godlike divinity, Güler condemns it as an idolatry.²¹ Inspired by Naser Abu-Zayd, Öztürk finds the uncreated Quran incompatible with Islam, where a major commandment is to reject the dual nature of Jesus.²² Beyond the theological reservations, the intellectual legacy of the divine Quran is also bothersome for historicists, who consider it a major obstacle, one that permanently undermines rationalism in Islamic thought.²³ Öztürk describes the uncreated Quran as a boundary within Islamic thought that is an impasse that puts human reason out of reach.²⁴ Likening it to a Sunni “end of history” thesis, Güler holds that the Sunni dogma is responsible for the popular belief among Muslims in a divine resource with perfect solutions to everything.²⁵ Therefore, historicists see the rejection of the divine Quran as the essential prerequisite of a rationalist turn in the Islamic tradition.

Quran Is Historical

In Sunnism, Quran is an ahistorical message sent to this world, by divine intervention.²⁶ So, no historical event affected the formation of Quran; it does not belong to this world.²⁷ The diametric opposite is true for the rationalists, who adhere to the historicist view: Quran is historical and was determined by historical dynamics. Quran belongs to this world.²⁸ Özsoy summarizes the historicist principle: There is no ahistorical thing at human level; everything is part of history; and everything is subject to natural causation, so also is Quran.²⁹

For historicists, social and political developments in Mecca and Medina affected Quran at all levels, including the content of its verses. Öztürk illustrates this by analyzing the changing attitude toward Jews in Quran. Accordingly, though earlier verses revealed in Mecca, like 21:7, 10:94, and 16:43, cite Jews in amicable terms, later verses revealed in Medina view them bitterly, due to the changing political status quo. For example, when Muslims, who were yet a small group, needed their support in Mecca, verse 10:94 mentions Jews affirmatively as reference group: “So if you are in doubt about what we have revealed to you, ask those who have been reading the scriptures before you.” However, once the Muslims got a grip on power in Medina, the tone of the revelations toward the Jews changed, and turned into a humiliating depiction in Surah al-Baqarah.³⁰ The verse 2:120 speaks against Christians and Jews, for they are never pleased unless Muslims follow their ways. Or, while the earlier verses identify Abraham as a Jew, the Medina verses portray him as a hanif (monotheist). Öztürk asserts that the impact of the tense political atmosphere between Muslims and Jews caused even contradictions in Quran’s verses: He points out verse 9:29, which describes Jews as the People of the Book who do not believe in God, and reads it as an oxymoron, for Jews cannot not believe in God while they are the People of the Book.³¹ In another example, Öztürk expounds upon how economic dynamics affected the revelation: When non-Muslims were prohibited to approach Ka‘ba (9:28), it sparked complaints among Muslims, for it caused them economic losses. Responding to them, the following verse (9:29) then introduced jizyah, a per capita yearly taxation levied on non-Muslims, and even asked Muslims to fight them “until they pay the taxes.”³² Such cases, for Öztürk, prove how historical developments determined the revelations. Otherwise, the only explanation would be to accept that God changed his mind, a contradiction of His deity. In like manner, the revelations’ response to historical conjuncture also falsifies the concept of an eternal fixed-content Quran.³³

“Historical Quran” also requires key Islamic concepts cited in the verses as determined in history by surrounding milieu and culture. So, the meanings of the key terms regarded as the foundation of Islamic faith have no eternally set meanings. For example, Güler presents God in Quran as a heavily anthropomorphic conceptualization reflecting the Arab mindset.³⁴ Similarly, Özsoy explains how various divine attributes like muntaqim (revenge taker) reflect the seventh-century Arab understanding of deity.³⁵ Having such facts in mind, Güler concludes that the Quranic God is a reflection of the Arab mentality, where He is imaged as a just king who has a master-slave relationship with people. Quoting R. E. Emerson’s “the god of warriors is a warrior, the god of tradesmen is a tradesman,” Güler deduces that the God of Quran is a reflection of Arab culture.³⁶ Logically, but still surprisingly, Güler does not then hesitate to warn that the Quranic God, having emerged in a specific social and historical context, might be unsatisfactory for later times or other cultures.³⁷ ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 The Fundamentals: Quran and Hadith
• Chapter 2 Law: Demystifying Shari‘a
• Chapter 3 History: De-Islamizing Islamic History
• Chapter 4 Politics and Society: What Went Wrong?
• Conclusion
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• Copyright