Islamic and Western thought in Turkey - A problem yet not solved

[Naifov]

Take it from someone who has been living under the rule of religious imams in his entire life
having an imam in the power is the country's worst nightmare and the reason for to become backward as hell

I would do any thing to have a secular system in my country that is just like the turks are having
You turks should hold these secular thoughts and grasp it with ur teeth and don't go back to the rule of imams

in my country, u are not allowed to think, to judge or to address an imam as an equal
if u ever pointed at an imam as being corrupt and a thief, then u should expect being charged as kaffir, liberal, western salve or stupid athiest

because of their corruption and their stupid of forcing people to accept their thoughts, we have here in KSA many athiests or agnostic

many here thinks that the country is ruled by the king
but it is truly ruled by those corrupt Imams
The king is somehow liberal, but they have brainwashed the people to become their zombies

sorry for my english

 

[SherAli]

what west? we should all be ashamed of ourselves ... the euros predicted that by 1530 the Osmanli Khilafat would've conquered the whole of europe ... a french poet even proposed abandoning europe and hiding in the americas from the unstoppable Ottoman conquests ... the only reason it didn't happen was because there was nothing for the Ottomans to really gain by conquering europe (bad idea in hindsight of course) .... Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Persia, the Indus were still where the great civilizations laid

there was no "west" until the 1700s after the collapse of the western Roman empire ... just a bunch of disease ridden wild barbarian animals ... ever since then they dreamed about the East and its power and majesty ...

even when these westerners gained power in the 1700s the Ottoman empire still pushed them back ... the russians were backhanded in 1711 and the austrians were repulse numerous times, even as late as 1787 ...

for centuries they came to Muslim lands to seek knowledge but Muslims never went to europe because there was nothing there ... the Battle of Mohacs, where Hungary fell, only lasted 2 hours ... Sulaiman Qanooni was even surprised how pathetic the hungarian military was ... going from the "terror of europe" to wanting to be like these inferiors is shameful

 

[mehmeTcc]

what west? we should all be ashamed of ourselves ... the euros predicted that by 1530 the Osmanli Khilafat would've conquered the whole of europe ... a french poet even proposed abandoning europe and hiding in the americas from the unstoppable Ottoman conquests ... the only reason it didn't happen was because there was nothing for the Ottomans to really gain by conquering europe (bad idea in hindsight of course) .... Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Persia, the Indus were still where the great civilizations laid

there was no "west" until the 1700s after the collapse of the western Roman empire ... just a bunch of disease ridden wild barbarian animals ... ever since then they dreamed about the East and its power and majesty ...

even when these westerners gained power in the 1700s the Ottoman empire still pushed them back ... the russians were backhanded in 1711 and the austrians were repulse numerous times, even as late as 1787 ...

for centuries they came to Muslim lands to seek knowledge but Muslims never went to europe because there was nothing there ... the Battle of Mohacs, where Hungary fell, only lasted 2 hours ... Sulaiman Qanooni was even surprised how pathetic the hungarian military was ... going from the "terror of europe" to wanting to be like these inferiors is shameful

Battle of Mohacs and the other glorious things happened 500 years ago. This is the Muslim World's problem: living on the past. Christians become modern and powerful because they abolished theocratic thought system and adopt scientifical ways.

Today's Turkey constructed on secular thought, but unlike China and Soviets, our system is not opposite with religion. Almost all the parliamentarians in Grand Assembly of Turkey is Muslim, but state is secular.

 

[SherAli]

what west? we should all be ashamed of ourselves ... the euros predicted that by 1530 the Osmanli Khilafat would've conquered the whole of europe ... a french poet even proposed abandoning europe and hiding in the americas from the unstoppable Ottoman conquests ... the only reason it didn't happen was because there was nothing for the Ottomans to really gain by conquering europe (bad idea in hindsight of course) .... Egypt, Iraq, Syria, Persia, the Indus were still where the great civilizations laid

there was no "west" until the 1700s after the collapse of the western Roman empire ... just a bunch of disease ridden wild barbarian animals ... ever since then they dreamed about the East and its power and majesty ...

even when these westerners gained power in the 1700s the Ottoman empire still pushed them back ... the russians were backhanded in 1711 and the austrians were repulse numerous times, even as late as 1787 ...

for centuries they came to Muslim lands to seek knowledge but Muslims never went to europe because there was nothing there ... the Battle of Mohacs, where Hungary fell, only lasted 2 hours ... Sulaiman Qanooni was even surprised how pathetic the hungarian military was ... going from the "terror of europe" to wanting to be like these inferiors is shameful ... there was a time when the french believed the only way they could beat the Turk was by emulating him

 

[mehmeTcc]

Did any one read Son Osmanlilar (The Last Ottomans) by Murat Bardakçı? Great book it is, and explains a lot.

 

[Armstrong]

Take it from someone who has been living under the rule of religious imams in his entire life
having an imam in the power is the country's worst nightmare and the reason for to become backward as hell

I would do any thing to have a secular system in my country that is just like the turks are having
You turks should hold these secular thoughts and grasp it with ur teeth and don't go back to the rule of imams

in my country, u are not allowed to think, to judge or to address an imam as an equal
if u ever pointed at an imam as being corrupt and a thief, then u should expect being charged as kaffir, liberal, western salve or stupid athiest

because of their corruption and their stupid of forcing people to accept their thoughts, we have here in KSA many athiests or agnostic

many here thinks that the country is ruled by the king
but it is truly ruled by those corrupt Imams
The king is somehow liberal, but they have brainwashed the people to become their zombies

sorry for my english

A theocracy wasn't what we had in mind when we talked about Islam either !

 

[SherAli]

Battle of Mohacs and the other glorious things happened 500 years ago. This is the Muslim World's problem: living on the past. Christians become modern and powerful because they abolished theocratic thought system and adopt scientifical ways.

Today's Turkey constructed on secular thought, but unlike China and Soviets, our system is not opposite with religion. Almost all the parliamentarians in Grand Assembly of Turkey is Muslim, but state is secular.

We look to our past to see how we can better ourselves in the future

They had no past ... these anglo saxon barbarians had a past of spreading STDs and murdering each other like psychos

They became "powerful" because the looted the east of its riches and because they distanced themselves from their false religion

We were powerful when we followed our religion and were united

 

[Naifov]

A theocracy wasn't what we had in mind when we talked about Islam either !

theocracy isn't the same here, theocracy means that the ruler has divine guidance or he is positioned by God
We don't have that, we have stupid immams who control the people minds and use religion to take their freedom

theocracy is implemented in IR, as Khamenei is wali al faqeeh ( debuty of the mahdi ).

besides that, I don't believe in using old laws to solve 21st century problems.

 

[Zarvan]

No body can separate Islam from Muslims this actions has failed in the past and they will keep on failing every time it is tried because when ever you will talk of Muslims you will have to talk about Islam to and how bad Muslims is they love Islam and by passage of time they become close to Islam so Turkey will slowly has started to come to Islam again and this will increase by passage of time

 

[vsdoc]

The Turks are good Muslims and it ends in their homes.

Turkey is a nation that has the right idea.

 

[FatihSultanMehmet]

I was reading an article written in 1947 by Adnan Adivar, one of the founding fathers of the modern republic. In his article he is summing up very thoroughly the errors made by both the Ottoman Empire and the modern Turkish Republic when dealing with religion and western thought. In the following i will try to give my two cents about the landscape which the article helped me understand better.

Firstly every Turkish person is according to me obligated to learn and understand his/her history if they want to process and discuss about these topics. We have seen several times in this forum (and many other internet pages/forums) what pure ignorance of fanticism of any kind leads to. Therefore i hope people will respect my thoughts and writings when i present them here.

Basically what Adivar is dealing with in his article is the core reason for the fall of Ottoman and the core problem for todays main political disagreements, as he perfectly concludes in the article
"Only when a reform of this kind (critical spirit and free information flow without any restrictions) comes about will Turkey be able to combine the streams of its cultural heritage and evolve an in-
tegrated intellectual movement"

One of the most important reasons to the fall of Ottoman Empire was its rejection of Western technology, Philosophy and science. The Ottoman simply refused to implement teachings being taught in European schools into its own lands. The reason for this was crystal clear: Why should we teach our kids European teachings which is full of kufr and may lead our younger generations into being kuffars? This was the biggest error made by the Ottoman in its time. To be unable to catch up to Europe and to stay in dark when Europe was experiencing the Age of Enlightenment and industrialization. The Ottoman was simply foolish to think that Islam defies science and philospophy which was being taught in Europe in a much more sophisticated level. We may mention the Tanzimat but that was simply too weak.

Let us fast forward to the Young Turks and modern Turkey. When Ataturk and his comrades signed the Treaty of Lausanne after the war of independence a bright new future awaited a new Turkey. Mustafa Kemal became the republic's first President and subsequently introduced many radical reforms with the aim of founding a new secular republic. But things didn't go perfect for Turkey and we never witnessed a true enlightenment and peace between the religious and secularist parties/groups in Turkey. Why did this happen?

This happened for a very good reason. After the establishment of the Republic and the introduction of secularism many people felt betrayed, let us talk straight people this is the reality. Ataturk by looking at the Ottoman empires past observed a pattern. He came to understand that by ignoring the West Ottoman was kept in the dark by foolish rulers who could not analyze the future and present of the state of their empire. Ataturk felt that by abolishing Islam from the system Turkey may lead to scientific and social revolutions. But as the Ottomans feared the West Ataturk feared Islam. The outcome was not exactly pretty for Turkish Republic as well.

Dear readers, the problem was that Ataturk feared Islam may corrupt the state once again because of its past. Yet the problem was not Islam, but it was the Ottoman rulers who tried to isloate the state completely from Western enlightenment movement. So to say they kept away science, philosphy, industry etc away from Ottoman because they thought these were not compatible with Islam. The same thing was done by the Turkish Republic but the opposite. Therefore the answer is simple. Once Islam is fully integrated into science, technology and philosphy we will truly evolve an integrated intellectual movement. I don't recommend that we should abolish the constitution, but we should be able to observe the clear faults done by our past leaders, that is both in the Turkish Republic and as well in the Ottoman Empire. One cannot embrace true enlightenment as long as certain thoughts and movements are kept in the dark. The Ottoman Empire's failure illustrates that perfectly. We should develop a sense of constructive criticism and make lessons of our past mistakes, that is both in the era of all the presidents in the Turkish Republic and in the era of Ottoman Empire. What i have learned being among Turkish youth for all my life (both intellectual University students and others) is that we lack that quality.

Some are afraid to criticize Ataturk, some are afraid to criticize the Ottoman. We should fear mindless fanaticism beyond everything else. Because the best friend is the one who tells right from wrong even though it might hurt you.

Written by Zulkarneyn

what is your aim Ataturk hater? you have no place in turkey if you hate Ataturk .

 

[FatihSultanMehmet]

We have a presidency of religious affairs and this guy is trying to put us as really hardcore secular , while theirs mosques being built and everything everyday .

 

[Hyperion]

A theocracy wasn't what we had in mind when we talked about Islam either !

Yara, stop twisting words and confusing the masses. You're just like the imams, they use psychological blackmail, and you use thesaurus warfare!

 

[FatihSultanMehmet]

In Turkey, the Presidency of Religious Affairs (Turkish: Diyanet İşleri Başkanlığ&#305 which is found in article 136 of the constitution,[1] is an official institution established in 1924 after the abolition of the caliphate. Founded by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey as a successor to Sheikh ul-Islam, it represents the highest Islamic religious authority in the country. It is normally referred to simply as the Diyanet.
As specified by law, the duties of the Diyanet are “to execute the works concerning the beliefs, worship, and ethics of Islam, enlighten the public about their religion, and administer the sacred worshipping places”.[2] The Diyanet had an allocated budget of 1,308,187,000 YTL or USD $0.9 Billion for the year 2006.

 

[LegionnairE]

Either side will have to live peacefully each other because our enemys will take advantage of every second we fight inside.

We can become a united force or no force at all.