In this book, the heretical ideas of some reformers from outside Turkey, are set up in paragraphs, which they have written against Islam, and necessary answers are given to them. Thus, sixty-three paragraphs have been formed. ‘Reform’ means ‘to return something defiled to a former state, to correct.’ ‘Religion reformer’ means ‘he who renews, renovates the religion.’ Today, however, those bigots who try to change and demolish Islam from the inside call themselves “religion reformers’. Therefore, there are three groups of reformers in the religion which are told about in detail in the forty-second paragraph, in which it will be seen that it is wrong and out of place to use this word for Islam[1].
“In accordance with the modern age, improvements in our religion also should be done. Many superstitions, which does not have place in the religion, have been mixed with Islam later. It is necessary to clear them off and return our religion to its earliest true, pure state.”
It is obvious that for the recent two or three hundred years there has been a standstill, even a decline in Muslims. Seeing this decline, it is very unjust, very wrong to say that Islam also is on the decline. This decline happened because Muslims did not trust the religion and they have been slack in carrying out its commands. Unlike other religions, Islam has not been mixed with superstitions. Maybe the ignorant have wrong beliefs and words. Yet these do not change what is declared in the fundamental books of Islam. These books declare the sayings of Rasűlullah (sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam) and the knowledge coming from his Sahâbîs. All of them were written by the most efficient, exalted scholars. They have been approved unanimously by all Islamic scholars. For centuries, no alteration has taken place in any of them. That the words, books and magazines of the ignorant are erroneous cannot be grounds for attributing defects or stains
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[1] Please see page
to these fundamental books of Islam.
To attempt to alter these basic books in accord with the fashion and situation in each century means to make up a new religion for each century. To attempt to rationalize such alterations with the paralogism that you are trying to adapt them to the Qur’an al-kerîm and Hadîth ash-sherîf shows that you are unaware of the Qur’ân al-kerîm and the Hadîth ash-sherîf, and it reflects a blatant misconception of Islam. To presume that the commands and prohibitions in Islam will change in accordance with the time means to disignore the reality of Islam. The Qur’ân al-kerîm says, “Muslims command the things that are ma’rűf.” Ziyâ Gökalb and similar ferocious reformers, who attacked the Qur’ân al-kerîm and Islam impudently, attempted to alter Islam according to customs and fashion by saying ‘convention and custom’ for the word ‘ma’rűf’, thus ingratiating themselves with their masonic masters and capturing posts. In order to get what was mundane, they sold their faith. Ziyâ Gökalb was given the membership of the Central Committee of the Union Party as a recompense for this service of his. If Islam, as he said, gave place to customs, even at its beginning, it would not have prohibited the bad customs of the ignorant Arabs and would have tolerated idolatry, which was the most valuable custom of that time and
which had gone deep into the Ka’ba.
Islamic religion is built upon knowledge and is conformable to reason in every respect. On affairs declared inexplicitly in the Qur’ân al-kerîm and the Hadîth ash-sherîf, to pass new rules compatible with reason and knowledge, that is, to make qiyâs or ijtihâd, is one of the main sources of Islam. Yet this job devolves on a Muslim possessing the necessary knowledge. If the reformers, instead of meddling with the fundamental books, thought of annihilating superstitions which have become established among the ignorant, nothing would be said against them. They would be serving Islam. But, if we are supposed to believe that they bear such good thoughts, first they have to prove that they are real and sincere Muslims. A non-Muslim’s pretending to be Muslim and
attempting to attack us with our own weapon is very unjust, shameful and disgraceful of him. The religion reformers should not only pretend or claim to be Muslims, but also prove to be Muslims. It is not permissible for a Muslim to feign irreligiousness, unless there is the fear of death. As for the irreligious reformers, does ‘irreligiousness’ mean ‘hypocrisy, mendacity’ so that they pretend to be Muslims when it
suits their purpose? It is not permissible to question a person who says, “I am a Muslim,” and we have to know him as our brother-in-Islam; but he should not play tricks with our faith. If we see him speak ill of and belittle the fundamental teachings of our religion, it will be not only permissible but also necessary to question him and to call him to account. We do not force the reformers to adapt themselves to our religion or madhhab but only want them to say frankly whether they are Muslims or not and their deeds to be in agreement with their words, for Islam has certain and unchangeable rules and Muslims have to talk in comformity with these rules. While some people who say that they are Muslims do not regard it a guilt that they dissent from Islam by
holding the basic teachings of Islam of no account and making fun of them, they become angry when they are told that they have dissented from Islam. They mean that Islam should be attacked and the attacker should not be told that he attacks Islam and becomes a disbeliever; it should be free to attack Islam, and those who do so should not be told anything! They insult those who refute them in such terms as “retrogressive” or “fanatic”, which have been made up by communists. And about those who, like themselves, attack the religion, they say “modern, enlightened.” The truth is that they themselves are fanatics. Those who pretend to be men of religion are the bigots of religion and those who attack Islam as scientists are the bigots of science.
Alteration in the basic teachings and books of Islam and to adapt them to the present time means the defilement of Islam. A Muslim is a person who believes and reveres these basic teachings and who has promised not to attempt to alter them. And ‘democracy, freedom and secularism’ do not come to mean ‘not keeping one’s word or giving up one’s belief’. Islam does not command that the non-Muslim compatriots should be forced to be Muslims. Is there a democracy more egalitarian than this?
The bigots of science, the one group of our insidious enemies, accepting all the customs, fashions and immoral, exploiting, crushing movements in Europe and America, try to spread them among youngsters. As for Islam, they never mention it as if it were a guilt that should be covered, or they regard it heavy and horrible as if it were a crushing burden. On the other hand, some others say that religion is necessary for possessing a sound society and unity and it should be adapted to the present time and Islam should be cleared of superstitions. However, there is no superstition in the books of the Ahl as-Sunna scholars. There are
superstitions amongst the ignorant of Islam. And for clearing these off, it is necessary to disseminate the Ahl as-Sunna books and teach them to the youth. When the reforms these bigots want in Islam seem harmful to the basic teachings of Islam, we should rebut them showing proofs among âyats and hadîths and say, “You have no right to make alterations in Muslims’ religion as if it were your own possession.” The bigots in religion want to blemish the great Muslim scholars and replace them. They tread on the basic teachings of Islam and on the Muslim scholars who collected them and spread them all over the world.
Műsâ Jârullâh Baykiyev of Kazan, Russia, who appeared under the mask of a reformer, wrote in his book published in the time of the Ottomans:
“Islam, which Allah sent through His Prophet, was established upon knowledge. It corrected the human life and established a social order. It defined the civilized actions one by one. It set up a professional order based upon justice and advantage. Such a professional order strengthened Islam. It spread over continents. Later in Iran, enjoyment, revel and dissipation spread among Muslims. After this, a greater instigation came forth. Greek philosophy, which was based upon only thoughts and theories, was translated. Study on work and matter ceased. Islam came to a theoretical state based upon delusion and phantom. The pure îmân of Muslims was all mixed up with gossips called ’ilm al-kalâm. Thus, social, economic and civil studies ceased. In
mosques, madrasas, houses and everywhere, time was passed with trivial, useless theories and thoughts. Books of kalâm slandering the positive science were disseminated everywhere. Useless thoughts, unnecessary articles were considered as of Islam. Is there a word of value or a useful idea in al-Ghazâlî’s book Tahâfut or in the philosopher Ibn ar-Rushd’s answer to it? Who will ever mention or write today the deliriums in the books of Nasîr ad-dîn at-Tűsî, a geometry and astronomy scholar, or in the books of thousands of people praising or slandering him? Is there anything which could be said to be Islamic in the innumerable books of the scholars of the Ash’arî madhhab telling about Allah’s attributes and deeds and human will, or in the shameless criticisms between Shî’ites and Sunnîs? Is there anything of reason, of
idea or of Islam in at-Taftâzânî’s books or in their world-wide commentaries and annotations or in the books of fiqh, kalâm, mantiq, usűl, tafsîr, nahw, sarf, hikma?”
These mendacities of the Russian Baykiyev have been quoted
over and over again and applauded at every opportunity by the religion reformers amongst us and this mendacious disbeliever has been called the “Luther of Islam”. His slanders will be answered in the ninth paragraph below.
Another of the masked ideas of religion reformers and bigots with false diplomas is,
“The strongest, the most useful force for bringing people to goodness and union is religion. A nation without religion cannot survive.”
But from the passwords leaking out of their statements, it is understood that they do not believe in religion. For example, they say:
“The Orientals are very intelligent people. For six thousand years the sacred hands ruling the souls and morality of people have always risen in Central Asia. For people in need of worship, the keen intellects of the East have created idols and left them as souvenirs. When the oriental intellects were unable to find opportunity for studying on matter, their imagination became very wide and brilliant. For this reason, poetry, philosophy, astronomy, spiritual knowledge, alchemy, sorcery, mu’jiza, karâma and the like were given birth in the East and spread over the world. Nevertheless, since good nature and good thoughts are spiritual, there is nothing so useful as religion to strengthen them. Man cannot live without religion.”
Though religion reformers do not believe that Islam is a religion sent by Allâhu ta’âlâ through the Prophet, they say that it is necessary for the maintenance of ethics and social order and for promotion in worldly affairs. In other words; religion, to them, is to be believed for this world. They mean that though there is no real religion one might believe in a religion for having good manners and procuring social advantage. This belief is superficial, but in order for it to be very useful, it should be believed in as if it were true. They say, “It should be believed though superficially,” most probably because they see that Europeans and Americans are very reverent to their faith.
Whatsoever it may be, the enemies of Islam, too, feel compelled to say that religion is necessary. For, unless a force, which obliges people with its attraction and compels them to arrange their businesses, is made divine and its divinity spread, it remains weak.
Others, on the other hand, try to establish morals through
knowledge. Knowledge presents morals as a virtue. But this has not reached beyond theory, and is not as effective as the hadîth. “Salvation is in honesty only.” It simply could not be said, “It is without foundation,” about the religion, which is “so necessary, so useful.” It simply is not right to pretend to believe something which is not believed. They are paradoxical, like holding the truth and the lie equal.
How could it ever be admitted that the religion which brings people to ecstasy and is so dominant over man’s existence and morality be without foundation or invented by people? Are people to depend on the religion or is the religion to be invented by people? People’s worshipping the things which they themselves have fabricated is heretical. Such heresy was widespread among the people who worshipped idols before Islam and it was symptomatic of their being base and stupid.
The reformer says:
“The golden chain, that is, the idea of nationality, which has been discovered in recent centuries to tie people tightly and safely to one another, will replace the coarse chain, which will some day break. If, instead of brotherhood in religion, the concepts of nationalism and patriotism had been established, the youth would have survived.”
If the modernist reformer believed in religion, he would not compare religion with nationalism or education, nor say “the coarse chain” about Islamic brotherhood while saying “the golden chain” about national unity. It is understood from the statements made by reformers that religion is supposed to correct the morality of the common people, who will be made to believe not superficially but truely; in order to bind the people to themselves like a flock of sheep, they will give place to the religion; the people shall believe in the religion, but they themselves will not; they will be able to put the religion into a new mould every day; morality of the people will be corrected by means of religion and the irreligious modernists will not need good manners. Don’t
the reformers deem it necessary for themselves to have good manners?
“Hadrat Prophet rejected the dictatorial regime and sovereignty. Nevertheless, Islam was convenient for the establishment of such a regime. It proved to be so, too.”
The reformer is very wrong in this idea of his. While the
constitutions of European kingdoms regard the kings sacred and unquestionable. Islam, with the hadîth, “Each of you are a shepherd. All of you are responsible for the people you rule,” holds rulers equal to average compatriots, and it does not give place to dictatorship or sovereignty. Islamic laws are heavenly. The ruler also has to adapt himself to Islam and to maintain it like every compatriot. The rulers who turned dictators were those who departed from Islam and misused their powers. Hadrat ’Umar al-Fârűq (radiy-Allâhu ’anh), the Caliph, who was questioned on his excess fabrics which in fact he had taken
from his son’s share in the equally distributed booty taken in war, and Hadrat ’Umar ibn Abd al-’Azîz, who, on the day he became the Caliph said to his wives, “I undertook a heavy task. Maybe I will not have time for you. If you wish, you may get your mahr[1] and alimony and go,” were the paragons of Islamic leadership. Islam cannot be blemished if such people are few.
“A short while after the Era of Prosperity, Islam became a sharp weapon which would, for clearing the roads leading to silver armchairs [high positions], form heaps of dead people on both sides. In the combats in which Hadrat ’Alî fought for the caliphate, the Qur’ân, the Holy Book of Allah, on the points of the spears of his opponents was used as a trick in the war. The Qur’ân, which is right, was used as a means for winning the sovereignty cause, which was false.”
Those combats were not for sovereignty. They were for the fulfilment of Islam’s commandments. And unlike what the reformer says, the Qur’ân was not used as a means for winning the war of sovereignty. Whatever each side did against the other was intended to find out what was right and to follow Islam, and Islam was not a weapon that would form heaps of corpses for clearing the roads leading to gilded silver armchairs, but it was a shield to stand against such a weapon.
[Those Muslims who fought against Hadrat ’Alî (radiy-Allâhu ’anh were not sinful. ‘Sin’ means ‘guilt committed against Allâhu ta’âlâ’, that is, ‘breaking the rules of Islam.’ They had not elected Hadrat ’Alî to be the Caliph. Because they (radiy-Allâhu ’anhum) did not regard him the Caliph, they took up swords. If they had elected him it would have been sinful for them to oppose the Caliph. It was true that they erred even though they had provided not araya konmuţ
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[1] Please see the twelfth chapter in the fifth fascicle of Endless Bliss
religious proof for not electing him the Caliph; yet is was an error of ijtihâd and was intended to follow Islam.]
Question: “Isn’t Islam to make people attain happiness and to keep peace? Does it cause bloodshed to obey Islam?”
Answer: ’Alî’s (radiy-Allâhu ’anh) Muslim opponents followed Islam but erred in following Islam. Bloodshed was the result of the mistake they did when following Islam, rather than the fruit of following Islam. Likewise, in the Battle of Uhud, many of the forty of the Prophet’s (’alaihi ’s-salâm) companions whom he had ordered to block a pass had been martyred. Their death was not caused by their following Rasűlullah’s order but by the error of some of them in carrying out the order. Following Islam never harms anybody; it is always useful. It makes a person attain happiness. Disobeying Islam or going wrong while following it is harmful.
The Muslims against whom Hadrat ’Alî declared war wanted to follow Islam but, in choosing the way Islam had shown for the accomplishment of that deed, they went wrong. Since they were the people loved and distinguished by Allah, their error was not a sin; the error in ijtihâd was blessed rather than sinful. It was more blessed than the worship of the good Muslims of later generations. It was said, “The right, good deeds of the good are like the errors of the distinguished.” That is, the wrong deeds of the former are more useful, more valuable than the right deeds of the latter. For this reason, those who died
from both sides were martyrs. They won the heavenly reward.
Reading the corrupt history books written for political interests, for procuring what is mundane and the sentimental stories written by bâbâs in Iran, young people are deprived of learning about the greatness of the Prophet’s companions and they get wrong ideas fixed into their minds. For the benefit of youngsters who struggle to learn the beauty of Islamic faith, which is the cradle of today’s civilization and which commands us to study on the matter and on the spirit, we prepared the Turkish books Hak Sözün Vesîkalarý[1] and Eshâb-ý Kirâm in order to tell them about the superiorities of the Prophet’s companions. In these books, through sound documents which we had gathered from the most precious sources, we explained the lives of the Prophet’s companions, their services to Islam and their love for not
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[1] Documents of the Right Word, in English, 496 pp., is available from Hakîkat Kitâbevi, Fatih, Istanbul.
one another. We think it would be proper to give some information here, too.
Hadrat Qayyűm ar-Rabbânî Muhammad Ma’thűm al-Fârűqî as-Sirhindî (rahmatullâhi ’alaih), the great Muslim scholar respected by and the qutb of the Awliyâ’ of his time, wrote in the twenty-second letter of the first volume of his Maktűbât:
Dear son! The end of this world is near. Things that darken the hearts have increased. Everybody is being dragged by these dark currents. At such a time as this, a hero who will bring back a sunna and annihilate a bid’a is urgently needed. Unless we are illuminated with the light of the Sunna of Rasűlullah (sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam) we cannot get into the right path! Unless we follow the footsteps of the exalted Prophet, it will be in vain to try to escape calamities. Without following the Beloved Prophet of Allâhu ta’âlâ, the happiness of advancing in a path of tasawwuf and love for Allahu ta’âlâ cannot be attained. Allâhu ta’âlâ in the thirty-first âyat of the sűrat âl ’Imrân, tells His Beloved Prophet to tell others,
‘If you love Allah, follow me! Allah loves those who follow me!’ He who wants to attain happiness should follow, in everything he does, him (the Prophet) who is the greatest in the religion and in the world! He has to try to perform all his actions, ’ibâdât , and trade as he did. In this world, those who try to be like the one dear to a person will seem lovely and beautiful to that person. This person will love and appreciate them much, too. Likewise, those who love the darling will always be loved. The enemies of the darling will also be enemies to the lover. For this reason, all the virtues visible or invisible can be attained by loving that exalted Prophet; this love is the gauge of perfection and improvement. Allâhu ta’âlâ created His
Prophet as the most beautiful, the best, the most lovable human being. In him, He accumulated every virtue, every kind of beauty and every superiority. All as-Sahâbat al-kirâm loved him. All their hearts burnt with love for him. It was the sweetest flavor for them to see his moon-like face and his luminous beauty. They sacrificed their lives and possessions for their love of him. They loved him more than their lives and possessions, briefly, more than all that could be loved. Because they loved him excessively, they loved those who loved him. For this reason, they loved one another very much, too. They became hostile against those who could not understand his superiority or see his beauty and attain the happiness of loving him. Due to this love for him and for one another and their hostility for others, they earned
the love and
approval of Allah; they got promoted and became the most exalted, superior and respected human beings, since the major worship is to love the dears and dislike the enemies. Those who say that they love Allâhu ta’âlâ have to be like the Sahâbat al-kirâm. One should also love those whom his dear loves, and feel hostility towards the enemies of his dear. This love and hostility is not a forced desire, but a natural outcome. The lover is somewhat crazy in his love and hostility. For this reason it was said, ‘Unless a person is said to be crazy, his îmân is not perfect!’ Those who do not have this craziness are deprived of loving. Unless there is hostility, there cannot be friendship! In order to be sincere in saying, ‘I love,’ it is necessary to be hostile against the enemies of the beloved. Our words should not be misunderstood! It should not be presumed that hostility against the Prophet’s companions was for the same reason!
Some people say that, in order to love Hadrat ’Alî (radiy-Allâhu ’anh), it is necessary to bear hostility towards the greatest ones among the Sahâbat al-kirâm of the Prophet. This thought is quite wrong, since hostility should be felt towards the enemies of the beloved so that one may love. Enmity towards his friends is unnecessary. Allah declares in the sűrat al-Fat’h that the Sahâbat al-kirâm were rahîm to one another, that is, they loved one another. ‘Rahîm’ means ‘extremely and continuously merciful and mutually loving.’ This âyat reports that the Sahâbat al-kirâm loved one another very much. In Arabic grammar, ‘rahîm’ is a ‘sifat mushabbaha’, an adjective with a sense of continuity. For this reason, it is understood that this great mutual love among the
Sahâbat al-kirâm was continuous. This âyat shows that such evils as resentment, envy and hostility, which are incompatible with mercy and mutual love, could not exist among the Sahâbat al-kirâm. ‘Among my umma, the most merciful to my umma is Abű Bakr,’ was said in the Hadîth ash-sherîf. Could it be possible that a person who was the most merciful of the umma bore ill-will and hostility against one of the umma?
The Hadîth says, ‘Allâhu ta’âlâ asked Műsâ (’alaihi ’s-salâm), “What did you do only for Me?” When he answered, “O Allah! For Thee, I performed salât, fasted, paid zakât and made dhikr,” Allâhu ta’âlâ said, “The salât you performed is the way leading you to Paradise; it was your duty as a human slave. Your fast will protect you against Hell. The zakât you paid will be a parasol over you on the Day of Judgement. Your dhikr will be light for you through the darkness of that day. What did you do for ME?”
When he said, “O Allah! Tell me the thing which is for Thee!” Allâhu ta’âlâ declared, “O Műsâ! Did you love those whom I loved and did you bear hostility against My enemies?” Műsâ (’alaihi ’s-salâm) realized that the most valuable thing to be done for Allâhu ta’âlâ was al-hubbu fi ’llâh wa ’l-bughdu fi’llâh.’
It was true that in the Battle of Siffîn Hadrat Mu’âwiya (radiy-Allâhu ’anh) had copies of the Qur’ân al-kerîm attached to the points of spears and thus put an end to the bloodshed among Muslims. The fight had been stopped by the end of the first month of the new year, Muharram,
points of spears. His soldiers cried out. “We call you to Allah’s book,” and the opponent soldiers saw the Qur’ân and gave up fighting. Hadrat ’Alî summoned Ashtar, who was taken back from the battle by force. Agreement was settled. Thus, the combats which lasted one hundred and ten days came to an end. The attachment of copies of the Qur’ân on the points of spears prevented the shedding of the blood of thousands of Muslims. The great fire of instigation among Muslims was thus extinguished.
“The combats for sovereignty caused the splitting into the madhhabs, Muslims’ parting into groups!”
Attribution of the splitting into the maddhabs to fights for sovereignty may be done by ignoramuses who do not know what the madhhabs are. It is to mix the religion with politics. The madhhabs resulted from the freedom of idea which Islam has endowed upon people. If in the separation of the madhhabs there is a purpose of ingratiating oneself with the occupant of a high post, this exalted post is certainly the Divine Post.
“The disputes on whether the Qur’ân was creature or not extirpated the basis of Islam.”
The reformer gives another example of mixing the madhhabs with politics; Caliph Ma’műn oppressed the scholars who did not regard the Qur’ân as a creature. However, his tortures were not intended for political purposes. If it had been intended for political purposes, he could have found many other reasons for doing it. If we are to say that Ma’műn applied his tortures for political purposes, then irreligiousness, rather than the religion, was mixed with politics. The reformer attempts to impute the guilt of irreligiousness to the religion.
“As years elapsed, the Qur’ân and the Hadîth, in the power of those who wished to be rulers rather than men of religion, changed shape like magic tricks. Being unable to overcome the enemy with argumentation, they interpreted the Qur’ân as they wished and made up hadîths which would suit their purposes.”
The reformer speaks ill of the branches of knowledge which he knows nothing about. He attempts to blemish the most precious pages of the books of tafsîr. On the parts which the writers of those books wrote through ijtihâd, everyone has the right to enter
into discussion provided they will observe the rules of discussion and decency. Yet nothing can be so out of place and so funny as for a reformer who knows nothing about the eloquence of the Qur’ân, to slander az-Zamakhsharî’s tafsîr.
“False hadîths were made up. Everybody knows that there are many mawdű’ hadîths.”
Nobody can be so unjust as to speak ill of the knowledge of hadîth which was based not on reason or experience but on relation and narration. I wonder how many hadîths the reformer knows to speak like that. Can he say a single hadîth with its documentary references? He only knows the word mawdű’ that he has heard by chance. The great scholars of Islam have written thousands of books not only on the knowledge of hadîth but also on how to find out mawdű’ hadîths among the sahîh ones. If they had not written these books, the reformer would not even know the word mawdű’. The scholars of hadîth very strictly forbade to say “a hadîth” for a saying if it was not for certain that Rasűlullah (’alaihi ’s-salâm) uttered it, no matter how good or useful it was. In fact,
there have been people who attempted such a very dangerous lie as to make up hadîths. But Muslim scholars have worked without getting tired and bored, looked for such falsehoods, found them and discarded them from books. If it had not been for these continuous studies of Muslim scholars, could such religiously ignorant reformers ever distinguish one mawdű’ hadîth? Muslim scholars have accomplished such a delicate and difficult study of recognizing hundreds of thousands of hadîths together with their narrators and evaluating the soundness of each. As for the reformer, he confuses those who have made up hadîths with those who have found out and discarded the made-up hadîths, arouses suspicion among Muslims by talking ill of all of them and tries to undermine the confidence in the Hadîth. The harm caused by those who
made up hadîths has not been greater than that caused by the clamours of reformers. By putting forth the harm of making up hadîths to attribute the fall of the Ottoman Empire to it, he slanders unjustly against Islam by implying that the real cause of the fall of the Ottoman Empire was Islam.
“In order to make sure the correctness of hadîths, Hadrat al-Bukhârî travelled through Islamic countries in Asia and Africa for many years. At nights, he used to get up ten or fifteen times and
record the hadîths which he remembered together with their narrators. He is said to have memorized three hundred thousand hadîths two hundred thousand of which were not sahîh. He understood that only seven or eight thousand of the six hundred thousand hadîths which he had gathered were sahîh. This fact shows how direly religious knowledge is mixed up. Observing al-Bukhârî’s way of study, some European scholars say that even the hadîths he selected [as sahîh] are doubtful. You can imagine how other hadîth books are.”
By starting with six hundred thousand and reducing the number of sahîh hadîths to seven thousand and then eventually to zero, this reformer shamelessly copies this idea from Europeans. If, instead of taking information about hadîths from Europeans, he had taken it from the specialists of this knowledge, for sure he would not have said so. The knowledge of hadîth, which is like a boundless sea, is a miracle of Islam. This great sea will not become turbid with few stones thrown by the enemies of Islam. If there were none of the innumerous proofs showing that Islam is the right and glorious religion, the dumbfounding work of the scholars of ’ilm al-hadîth would suffice to show it. Their books are so many that their catalogues alone fill up libraries. These scholars make up an army of thousands, an army of ikhlâs and specialization that has attained Allâhu ta’âlâ’s help. Intellectual and mental capacities of reformers, who run after material advantages and temporary, loathsome pleasures, cannot comprehend the sublime cause of this effort. The study of hadîths and their narrators was dependent upon so subtle and so numerous principles that a special branch of knowledge called usűl al-hadîth was established. A hadîth-i-sherîf could be recorded in a book only if it had been heard from a person who had an entirely dependable reason, powerful memory, righteousness and honesty, and he, in his turn, would have to have heard it from such another person, which, in its entirety, means an unbroken retrograde chain of dependable, trustworthy narrators back to Rasűlullâh (’alaihi ’s-salâm). Above each hadîth its narrators were listed one by one. Do Ibn Taimiyya, ’Abduh, Maudoodi and the like, who cannot comprehend the superiority of the Ahl as-Sunna scholars, and ignorant modernist reformers, who cannot comprehend Islam, presume that such dependable hadîth books are like history books? The hadîth scholars knew, as it were a miracle, that modernist reformers would later appear to attack the
Hadîth, and they wrote in detail the biographies of all
as-Sahâba (radiy-Allâhu ’anhum) and many of the Tâbi’űn who had reported hadîths. Usud al-ghâba, Al-isti’âb, Al-isâba and similar great books of biographies hold places in libraries all over the world. Can another person be shown besides Muhammad (’alaihi ’s-salâm) for memorizing each of whose sayings life-sacrificing efforts have been given and the importance and significance of whose personality and life affected his companions and caused all their lives, biographies and superiorities to be transferred into books? Through words far from knowledge, the religion reformers shamelessly want to bury this Glorious Star, who shines in the sky of honour, under the soil where the wastepipes of their disputes end.
“The religion, sources of which had been blurred by personal ambitions and political fights yet at the beginning, was made a toy during the era of ’Abbâsis. Right then the Ottoman Empire was established.”
Poor Ottomans! How unfortunate that it was coincident with their birth! If the sources of Islam were so much turbid, on which basis would the religious reforms be made today? Reformers keep almost all hadîths under suspicion. I wonder what they would say about the Qur’ân. Is this source blurred, too? We quoted above their idea that religion was necessary to correct morals. Could the religion do this if its sources were blurred and it were made a toy. Their words do not make any sense. As for the Russian reformer Baykiyev, he was aggressive against kalâm and fiqh. He blamed Muslim scholars for having left their work aside and busying with Greek philosophy. In those days, however, Greek philosophy was translated into Arabic and introduced into Muslim countries
as an advancement; it blurred the minds of many people, and the scholars of kalâm examined those new ideas and answered them one by one. Thereby they protected the Sunnî belief against a shock. Also today it is an honourable task for our religious men to examine the knowledge, science and new discoveries on the points concerning Islamic beliefs and answer them. Why do religion reformers, while understanding this necessity today, try to blemish the former scholars for having done their duty in their time? Then they blindy endeavour, without foundation in knowledge, to humiliate Islamic scholars. They say on the one hand that it is a big guilt today not to adapt religious knowledge to new discoveries, and on the other hand, they claim that the former scholars were guilty of mixing the
religion with philosophy and new discoveries of their time; everything religious men do is a guilt according to reformers.
“Pure Islamic beliefs were dirtied, corrupted by the movement called ’Ilm al-kalâm.”
This quotation from the Russian reformer Baykiyev’s book is an obvious evidence of his ignorance of Islam. How ’ilm al-kalâm shed light on and served Islam can be understood by only those who studied it from within. There cannot be any use in attacking such a vast branch of knowledge with such adventitious argumentation. The bigots of science always attack ’ilm al-kalâm in such terms as “theories” and “thoughts that cannot be experimented”. They do not know that religious knowledge is learned by way of narration, one generation relating it to the next one, and that experimentation is essential in technical sciences. In man, the place for these two kinds of knowledge is his brain, which only thinks, judges and understands whether what he hears or does is wrong or not. However, he experiments with his limbs, not with his brain. Does this reformer know what he knows with his hands or understand through his feet?
“When fiqh books were written, ’adhâb (torture in Hell) and thawâb (reward in Paradise) were reckoned essential for worship. Thus, Islam was deprived of being a social religion. If, instead of saying, ‘He committed that sin,’ or telling about the severity of the fire of Hell they had told about the usefulness of Islam on morals and society, and if, with no mention of torture and reward, they had tried to persuade the reason and intellect, they would not have deprived Islam of being a social religion. The human reason cannot entirely comprehend Allah’s wisdom. We believe this. Yet, not all the commands and prohibitions are so [difficult to comprehend]. The causes of most of them can be comprehended through intellect. When scholars could not
understand a point, they dismissed it by saying ‘Allah knows’.”
Islam is a heavenly religion. Like in other heavenly religions, Islamic knowledge is composed of two parts: religious knowledge and scientific knowledge. Scientific knowledge is also of Islamic knowledge. In order to be a scholar of Islam, contemporary scientific knowledge should also be learned as much as possible. Scientific knowledge changes and advances as time elapses. Religious knowledge never changes. This knowledge consists of
beliefs, commands and prohibitions. They were declared by Allah. All these commands and prohibitions are calied “Islam”. Following Islam is called ’ibâda (worship). Muslims worship because Allâhu ta’âlâ commanded it to be their duty. The commands and prohibitions of Islam are very useful in many respects for men in this world and in the next world, but one should intend to worship because it is Allâhu ta’âlâ’s command and his duty as a human creature. Something done without thinking in this mamner will not be worship. It will be an average action having no connection with the religion. For example, if a man performs salât without intending to carry out Allâhu ta’âlâ’s command and his human duty, but with the intention that salât is an exercise of physical training, his
salât will not be sahîh. He does not worship but he merely takes physical exercises.
Likewise, if one fasts with the thought of resting his stomach and for dieting, his fast is not sahîh and maqbűl. And a Muslim who fights and risks his life not for strengthening Allâhu ta’âlâ’s religion, for spreading Islam or for harming the enemies of Islam but for fame, honour, property or rank does not worship at all. He will not be rewarded for jihâd. He does not die a martyr if he loses his life. A man who quits alcohol only because it is harmful to his body cannot escape the sin of drunkenness. Similarly, he who abstains from adultery and from going to brothels lest he might catch horrible diseases such as gonorrhea and syphilis is not deemed chaste and pure in Islam.
Niyya (mental resolution, intention) for worship is very important in Islam. It determines whether each action done is compatible with Islam or not. If it were not a duty to escape Hell and go to Paradise as ordered by Allâhu ta’âlâ, worship performed by merely thinking about Paradise and Hell would not be acceptable, either. The great men of tasawwuf, al-Awliyâ’ al-kirâm, have not thought of them in worship; they have thought of only Allâhu ta’âlâ’s command and approval. Yet, it has been deemed enough for every Muslim to think of his advantages pertaining to the next world. Worship differs from customs in that it is necessary not to think of mundane advantages in worship. Actions performed for the sake of Allâhu ta’âlâ for advantages pertaining to the next
world, are of worship. Actions done for worldy advantages are deemed customs.
In Islam, intention is so important that if an action commanded by Islam is done for mundane advantages, it is not sahîh and maqbűl and becomes a worldly affair. When something
worldly is done for advantages pertaining to the next world, it becomes worship. A Muslim gains thawâb even for putting a morsel to his wife’s mouth. If one takes this hadîth into consideration, purifies his thought and corrects his intention, he does not miss the opportunity of gaining thawâb in eating, drinking and in every worldly affair by thinking of heavenly advantages. Self-seeking and egoism will result if human beings get accustomed to seeking for wordly advantages and material profit in every affair and even in worship. In fact, Islam demands the suppression of such evil desires of the nafs, self-sacrifice against materialism, abhoring egoism, and the purification and exaltation of morals and spirit.
It is a very evident fact for reasonable people that following Islam could not be based upon mundane advantages. In addition, the following âyats and hadîths show this fact:
The twentieth âyat of the sűrat ash-Shűrâ purports, “We increase the earnings of those who work for winning the next world. And to those who work for wordly advantage, we give what is of it. But they will not obtain anything in the next world.”
The eighteenth and nineteenth âyats of the sűrat al-Isrâ purport, “Among those who wish for this world, whose favours and flavours last short and end soon, We give whom We want what We wish. The rewards for those who work for the favours of the next world are plentiful.”
The sixteenth âyat of the sűrat Hűd purports, “We abundantly give for the labour of those who want to live and amuse themselves in this world. We spare nothing. In the next world, they will be given the fire of Hell only. Their labour will come to naught in the next world. For the work they do only for this world, there is no reward in the next world.”
A hadîth states, “It will be said, ‘The recompense of anything done for someone besides Allâhu ta’âlâ should be asked from him.’ ”
Another hadîth states, “For the good actions done for the next world, Allâhu ta’âlâ’ gives reward in this world, too. But He never gives reward in the next world for the things done only for this world.”
A hadîth written firstly in the Sahîh of al-Bukhârî is very famous: “Every good deed will be evaluated according to the intention.”
It is not forbidden to think of the worldly uses and the social
advantages of the rules of Islam together with their uses in the next world. In fact, it is the duty of religious men to explain these uses through contemporary knowledge. But this is not the subject of fiqh or usűl al-fiqh books contrary to the reformer’s view. Fiqh teaches religious duties of people, and usűl al-fiqh shows how these duties are derived from the four sources of Islam. The social aspects to be put forward about the rules of Islam, however, are to be prepared as a means of defence and argumentation against the enemies of Islam rather than against Muslims. Although it is very useful for Muslims to know the worldly benefits of the rules of Islam, they shall only know it and not go as far as to establish their worship on the basis of wordly benefits.
Otherwise, worship will be spoilt. However much wordly usefulness there is in the duties which Islam commands, one should do them only to carry out Allâhu ta’âlâ’s commands and escape punishment in the next world. When there is such an intention, it is not harmful to think of their worldly uses in addition.
To leave the advantages pertaining to the next world aside and seek for only social benefits in worship and to take this notion as essential is symptomatic of the disease of denying Islam. When due attention is paid, the symptoms of that hidden disease will be seen in the speech and writings of religion reformers. Otherwise, anybody with a smattering of religious knowledge and even a person who thinks only through his reason and intellect would certainly appreciate the importance of intention. Such implausible, illogical words of reformers make one think that they do not believe in the future life. Although worldly usefulness of the rules of Islam is very important and very obvious, those who believe in Paradise and Hell do not want even to remember their
worldly advantages. In comparison with the immeasurable, infinite happiness and the very painful, endless disasters in the next world, the temporary pleasures and sorrows of this world are worth nothing. If the reformers, who pretend to undertake the trouble of telling Muslims about the importance of the future, believed in that most important future called “the next world”, they would lay as much stress on the next world of Muslims at least as the religious scholars laid on this world of Muslims, and with their touching voice and tearful pens they would cry also a little for the happiness pertaining to the next world. If the rules of Islam were based upon social benefits, it would result in alterations and corruptions of these rules in the process of time.
“There is no need to limit the number of madhhabs in four. If Muslims remain packed together within the limits of four madhhabs, no improvement will be possible. First of all, man’s reason should be freed from being a slave of the religion. Reason is an unlimited blessing given by Allah. It is necessary to get out of the four madhhabs and to give freedom to reason.”
And Celâl Nűrî, another reformer, writes in his book Târîkh-i Tedenniyyât,
“ ‘The gate of ijtihâd has been closed,’ they say. Nonsense! The Ottomans remained chained to wrong, coarse laws. On the other end of the world, social conditions had already improved. The Ottomans did not follow them. They lagged behind.”
The standards of living have changed, and science and arts have improved, but from which inventions have the rules of Islam prevented them, so that reformers direct such unpleasant allusions as “coarse laws” to them? Does Islam say, “Don’t construct roads, don’t run trains, don’t build ships, leave your minerals under earth or sell the right of exploiting them to communists or capitalists, don’t do trade with disbelievers. Machinery, techniques, planes, electricity and radio are the inventions of disbelievers; don’t learn them. Don’t earn money. Kill each other in football games?” No! Islam emphatically commands -as well as it considers morals and virtues- to work in arts, sciences and to search and learn what the disbelievers have invented. This will be explained
more detailedly in the following pages.
“Islamic laws, which were formerly suitable for the Ottomans, did not suffice and became deficient later, because they were like the Arab bedouins at the beginning of the establishment of the Ottoman State. Later, they spread in Europe and the social life changed. As for the laws, they remained fixed.”
It is obvious how reformers regard Islam by saying that Islam is a religion suitable for bedouins living in tents and it needs reform in order that it be accepted by civilized nations. On the one hand they say, “Superstitions have been mixed with the religion. It needs to be returned to its former state.” On the other hand they do not hesitate to say, “The former state of the religion was for those who lived in tents in Arabian deserts.”
“Islam was put forward by only one man.”
These words of the reformer show his disbelief in that the religion was sent by Allâhu ta’âlâ. Also Dozy, a Dutchman (1820-1884), said so. Dozy and our reformer, who copies him, suppose that Islam is the unripe fruit of aberrant thoughts like the law concerning homosexuality passed by some hundred members of the British Parliament. The law made by human beings is certainly temporary, soon being changed by the ones who make it.
“Even if we would suppose for a moment that eveything known as reality in the religion would be accepted as reality...”
Do religion reformers want the religion to turn from one state to another like a man who does not keep his word? A religion which would take a new shape every day is not necessarily to be sent by Allâhu ta’âlâ. Everybody can do this. And the reformers want a religion which is to be changed when it does not suit their purposes!
“‘Where there is nass, ijtihâd is not permissible, and the commands which were stated clearly cannot be interpreted differently’; these words are the two basic laws of Islam. For this reason, Muslim scholars have said ‘harâm’ about the interest in banks. However, interest is the food of capital. Capital is the dynamo of trade.”
The religion reformer seems to praise interest. He admires the capitalists in Europe and America who sedentarily earn money without any work. However, this exploitation of capitalists has given birth to communism. By outlawing the practice of interest and commanding zakât, Islam prevents the owners of capital from exploiting workers and peasants and blocks the ways leading to communism. Misrepresenting Islam’s prohibiting definitely every kind of interest as an obstacle for progress is as nonsensical as refreshing an outdated complaint. Islam has prohibited not the banks but their exploiting the people.
“Our Master the Prophet very beautifully puts it, ‘In case reason (’aql) and narration (naql) contradict each other, reason must be followed.’ Thus it is seen that the religion might be changed in accordance with necessity.”
A fact which reason shows and can grasp never changes. For this reason, Muslim scholars said that narration could be changed through a proof shown by reason. Yet it is equally obvious that
through the reason of this reformer, who knows nothing about logic, it is impossible to put forth the proof that will cause the narration to be changed. Rasűlullah (sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam) divided Islamic knowledge into two groups as ’ilm al-abdân, the knowledge of matter and science, and ’ilm al-adyân, the religious knowledge. Religious knowledge can be understood only through narration. Its sources are the Qur’ân al-kerîm and the Hadîth ash-sherîf.
Things that can be perceived through sense organs are limited in number. Knowledge beyond this limit cannot be understood through sense organs, or they may be misunderstood. Furthermore, man’s perceptive powers are mostly weaker than those of animals. Man may find and comprehend through his mind the things which he cannot comprehend through his sense organs, yet mind, too, has a limit of comprehension. Mind cannot find or comprehend the knowledge beyond this limit. If mind attempts to understand the things which it can never grasp, it will go wrong. In such knowledge, mind cannot be relied on. For example, Allâhu ta’âlâ’s Attributes, the things in Paradise and Hell, the way of performing ’ibâdât and much of religious
knowledge cannot be grasped by mind. If mind contradicts narration about such knowledge, narration will be followed and it will be decided on that mind is mistaken about this matter.
Four kinds of knowledge are declared in the Qur’ân: îmân, ahkâm, qisas and akhbâr. Îmân, the knowledge of what must be necessarily believed, can never be changed. The beliefs of every prophet and umma have been the same. There is no difference among their beliefs. Ahkâm, Allâhu ta’âlâ’s commands and prohibitions, can be altered, but only by Allah, who made such alterations through His prophets. Qisas are the ‘descriptions of the states and lives of the past peoples and ummas’, and akhbâr tells about ‘the happenings that took place in the past and those which will take place in future’. Among such reports are that the creatures live with water, what the signs of the coming of the end of the world are and that there are rivers in Paradise. No change can be made in qisas
and akhbâr. And if some religious teachings seem to contradict one another, they cannot be adapted to mind, either. They will be adapted to one another. A piece of teaching that has several meanings should be understood so as not to contradict another piece of teaching that has been declared clearly. Here, reason’s task is, of the two teachings that seem opposite, to understand the right meaning of the one that has
several meanings in accord with the one that can be understood clearly.
As for the second division of Islamic knowledge, scientific knowledge; it can be understood through sense organs and by observing, examining, calculating and experimenting with the tools which are assistants for these organs. All of these are done with mind and intellect. Here, what mind finds out can be relied on; when there is contradiction between narration and scientific knowledge, mind will be followed, that is, narration will be explained compatibly with mind. And the hadîth which the reformer quotes means this. But we should not believe the impostors who pretend to be scientists and talk not through science but through sensations and ambitions, the liars and enemies of religion and morals. Though Muslim scholars esteem mind very highly, one of them,
Hadrat Shaikh-i Akbar Muhyiddîn ibn al-’Arabî, regards narration superior to mind in his book Al-futűhât. While Baykiyev, the Russian master of reformers, who clamours that mind should be given freedom, speaks intentional reflections on Muslim scholars, he gives a high place to the Shaikh-i Akbar.
“Another example showing the unchangeable strictness of Islam is the institution of awqâf. The rule ‘Shart-i wâqif is exactly like nass-i shâri’,’ (The conditions laid down by the wâqif, who grants property to a religious foundation, are exactly like the commands in the Qur’ân and the Hadîth) is one of the main principles in the fiqh books.”
Properties and goods granted to awqâf belong to the wâqif when alive. Since all the constitutions on the world recognize that everybody has the right of using his property to his own wish, no one has the right of speaking ill of the necessity that the property granted to a foundation should be used under the conditions he wishes.
“The cause of the increase in the properties of awqâf is not because of piousness or goodness but because of the pillagers’ giving one percent of the houses they have pillaged as alms to a mosque, to a madrasa or to a dervish lodge in order to guarantee the ninety-nine percent for their own and their children’s advantage, lest someone might pillage the wealth they have pillaged.”
The principles concerning awqâf should not be discussed in such ignorant terms but by examining minutely. To be brief, fortunately the religious foundations have survived without changing up to now, and as the result, the properties which amount to almost half of the State’s budget have been reserved for the nation. If it had not been for the principles of religious foundations, may be this great wealth would have no longer existed today.
“Many parasitical people live among Muslims today. Though it is declared that man has nothing but his labour, madrasas, imârets (food-kitchens for the poor) and dervish lodges get filled by millions of lazy, so not useful but harmful, people.”
It is an âyat in the sűrat an-Najm which declares that man has no profit other than of his labour. Religion reformers mention this âyat very frequently but they understand its meaning little. Those who know the preceding and following âyats easily comprehend that this âyat is about the advantages pertaining to the next world. Moreover, men can utilize also the things which they do not work for. Inheritance is an evident example for this. This âyat declares that as one will not suffer harm from another’s guilt in the next world, so his advantage will be only what he deserves. Every Muslim has to try to work for the advantages of this world provided it will not harm the advantages of the next world. Such work is an ’ibâda, a religious duty. In urging people
to work, it is out of place to interpret this âyat wrongly.
It is appalling that the reformer regards students as parasites, and the imârets established for the benefit of the poor and the destitute, not as good places but as harmful places. There is no doubt that madrasas and imârets help education, culture and humanity. Should not we build hospitals for the poor, either?
“Christianity also was fixed. They strove not to change it. Later, the rebellion of a Christian reformer spread out far and wide. The fixed, unchangeable rules fell down.”
All the heavenly religions were fixed. The thing called “religion” must be stable. If it is changed by people, the new one will be called not a “religion” but “irreligiousness”.
“The white may mix with the black race. The mulattos cannot establish a civilization. The spirit, that is, the common feelings, of
each race will fade away. This theory put forth by Gustave Leubon has been witnessed by the Ottomans. With the foreign blood which mixed with their race as the result of the method of devţirme (recruiting boys to be brought up as Janissaries) and through concubines, the Ottoman spirit deteriorated. This added to their genius but spoiled their morals.”
Gustave Leubon said, “Of the mixed races, the minority will die, their blood changing after a few generations.” Because the majority was Turkish in the Ottoman Empire, the Turks did not vanish but they increased in number and became stronger. Today, democracy has improved so far as to be said to be limitless in European countries, and races have been mixed altogether. Did this cause them to lag behind? There is not a pure race in the United States, where the mixture of various races has not prevented advancement in civilization. If they were honoured with being Muslims, their morals also would be perfect and the ancient Islamic civilization would enlighten the whole world. While races have mixed more in the course of history, there has not been any decrease
in civilization. According to the reformer, people must have been more civilized in the old times when people mixed least.
It is very unsound, and extremely ridiculous, to regard the mixing of races as the reason for the immorality or corruption which led the Ottomans to a catastrophic end. The one and only real cause of the corruption and immorality was the irreligiousness of the educated and the ignorance of the uneducated. The role of irreligiousness in worsening morals was much more effective than that of ignorance. It is for this reason that the educated irreligious are worse and baser. Therefore, survival of societies necessitates religious knowledge and a method of education based on religious knowledge. In order to prevent the fall of the Ottomans, those who wanted to rescue them from ignorance, which was yet their own disease, dragged them to the destruction of irreligiousness,
which was more perilous, and thus they annihilated them altogether.
“After caliphate increased the power of the Ottoman rulers, sultans became sort of semigods in the eyes of the people. A gesture on their part could cancel personal wealth, honour and even life. This dictatorial torment was feared more than Allah’s Hells were.”
Islam’s first article at the head of all its constitutions have been
“Those commands which [Muslims are ordered to commit what] Islam prohibits should not be obeyed.” The rulers presiding over Muslim countries, whether they be called a caliph, a sultan or else, cannot go as far as to make their every wish done. They can never be semigods. Among the Ottoman rulers, none was seen to behave so excessively. There were very merciful ones, and the cause of their fall was not cruelty but mercy. This resulted not from the religion but from disobedience to the religion. The conditions and limitations which Islam put on individuals and from which rulers were not exempted were always known by all the Muslim nations. Long before the declaration of human rights in Europe, Islam had given it to Muslims not only as a right but also as a duty to disobey
the despotic commands of rulers who would violate Islam and act lawlessly.
“Not the religion itself but the conception of religion by Muslims, the dictatorial administration based on the religion and the family education which was also based on the religion have put the individual in such an unsuccessful state in social life.”
It is the main principle of religion reformers to impute every guilt to the religion in such a manner as to remind of the proverb, “Attack the weak!” and to camouflage behind such words as, “not the religion itself but the conception of religion.”
“Muslims, who believed that they could not do anything and who looked resigned because of the idea of qadâ’ and qadar lived under fear for centuries and became obedient, comtemptible, sycophantic and deceitful like the slaves who trembled under scourges in Europe in the Middle Ages. The causes of the corruption of the Ottomans to such a degree were the principles of qadâ’, qadar, tawakkul and contentment taught by the religion, and the proposed sufficiency of belief in order to become a Muslim, simply believing by heart and confessing by the tongue. Qadâ’, qadar and tawakkul have annihilated the determination and will in Muslims and by decreasing their confidence in their work and in their own personalities caused them to abase themselves
so far as to endure every kind of torture and humiliation. The idea of being content with little made people lazy. And since it was too simple to be a Muslim, none of the modern and moral qualities was regarded necessary for being a Muslim, and it was considered that Muslims could do every evil; which in turn led to laziness and immorality.”
We will tell about all these clearly and in full detail in the following article.
“The Muslim believes that what happens, whether good or evil, has been predestined in eternity by Allah: ‘We are human creatures. The creature cannot help it. Allah makes everything. The creature cannot change qadar. For example, the sustenance of everybody has been determined in eternity. Whatever we do, we cannot change it. A danger will harm us if Allah wills, and it will not if He does not will.’ Besides having tawakkul there is no way out for Muslim.”
Thus, he tries to undermine the basic beliefs of Islam.
All the Islamic beliefs stated in the last paragraph are correct. Like the ignorant people who misunderstand qadâ’ and qadar, the reformer probably cannot understand these concepts. Nevertheless, all Muslims, even the ones who misunderstand them, like them, while the reformer dislikes them. If Muslims were lazy because of this belief, they would have to be lazy in worshipping, too; one who is lazy because of his belief that nothing is in his power, would be lazy not only in worldly affairs but also in duties pertaining to the next world. If Islam had tied man’s hands, feet, option and will in worldly affairs, it would have kept them tied also in religious affairs. Do reformers believe that people with such a belief are lazy also in all their ’ibâdât
including salât and fast? If they do so, why don’t they complain also about this kind of laziness? They do not mention or write about this laziness; is it because Muslims do not believe in qadâ’ and qadar in their affairs pertaining to the next world, or is it because reformers slight the next world? As we all know, Muslims have become lazy also in performing their religious duties today. And this should not be out of their love for the religion, should it? If Muslims depended on the religion firmly, they would not be slack in their religious duties. Whence has this laziness come over Muslims? When it is observed minutely, it will be understood that sweetness of our life and comfort, that is, following our nafs, is the cause. Ignorance has been added to it. Our ignorance has prevented us from realizing the necessity
of endeavour and self-sacrifice for ensuring sweeter life and continuous comfort in Paradise. Then, it is a very unjust, groudless slander to indicate the exalted and valuable realities of Islam as the cause of this laziness. And it is a very loathsome slander to impute evils, especially fawning, hypocrisy, flattery and lie, to Islam. These evils
are caused by self-seeking, that is, by abandoning Islam and clinging to the world and by giving up the rules of morals. In short, the main causes of immorality are irreligiousness and ignorance. A person who puts his trust in Allâhu ta’âlâ, i.e., who has tawakkul, and who believes in qadar does not condescend to fawning and lie, nor does he believe that advantages outside qadar can be obtained through these ways. A person who believes that profit and loss are from Allâhu ta’âlâ simply does not humiliate himself before creatures. He will not flatter anybody. However, those who deny qadâ’ and qadar and rely only on intermediaries, especially on illegal, evil intermediaries, will do so. Also it is out of place to ask, “What degenerates Muslims is not tawakkul
and belief in qadar, but isn’t it misunderstanding them?” Evils and immoralities cannot result from any manner of understanding tawakkul and belief in qadar, for this belief and evils are antonymous to each other. There is no relation between them. Even misunderstanding the teachings of tawakkul and qadar does not lead to evils. Shame on those mouths and pens who, instead of looking for these evils and immoralities in the denial of tawakkul and qadar, search for a relation between evils and Muslims’ belief! Do they diagnose the diseases of Muslims contrarywise like this? We should not complain about tawakkul and belief in qadar of the flatterers and liars who wish to attain their evil desires; instead, we should recommend that they have tawakkul and belief in qadar. See what our Master Fakhr al-’âlam (sall-Allâhu ’alaihi
wa sallam) said in the Hadîth ash-sherîf:
“Fear Allâhu ta’âlâ and cling to good intermediaries in order that you may obtain the things you wish. Do not cling to evil intermediaries! I swear by Allâhu ta’âlâ within Whose Omnipotence and Will I exist, that nobody goes from this world to the next world without completely taking his sustenance, which has been determined in eternity.”
Another idea which the enemies of Islam frequently repeat is, “The scholars do not encourage Muslims to earn money. By saying that this world is transitory they alienate Muslims from this world.” However, the duty of religious scholars is not to teach Muslims their needs and advantages which they could know and understand through their instincts, that is, their natural actions such as feeling for nipples to suck, as soon as they are born. “Earn money, do not become destitute, stop your hunger, put the morsel into your mouth, rest when you get tired...”; it is not necessary to tell these not only to human beings but even to animals. The duty
of religious scholars is to teach useful and luminous teachings such as not to forget about the next world while obtaining worldly advantages, to observe other’s rights and justice, not to follow the nafs, to trust in Allâhu ta’âlâ and not to be slack in working and thus to add a spiritual power to one’s own power.
Question: “Having misunderstood qadâ’, qadar and tawakkul, Muslims have become lazy and then their morality has been spoiled and they have dived into evils. Isn’t that right?”
Answer: It may be right. When such evils as flattery and mendacity appear in some Muslims, they will wholely forget about qadâ’, qadar and tawakkul. Then what must be done is not to correct their understanding but to make them believe again. If, instead of doing this, qadar and tawakkul are spoken ill of, they will be altogether alienated from these. We should not blame qada’, qadar and tawakkul but condemn their bad behaviors.
Tawakkul is not a weakness but a power in Muslims, who practise tawakkul because it is commanded by Islam. Islam, while commanding tawakkul, prohibits laziness. The âyats, “Endeavour in the way of Allâhu ta’âlâ, which is the righteous way”, and, “The person who has the heaviest burden is Muslim who thinks of both this world and the next world and works for both,” and the hadîth, “Allâhu ta’âlâ does not excuse incapacity, slackness. You should utilize your brains and intellect! Even if the difficulty of the job seems to overcome you, you should keep on working, saying, ‘Allâhu ta’âlâ’s help is sufficient for me!’ ” are the evidences for this fact. The hadîth, “Tether your camel and put your trust in Allâhu ta’âlâ!” openly declares that it is necessary both to have tawakkul and to work. Muslim scholars have told and written these commands of Islam in books in every country in every century.
Tawakkul does not mean not to work and become lazy. Tawakkul is done for beginning a job and accomplishing the job begun. It helps to remove the fear of failing in a difficult job. The proof of this is the âyat, “When you begin any work, have tawakkul in Allâhu ta’âlâ, trust in Him!” This âyat points out that, besides tawakkul, not only labour but also determination, which is above labour, is necessary. Then every Muslim should work, be determined and then trust in Allah.
Religion reformers say that man should trust in himself, and Muslims say that he must put his trust in Allah only. Because the enemies of Islam do not believe in tawakkul and for replacing the power and courage granted by tawakkul, they are compelled to
meet this need with the word self-reliance. It is seen that tawakkul is not unnecessary for Muslims. Some being to be trusted in is necessary.
“Muslims believe that their sustenance has been determined in eternity. They think that Allah the Most Generous will meet their needs. Like an old carriage that may break into pieces at any moment on the road, they drag on along the road of means of subsistence which would be shown to them by some chance event. They do not think that they may increase their earnings by working. They do not regard it necessary to work. This is the effect of the religion in their sitting lazily and resignedly.
“A free person having power of will believes that he himself has some power capable of doing. This self-reliance gives man the strength of struggle for life. As he struggles, as the hardships obstructing his purpose increase, he feels stronger and wishful to fight more with the increased fire of his shocked pride. He is sure that he will win at last. Nothing can resist against this confidence, this belief. If we want to live, let’s form self-reliance.”
We learned too much from such bloody and fervent lessons of self-reliance in the First World War. We saw how great troubles we got ourselves into. Self-reliance may also result in such crazy attacks. If tawakkul in Allah had been preferred to self-reliance during the war, none of the subtle points, which were more reasonable and more legal than those actions, would have been neglected, because, in putting one’s trust in Allah it is necessary to follow the Divine Rules, which make one esteem every subtle point. Islam commands both to work and to have tawakkul. Those who idle and say that they have tawakkul are the defective people who do not perform one of these two duties. Islam disapproves such people, for they perform one of the two commands of Islam and
neglect the other. Reformers who slander them are as defective as they are, because they, too, abandon one of the duties and emphasize only the other duty. In fact, their fault is graver than that of those who do not work, since we human beings, after working as hard as we can, are in need of putting our trust in Allâhu ta’âlâ and expecting the reward of our work from Allâhu ta’âlâ; we further need to have a second tawakkul so that we shall not forget Allâhu ta’âlâ but expect His help while utilizing in working the power which is said by reformers to be in us and is given to us by Allâhu ta’âlâ since the real, inexhaustible, unconquerable power can be attained by not forgetting Him.
Despite the âyats, “If Allâhu ta’âlâ helps you, no one can overcome you. If He does not help you, no one can help you. Then, Muslims should trust in Allâhu ta’âlâ!” and “O My Beloved Prophet! Tell them, ‘Unless Allâhu ta’âlâ wills, I am not able to be of any use or harm to myself,’ ” and many other âyats, does it befit reformers who claim to help the religion to abrogate tawakkul and look for something named “self-reliance”? They cannot say, “Seeing that tawakkul is misunderstood, we demand this,” for self-reliance is to trust only in oneself and is quite contrary to tawakkul and spoils one’s tawakkul. Moreover, it gives way to egoism and self-esteem. Self-reliance contradicts the knowledge of logic, too, for it shows inability to find somebody else to trust in, and unless the one who trusts and the other who is trusted do not exist, the word ‘trust’ does not have any meaning. Explaining the vicious circle in logic, it is said, “One thing must need itself.” In literature, self-reliance is dealt with extensively but in the sense of trusting in others’ help, and when it is as excessive
as to make one forget the trust in Allâhu ta’âlâ, it is evil and harmful. Self-reliance, with this bare meaning, does not have any value except its senselessness against reason and logic, and it does not help one to obtain -from oneself- a great power which does not exist in him. Everybody has self or ego, and self-reliance does not cause one to be distinct from or superior to others. A Turkish proverb says, “He who has not suffered another person’s punch regards his fist a heavy stone.” Two opposing forces each of whom has done his best for the means to success and puts his trust not in himself but in Allâhu ta’âlâ might seem equally powerful to win, but the one who believes that he is right also believes that his opponent will not utilize tawakkul. When they depend on their self-reliance, however, there is no reason
for such belief, and though one may say, “Allâhu ta’âlâ will help me because I am right,” he may not say, “My ego will help me because I am right.” Because, the ego of the unjust one desires superiority more and assaults more wildly. It is not a defect for tawakkul to be useless for the one who is aware that he is wrong. It shows that it cannot be used for evil purposes as self-reliance is used.
Since in tawakkul you put your trust in Allah alone without trusting in others’ help in your work, much more power results from it than does from self-reliance. The reason why religion reformers speak ill of tawakkul must be because they do not realize this. Neither the person who has tawakkul just trusts in Allah and sits idly, nor the one who has self-reliance just trusts in
himself and sits idly. So, both will work and neither will trust in other people. But the person who trusts in himself is lonely, and a Muslim who has tawakkul has his Allâhu ta’âlâ besides his own labour, getting power from this Inexhaustible Source. A Muslim who has tawakkul works with all his strength and does not fall into such self-esteem or egoism of regarding his gain as from himself.
Since self-reliance means to work with much energy without trusting in anybody else to help him, tawakkul, too, puts such hard labour into a shape suitable with reason and logic and embellishes it with modesty. What is expected from self-reliance is provided by tawakkul in a more proper and better justified way.
“The obscuration of high realities among the medley of superstitions has been caused by the contentment, tawakkul and resignation of Muslims. The hadîth telling that contentment is an inexhaustible treasure has been mis understood to the extent that it is not even believed that it is necessary to work.”
“It is a very unjust slander to blemish Muslims with laziness just because of their contentment. ‘Contentment’ does not mean ‘not working; using whatever one finds by chance and not looking for anything else’. It means ‘being satisfied with what is earned by one’s physical labour and not casting covetous glances on others’ earnings’. It teaches that others’ earning much more should not be envied and that one should work hard like them. It teaches not to stock the remaining part of what one needs of one’s earnings, and to give it to charitable institutions defined by Islam and to help the poor, the destitute, the diseased and mujâhids. So, contentment is not only the source of good morals but also an unconquerable fortress providing man with happiness when
he is in deprivation. The poet says:
“O Time; While attacking people, don’t suppose that I am like other people and don’t march upon me! You can’t twist my arm! Don’t suppose I am alone against you! There is an undefeatable army behind me: my contentment!”
“Sects sprang up in Islam. They parted into two even in îmân. Those who followed the Prophet’s companions were called ‘Ahl as-Sunna’. Those who departed from this path were called ahl al-bid’a. Ahl al-bid’a parted into seven groups. Today’s Muslims have chosen the way of Jabriyya among these ahl al-bid’a groups.
Those who claim to be Ahl as-Sunna say, ‘Man can do nothing. Allah creates everything and man does what is predestined.’ According to them man is incapable in every respect.”
The reformer mistakes Ahl as-Sunna for Jabriyya. It is true that man is incapable before the Divine Power in every way. Yet if Muslims considered themselves incapable and others powerful, then the reformer would have a right to speak.
“There was nearly no Ottoman family in which they did not blunt and kill the abilities of comprehension, observation and inquiry in children with suppressing, ignorant answers. The utterly ignorant people, who believed that men were of infinite impotence, that everything was made by Allah, that grave was an intermediary that interceded with Allah for man, that the head of the state was the absolute ruler, and who lived in the world of dreams full of genies, fairies and vampires, always answered their chidren’s questions as ‘Allah makes,’ ‘Allah has predestined so,’ ‘Don’t ask too many questions.’ or ‘Be quiet, it is a sin, it is disbelief!’ Religious scholars did not or could not tell people the moral, social uses in worshipping. Parents’
prohibitive treatment of children was because scholars misunderstood and misstated Islam. It was forbidden for the child to think and ask about religion, morals, customs and honesty. Thus, it resulted in tawakkul, resignation, loss of power of will and hesitation, which in turn developed into viciousness and impersonality in the child. All these were qualities that caused easy defeat and settlement of bad habits.”
All the evils which the religion reformer writes are, in actual fact, imputed to the religion, especially to the teachings of qadâ’ and qadar and to the unquestionability of religious knowledge.
It is never right to blame Islam and its scholars by putting forth the idea that graves are intermediaries between Allâhu ta’âlâ and men. All Islamic scholars refute this idea. The Ahl as-Sunna scholars have unanimously prohibited Mulims from worshipping anybody besides Allâhu ta’âlâ. The belief that the dead, and even the alive, are intermediaries between the Creator and His human creatures exists not in Islam but in Christianity. While they impute this to Muslims and regard it viciousness, why don’t they regard Christian Europeans vicious? Recently, the viciousness and immoralities of the children brought up in European fashion by modernist families have been filling the columns of daily papers even though they do not have that “old-fashioned” religious
training. It is very unfair to blame Islam on
account of the indulgent policies we have been following with our children, such as being too tolerant and too affectionate towards them, so much so that they do not feel compelled to care for themselves and become accustomed to laziness. In Islam the father does not have to continue to care for his child who has matured mentally and reached the age of puberty and who should work and earn; therefore, every father has to teach his child a craft as well as knowledge and manners.
There are three principal groups having different views concerning the effect of man’s will on his actions: the Mu’tazila, Jabriyya and Ahl as-Sunna.
According to the Mu’tazila, Allâhu ta’âlâ has given men power and will and man creates all his actions. They say that trembling of the arm and beating of the heart occur from themselves, but man creates the raising of his arm and the stepping of his foot, and if man did not create his optional actions Allâhu ta’âlâ would be unjust for rewarding for goodness and torturing for evils. They put forth the âyats, “Allâhu ta’âlâ does not treat men cruelly. They treat themselves cruelly,”
and “It is the retribution for what they have done.”
And according to the Jabriyya, “The pencil has written in eternity all that would happen, and its ink has dried lest it might be changed later. Everything has been predestined in eternity. Things that are in Allâhu ta’âlâ’s knowledge and everything which He has predestined in eternity will come out just as it is predestined. No one can change this. The eighteenth âyat of the sűrat ar-Ra’d says, ‘Allâhu ta’âlâ is the Creator of everything.’ Allâhu ta’âlâ is the One who creates man, who gives man power and will, and who creates all his actions.”
Muhammad Ma’thűm al-Fârűqî (rahmatullâhi ’alaih) wrote:
“Those who belonged to the Jabriyya said, ‘There is no will or option in man. Man is compelled in his actions. He is like a tree swaying in the wind. It is not correct to say that man did something. Everything is done by Allah.’ These words cause them to become disbelievers. He who believes so is a disbeliever. According to them, ‘Man will be rewarded for good deeds and he will not be tortured for evil deeds. Disbelievers and sinners are excusable. They will not be regarded guilty or punished, for the evils are done not by themselves but by Allah, who compels men to do them.’ These words cause disbelief, too. Allâhu ta’âlâ declares in the twenty-fourth âyat of the sűrat as-Sâffât,
‘They will be questioned on their belief and on what they have done.’ The
hadîth says that seventy prophets cursed those who belonged to the Jabriyya. Every reasonable person can easily understand that their words are wrong. It is obvious that trembling of the hand is different from raising the hand optionally. Trembling of the hand is not within man’s wish, but raising the hand is within man’s option and will. It is clearly understood from the Qur’ân that the followers of the Jabriyya are in the wrong path. Allâhu ta’âlâ declares in the fourteenth âyat of the sűrat al-Ahqâf, ‘They will be rewarded for the good they have done.’ He declares in the twenty-ninth âyat of the sűrat al-Kahf, ‘You may believe or not. We have prepared fire for the cruel (disbelievers).’ And it is declared in the thirty-third âyat of the sűrat an-Nahl, ‘Allâhu ta’âlâ did not torment them. They tormented themselves by disbelieving and sinning.’ If there were no option or power of choosing in man, Allâhu ta’âlâ would not say, ‘They tormented themselves,’ in this âyat. Many people think like the Jabriyya and say that men cannot do what they wish. They say that they are compelled to commit sins and that they commit them compulsorily. They consider themselves excusable and innocent. On the contrary, Allâhu ta’âlâ has given men as much option and power as to perform the commands and prohibitions. Beating of the heart and man’s walking are certainly two different actions. Beating of the heart is not within man’s power. But man walks if he wants and he does not if he does not want to. Because Allâhu ta’âlâ is All-Bounteous and All-Merciful, He has not commanded men things that are not within their power. He has wished them to do things which
they are able to do. The last âyat of the sűrat al-Baqara, declares, ‘Allâhu ta’âlâ has commanded his human creatures things which they are able to do.’ It is surprising that the Jabriyya group get offended by and oppose to those who do not listen to them and who annoy them. They take every kind of trouble to bring up and train their children. They do not let other men approach their wives and daughters. They hurt those who do so. They do not say that they are compelled and therefore are excusable and tolerable. When the subject changes to affairs pertaining to the next world, however, they say, ‘We cannot help it, Allâhu ta’âlâ makes everything,’ and shamelessly commit
the evils prohibited by Islam and abstain from worshipping commanded by Islam.
“Though they say that there is not any wish or will in man, they commit whichever evil they wish. Allâhu ta’âlâ says in the seventh âyat of the sűrat at-Tűr, ‘The day whereon Allâhu ta’âlâ will torture them will certainly come. No one can prevent it.’
When they see a mad person in their own house or if they see him commit a sin, they tolerate him by saying that he does not have wisdom and option. Yet they punish sane people who commit sins. Then they punish them because they have option and commit sins willingly. The Jabriyya group departed from the right path by saying that man did not have option and the Mu’tazila group deviated because they disbelieved qadâ’ and qadar. They became ahl al-bid’a. They went wrong. It has been the lot of the Ahl as-Sunna scholars to find the right path which is between these two extremes. It is reported that al-Imâm al-a’zâm Abű Hanîfe asked Imâm Jâ’far as-Sâdiq (rahmatullâhi ’alaih) ‘O the grandson of Rasűlullah! Has Allâhu ta’âlâ left the affairs to men’s wish?’ He said
in response, ‘Allâhu ta’âlâ does not leave the attribute of being Rabb (Creator) of His human creatures.’ Abű Hanîfa asked again, ‘Does He make His creatures do work under compulsion?’ He answered, ‘He neither forces them nor leaves it to their wish. It is something between these two.’ Allâhu ta’âlâ declares in the one hundred and forty-eighth âyat of the sűrat al-An’âm, ‘The polytheists will say, “If Allah willed, we and our fathers would not be polytheists, and we would not prohibit anything by ourselves.” ’ As in this âyat, disbelievers and polytheists say that Allah has willed them to have disbelief and polytheism. Allâhu ta’âlâ will not admit this pretext of theirs. Such words show their ignorance and foolishness.
“Question: The Ahl as-Sunna scholars have said that every good and evil thing happens as predestined, willed by Allâhu ta’âlâ. Then disbelievers disbelieve because Allah has willed it so, don’t they? Is their pretext not justifiable? Why would not their words be admitted?
“Answer: Disbelievers do not say that they were forced into an evil state or that they are excusable. They do not regard disbelief and sins as guilts. They do not consider them evil. They say, ‘Allah likes and approves eveything He wills; if He did not like, He would not will. He wills our polytheism and disbelief and has us do what we do. Therefore, He likes and approves all. He will not torture those who do these.’ Allâhu ta’âlâ says at the end of the above-quoted âyat, ‘So those who preceded them disbelieved
[the prophets of their time]. Therefore they tasted Our torture. Tell them: “Do you have any knowledge that you can show us as a proof? But you only guess and lie.” ’ Allâhu ta’âlâ declares in the Qur’ân and in other holy books that disbelief is loathsome and that He never likes it. He announces that disbelievers are
accursed, that they will never attain His Mercy and that they will be tortured eternally. He declares that they speak out of ignorance. Will to do something may not indicate approval for it. It is for certain that Allâhu ta’âlâ wills their disbelief and sins. No one can do anything which He does not will. Though He wills them, He does not approve or like them. The Qur’ân expresses this clearly. These words of disbelievers agree with the Jabriyya belief. They said that they did not have option in their actions, and Allâhu ta’âlâ refused their words and cast them to their teeth, since such a belief was wrong as pointed out above.
Maybe these words of disbelievers are intended for derision, rather than a statement of their belief, for they do not regard their situation bad. They believe that they are good and say that Allâhu ta’âlâ approves and likes their conduct.
“Question: ‘Everything men do happens with Allâhu ta’âlâ’s will. Good and evil things have been predestined and recorded in eternity. Then is there place for man’s option and choice? Doesn’t everybody have to do the good and evil things predestined in eternity?”
“Answer: The predestination in eternal past is in this manner: ‘So and so will do such and such a deed with his own desire.’ Then the eternal predestination points out not that men do not have option, but that they do have option. If it showed that they did not have option, Allâhu ta’âlâ would act without option in His daily creations and deeds, and He would be compelled to do so, for Allâhu ta’âlâ creates everything in accord with the eternal predestination. Allâhu ta’âlâ is autonomous. He wills, opts and creates what He wills and opts.”[1]
The Ahl as-Sunna’s belief is between those of the Mu’tazila and Jabriyya. According to the Ahl as-Sunna, man neither creates nor is compelled to do his deeds. The Ahl as-Sunna’s teachings can be explained as follows:
In Islam, like in all other heavenly religions, everything happens according to the predestination and will of Allâhu ta’âlâ. And, since man does not know how an action has been predestined in eternity, he has to work in accordance with Allâhu ta’âlâ’s command. Qadâ’ and qadar are not obstacles against man’s working. Men should think about qadâ’ and qadar not before doing something but after doing it. The twenty-second
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[1] Maktűbât vol. I, 83 rd. Letter.
âyat of the sűrat al-Hadîd says, “Everything that would happen in the world was written in Lawh al-mahfűz and predestined in eternity before the world was created. We tell this to you so that you would not be sorry for the opportunities you have missed, nor should you feel arrogant for your good deeds and for the blessings Allâhu ta’âlâ has given you. Allâhu ta’âlâ dislikes the arrogant.” This âyat shows that a person who believes in qadâ and qadar will never fall into despair, hopelessness or self-esteem. Belief in qadâ’ and qadar does not prevent man from working. It encourages him to work. The hadîth, “Work! Everybody will find himself attracted to what has been predestined from
him,” tells that man’s work will show how qadâ’ and qadar will happen, that there is a strong relation between work and qadâ’ and qadar. A man’s working for goodness shows that goodness has been predestined in eternity for him, since everybody is attracted towards doing the actions which have been predestined for him in eternity.
As it is an obligation for Muslims to believe in qadâ’ and qadar and to know that all the good and evils are from Allâhu ta’âlâ, so it is their duty to do good and strive to abstain from bad behaviour. That Allâhu ta’âlâ knows how something will happen before it happens or that He destines and decrees according to this knowledge of His is not a compulsion over man. Because He knew in eternity also how man would use his will and option. This knowledge or predestination is not contrary to the wish and will of men. Allah’s knowing in eternity does not influence the happening or not happening of actions. “Knowledge is dependent upon the known,” has been said in order to show that knowledge would not affect actions.
A person does some good or bad thing, and Allâhu ta’âlâ knew in eternity that that thing would be done, and predestined it according to His knowledge. Allâhu ta’âlâ’s predestining will come true and His knowledge, which caused this predestination, will not prove wrong. It is seen that man is not compelled to do this work. Allâhu ta’âlâ knew in eternity that this person would do that work with his own will and wish. Man’s option or will is the cause of qadâ’ and qadar in eternity. That is, man will wish to do that work not because Allâhu ta’âlâ knew and predestined in eternity that work to be done so. Allâhu ta’âlâ has predestined it so, because He knew in eternity that man would use his will to do so.
The first cause in man’s doing something is his own will and option. Though Allâhu ta’âlâ predestined in eternity an action
which man would do with his own consent, man’s will and option were within the divine knowledge in eternity, and probably before the predestination. For this reason, the eternal predestination helps man’s will and option. Because man can do nothing by himself and everything must be created by Him, Allâhu ta’âlâ with His predestination makes man wish to do a certain action. The Ahl as-Sunna differ on this from the Mu’tazila and their followers, the Shî’ites, who say, “Allâhu ta’âlâ creates men and gives them power and will, and further than that He is not concerned.” As for the Ahl as-sunna, who follow the âyat, “Allah is the Creator of you and of the things you do;” they say that every movement, every work of man happens from Allâhu ta’âlâ’s creating, inventing, giving him power and having him do. His creating takes place after man uses his will and option. This part of the action, which is called “irâdat juz’iyya” (partial free will) or “kasb” (acquirement), belongs to man and Allâhu ta’âlâ does not create or invent it. For, it is not a material being. Creation and invention happen in the beings which are not thought or imagined but which exist outside (khârij) and affect our sense organs.
Divine Knowledge is unlike human knowledge and it must always prove to be right. That Divine Knowledge has always proved to be right has been misunderstood by the Jabriyya and reformers, and they have supposed that Divine Knowledge was dominant, effective over men’s actions. However, this quality of Divine Knowledge does not change itself from knowledge to compulsion. A teacher may know beforehand that his pupil will not succed in the examination. This knowledge of his will not be a compulsion over or a cruelty to the student if he cannot pass the examination. Allâhu ta’âlâ knew in eternity everything that will happen later. That everything happens in accord with this knowledge does not show that there is no will or option in man. Allâhu ta’âlâ knew in eternity
also what He would create. Since His creating certainly in accord with this knowledge of His does not show lack of will or option in Him, so it is not correct to deny the existence of will and option in man.
When man wants to do something, first he opts, chooses, decrees or wishes to do it. Then he does it. For this reason, man does not have to do an action. He does if he wishes, and he does not if he does not wish.
Man’s wish to do an action necessitates his initial remembrance of that action by seeing, hearing or thinking about it; it has to occur to his heart. Man either wishes or not to do it
when it occurs to his heart. For example, one may find something useful and do it, but someone else may find it unnecessary and may not do it. Who brings an action, its usefulness or unnecessity to the hearts of those who are said to be free in their actions? Why does not one’s thought occur to another? If it occurs, why does it seem unnecessary to another? Those various reasons are not within man’s power. For this reason, some Ahl as-Sunna scholars have said, “Men are free in their voluntary actions, yet they are not free but compelled in their will and option.” Somebody said, “I do what I wish,” to Hadrat Imâm al-Ghazâlî. Hadrat Imâm said, “Can you wish what you wish?” Hadrat Abű ’l-Hasan al-Ash’arî interpreted the âyat in the sűrat ad-Dahr of the Qur’ân
as, “You wish only what Allâhu ta’âlâ wills!”[1]
Allâhu ta’âlâ declares: “Your Rabb creates what He wishes. He alone opts, chooses. They do not have will and option” (sűrat al-Qasas, 68); “Know for sure that Allâhu ta’âlâ gets between man and his own heart” (sűrat al-Anfâl, 24); “You cannot bring whomever you love to the right course. Allâhu ta’âlâ brings to the right course whomever He wishes” (sűrat al-Qasas, 56); “Even if We sent down angels to them and made the dead talk in front of them and gave them everything they wanted, they would not believe unless Allâhu ta’âlâ willed so” (sűrat al-An’âm, 111); “Whomever Allâhu ta’âlâ wills to guide to the right path, He widens his chest for Islam, and He keeps the chest of whomever He wills to send astray so narrow and tight that
it is impossible for the truth to enter and for him to ascend to heaven” (sűrat al-An’âm, 125); and “Even if I want to advise you, it will not avail if Allâhu ta’âlâ has willed that you remain in deviation” (sűrat al-Hűd, 34). The Mu’tazila who disbelieve qadâ’ and qadar and those who follow them are astonished at these âyats.
The conversation between Műsâ (Moses) and Âdam (’alaihima ’s-salâm) about qâdâ’ and qadar is narrated at length in a hadîth.[2]
Alongside these documents showing that the human will is also under some compulsion, there is the obvious fact that man has freedom that will hold him responsible for what he does. The lawcourts all over the world and even everyone’s conscience do not want a cruel man who hurts others to be forgiven. Even a
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[1] There is detailed information about qada’ and qadar in Endless Bliss II, 3
[2] For its explanation, see Endless Bliss III, Chapter 38.
fervent fanatic of the Jabriyya does find himself rightful to get angry with and even to retaliate upon a man who attacks him unjustly. A poet says, “Slap on the neck a member of the Jabriyya who says he is content even with the torments of qadâ’ and qadar! If he says, ‘What are you doing!’ tell him that qadâ’ and qadar made you do so! Let’s see if he will acknowledge you to be right!”
All the laws of justice and moral principles over the world approve and emphasize the Divine Justice decreed in the seventh and eighth âyats of the sűrat az-Zilzâl in the Qur’ân, “He who does favour in the slightest degree will attain its rewards, and he who makes harm in the slightest degree will attain its retribution.”
Allâhu ta’âlâ declares in the hundred and forty-eighth and following âyats of the sűrat al-An’âm, “The polytheists will say, ‘If Allah willed, we would not be polytheists’... Tell them: ‘Final decision belongs to Allâhu ta’âlâ; He would have guided all of you to the right path if He had willed.’ ” This âyat does not oppose the words, “If Allah willed we would not be polytheists,” of polytheists, and their wrongness is not in that they think that they are guilty because Allâhu ta’âlâ has willed it so, but in that they utter these words in order to rebut prophets and rescue themselves from being guilty. Their words, “If Allah willed, we would not be polytheists,” are right. As a matter of fact, it is declared in this âyat, “He would have guided all of you to the right path if He had willed.” It is declared in the hundred and seventh âyat of the sűrat al-An’âm,
“If Allâhu ta’âlâ had willed, they would not have been polytheists.” Though these words of polytheists are correct, they are loathsome because they utter these words in order to rebut prophets, and they are insulted in the âyat for this reason. As Allâhu ta’âlâ did not have to will all the things which He has commanded, so He did not have to will any of the things which He has prohibited. That is, Allâhu ta’âlâ willed in eternity all that would happen in the world, and among them were also the things which He has prohibited and disliked. Willing is different from approving, from liking. These two should not be mistaken for each other. It can be easily understood that Allâhu ta’âlâ
may have forbidden men to do a certain action though He might will that action to be done.
Furthermore, the eighth âyat of the sűrat al-Balad and the eighth âyat of the sűrat ash-Shams openly declare that Allâhu ta’âlâ has given men material and spiritual power and showed the good and evil paths and that man is responsible.
It is seen that in one respect man is a free agent. In this world
and the next he is responsible for everything he does. But there is also al-Irâdat al-Kulliyya (Total Free Will) that does not leave man’s will and option alone. Man cannot decide on whether he is capable or incapable. It is very difficult to solve this problem. It would be quite right to say that it is a puzzle having no equal in the world.
Hadrat Abű Mansűr al-Mâturîdî interprets the âyat, “You wish only what Allâhu ta’âlâ wills,” as “Allahu ta’âlâ’s Will united with your will. When you will you find His Will present.” According to al-Ash’arî, this âyat does not unite but relates Allâhu ta’âlâ’s will with man’s will and it wants men to will good things. It means that such will of theirs will get power from the Divine Will and that man’s will like his every action needs Allâhu ta’âlâ’s permission. The âyat, “They do not have will and option,” was said about the disbelievers of Quaraish who said, “That Qu’rân should have been sent down to one of the notables of Mecca or Medina,” and it meant that men did not have the will of appointing the Prophet. The âyat, “Allâhu ta’âlâ gets between man and his own heart,” was revealed in order to declare, as it is explained in the Qur’ân commentary by al-Baidawî, that Allahu ta’âlâ sees and knows the secrets in the hearts.
As for the hadîth reporting the conversation between Âdam and Műsâ (’alaihima ’s-salâm) and the former’s victory, according to the Ahl as-Sunna scholars, in the disliked action of Hadrat Âdam, kasb (acquirement), qadâ’ and qadar and tawba (repentance) came together. Repentance and acquirement cancelled each other like two opposite electric charges. There only remained qadar, and it is said that no one could be blamed for qadâ’ and qadar. After the part concerning Hadrat Âdam of what he did was corrected by his repentance, that part concerning his descendants, that is, that it caused men to live on the earth, is of Divine qadar for men.
The above-mentioned âyats about that deeds happen only from Allâhu ta’âlâ’s will are meant for cases when qadar turns into qadâ’. Man begins to do the action predestined in qadar with his own will, and after Allâhu ta’âlâ wills it also, the action turns into qadâ’, that is, it happens. Then, when the actions in qadar turn into qadâ’, man’s will cannot change it; felicity and misfortune cannot go back. The âyat, “We have barricaded them on their front and back. We have put a blind before their eyes; they will not see any more,” in the sűrat Yâ Sîn, and the âyat, “Allâhu ta’âlâ has sealed their hearts and put a covering over
their ears and eyes,” at the beginning of the sűrat al-Baqara refer to this fact. These âyats indicate in addition that those who somehow attain love of Allâhu ta’âlâ will be protected and led to the right path, and those who cause the Divine Wrath will be abandoned to their evil deeds. Very delicate and subtle actions may cause this love or this wrath. For this reason, man should be very careful towards Allâhu ta’âlâ. Before the actions in qadar turn into qadâ’, man’s will and option is in his own power, though he may be influenced by exterior effects.
Men have will and are free in their thoughts and actions. Yet their thoughts and actions are related to some reasons, which do not deprive men of being free because they exercise will also without these reasons and they will and do without any reason. When man does not will while there are reasons, the action does not happen most of the time. If the existence of reasons necessitated the action to be done, Allâhu ta’âlâ’s will and option also would be ineffective. Before man wills to do an action, he thinks about it in his mind. Then he wills the alternative which influences him more. A salesman sells to the customer who will pay more. This customer is not forced to buy. The salesman is sort of compelled to sell to the one who pays more. If someone happens
to anger him by saying, “You cannot sell it to the one who pays less”, different issues and additional considerations will influence his selling.
Allâhu ta’âlâ, through the religions He has revealed, has declared to men good and evil deed and His blessings and punishments, which are retributions for them, thus He has prepared reasons for man’s will. On the other hand, He has also created in man’s mind reasons and thoughts which may lead him to good or evil ways and which struggle and dispute with one another. If, after the struggle between the reason which Allâhu ta’âlâ has declared and those which He has created in the human mind, the good alternative has more influence on man, he wills the good. For example, if an official who knows about the rules and regulations requiring that he should work well does not follow the rules, for instance, if he takes bribes, some reason in his mind, having more influence
than the prohibition of the rules, has compelled him to commit this corrupt deed. He could not help an action which should not have been done, and he has done it. Though the money offer and the love of money which Allâhu ta’âlâ has created in the human mind have compelled his will and option to take bribes, the law will not approve it.
Like the state laws, Allâhu ta’âlâ has put religious and moral rules and commanded strictly to follow them. On the other hand, He has created an-nafs al-ammâra, which is always malignant, in men. This can be likened to the State and official who should perceive that he is experiencing a vehement test and should be very alert when the State sends him a bribe in an underhanded way in order to test him.
The religious scholars have not left to Muslims the trouble of dealing with such subtle teachings, which otherwise would have exhausted their minds. They have studied them minutely and written thousands of books. It is surprising that the religion reformers, while they approve children’s observations and questions, criticize what the religious scholars have studied and written.
Though communists and some naturalists say that everything is made by nature, (Allah forbid!) they cannot comprehend its secret power. Why should it be a guilt for Muslims to believe that everything is made under the secret power?
About qadâ’ and qadar, Hadrat Shaikh-i Akbar Muhyiddîn ibn al-’Arabî had a different comment, and Shihâb ad-dîn Mahműd ibn ’Abdullah al-’Âlűsî, Muftî of Baghdad, followed him. According to them, willing the good or evils is a peculiarity in man and Allâhu ta’âlâ does not create such peculiarities. For example, they say, “Allâhu ta’âlâ did not make the apple to be apple. He only created it.” Al-Âlűsî (1217-
Islamic scholars’ writing many books about qadâ’ and qadar
does not mean busying with delusions, illusions and superstitions as the religion reformers say. Each of them is a study based on knowledge. It is a grave slander and irreverence for them to say about Islamic scholars that they mixed genies and fairies with the fancies of vampires. The source of fancies and fables which are often told by women, ignorant people and children must be the novels and motion pictures filled with fancies and murders produced in and brought from America and Europe and the corrupt beliefs of Jews and Christians, rather than the books of Islamic scholars.
Genies certainly exist, and it is necessary to believe in their existence. Yet it is wrong to take illusions and fancies as genies.
Nobody has the right to distort Muslims’ belief in qadâ’ and qadar in order to represent this belief as an obstacle against working and progress. These slanders leak out from comnunists and freemasons. Belief in qadâ’ and qadar prevent slackness and egoism. Instead of leaving the events beyond his comprehension, knowledge and power to the unconscious will of the coincidence, it is obvious that man’s work will make him more succesful if he connects the wheel of his will to the regular motions of a machine that includes everything from the atom to the sun, that is, if he tries to set his measures by the predestination. A member of the Jabriyya can be silenced by saying, “If you were at a dangerous place and told that the enemy would attack and you believed it,
would you say, ‘They will do what is predestined. They cannot do anything else. There is no way out of what Allah has predestined,’ and remain there or would you get ready to resist or go somewhere else?” Thus it will be affirmed also by the Jabriyya that the sense of need for escaping the danger and working for one’s needs exists in man’s creation. It is not reasonable to believe in qadar in insignificant affairs and deny it when you are in great danger or need.
It is because of ignorance, inattention and laziness that Muslims lag behind. And I wrote about the origin of the ignorance in the preface. Muslims’ belief should not be corrupted by confusing such noble knowledge of qadâ’ and qadar with the guilt.
“Because Europe was small and crowded and its soil was barren, Europeans had to struggle with nature and make progress in science and arts in order to live. Also the fights among needy Europeans caused this. The hot climates in Africa slackened the
people. The plentiful and various fruits in the equatorial jungles caused laziness. Since the hot deserts of Africa and the cold mountains of Europe did not exist in Asia, Asians lived comfortably. They worked easily in earning their living. The continent of Asia became the cradle of civilization. Then an eastern country may work and progress also. The reason why the Ottomans lagged behind was not their being orientals or the climate of the country. The reason was in the religion and in the concept of qadâ’ and qadar.”
Even if it would be admitted for a moment that the Ottomans misunderstood qadâ’ and qadar, abhorred themselves and surrendered to the events, the reasons which gave birth to their retrogression were different. Let us explain them:
As soon as the progressives, who disliked Muslims’ surrendering to the event, opened their eyes, they took advantage of this state of the people and began to deceive them and to snatch positions and advantages. If they strove for the progress of the country, the people, whom they blame for having been accustomed to obedience and resignation, would also surrender to them, and progress would not be difficult at all. So, the fault belonged not to the people but to the progressives occupying high positions who did not lead the people to the right path.
Revival of the people was definitely necessary, but such a large nation certainly could not revive itself altogether in a short time; those who revived first did not work in a good manner and thought only of themselves, lending themselves to vicious acts. They said, “Before the remaining people wake up, let’s provide for our own pleasures and advantages.” No matter what would happen after them, they strove to keep the eyes of the people closed so that their posts remain secure. The one obstacle preventing the people’s revival and progress became two. The people were confused whether to awaken from sleep or to escape the cunning progressives’ hypnosis. The retrogression of the Ottomans was caused not by those who had been sleeping since the old times but by
the satans who appeared later.
“We should reform the religion. We should begin with îmân first. Îmân could not be mere belief with the heart and affirmation with the tongue. The religion distinguishes good from bad, beautiful from ugly. Goodness should be the fundamental of îmân and evil should be the cause of disbelief. As a fard has various fundamentals, so îmân should have fundamentals such as justice,
direction, patriotism, honour and honesty. The six fundamentals of Âmantu could not be Islam. Islam, which is a perfect social religion, causes misery merely for this reason. Îmân should be corrected in such a manner as to value the Muslim.”
Is îmân solely to believe or should it include beautiful a’mâl (deeds, conduct or practice) as the reformer claims? Islamic scholars examined it centuries ago and parted into groups for this reason. According to the Ahl as-Sunna, îmân is only to believe with the heart, and if one cannot express it with the tongue, he will be forgiven. The Mu’tazila and especially the Khawârij, said, “Îmân could not be apart from deeds; he who commits a grave sin loses his îmân.” However, the disagreements between these groups were always based on the knowledge they understood from the Qur’ân and Hadîth. As for religion reformers, who know nothing about religious knowledge, they attempt to change îmân with their defective minds and corrupt intentions. They try to imbue the
youth with this sophism, which sounds quite right but which in fact bears a very secret danger. By pretending to compare a Muslim who both believes in Allâhu ta’âlâ’s religion and follows it with the Muslim who only believes in it but does not follow it, they try to make îmân lose its value and to distort Muslims’ belief, rather than trying to defend following Islam. As a matter of fact, it is written in the book The Evidences of Divine Mercy by the excessive Russian reformer Baykiyev, “Muslims who have remained behind versus the disbelievers who have advanced cannot be called believers, and since every religion or faith is right, a polytheist or disbeliever cannot be considered bad.” Obviously, such writings are intended to belittle îmân, which is peculiar to Muslims. The excessive reformer tries to envenom Muslims all over the world with the idea of reforming the religion.
Religion reformers in Muslim countries cunningly pretend to be Muslims. They say that they want to strengthen and improve the religion. When due attention is paid to their words, it is seen that they take the religion as a man-made system put forth by Muhammad (’alaihi ’s-salâm) but not as a religion sent by Allâhu ta’âlâ.
The above-cited idea of reformers that good conduct must be added to îmân is not intended to reveal the knowledge discussed by Muslim scholars for centuries but to hold good deeds superior to îmân, that is to reshape Islam by discarding the religious fundamentals of îmân and ’ibâdât and mixing what they believe to
be good conduct and beautiful morals with the contemporary educational methods in the name of Islam. However, this new system will be a religion believed only for worldly considerations.
Religion reformers think only of ethics and the order of the world. As quoted at the beginning of this book, they say that though the religion is without foundation, it will be good to believe it superficially and to make the people believe as if it were true, since it is a useful force correcting moral values. They want deeds to be a part of îmân, but they cannot provide any naqlî (narrated, traditional) or ’aqlî (mental) document for this. They only make statements having nothing to do with knowledge and reason but sensations fit for the understanding of the ignorant, such as, “What’s the use of îmân without a’mâl? By excluding a’mâl from îmân, the scholars of kalâm have reduced Islam to a theoretical religion, though it is a perfect social religion.” They
rave these words among the smoke which the fire of their hostility against Islamic scholars heaps before their reason. Because they know nothing about the books of the scholars of kalâm, they attack Islam under the pretext of criticizing the immoralities which they witness in those carrying the Muslim names. In order to expose to view how much unright and immoral they themselves are, the words of the Ahl as-Sunna scholars, especially of the specialists of kalâm, are explained briefly in the following:
According to the Ahl as-Sunna, he who commits a grave sin does not lose his îmân, that is, he does not become a disbeliever. A Muslim who commits a sin is called “fâsiq” (sinner). Sinners with sound îmân or i’tiqâd may or may not be subjected to torture in Hell in the next world. If they are subjected to torture later they will attain the Divine Mercy and will go out of Hell. The basis of Islam is to believe in the Oneness of Allâhu ta’âlâ and in all the rules, that is, the commandments and prohibitions which were brought by Allâhu ta’âlâ’s Prophet Muhammad (’alaihi ’s-salâm) certainly from Him. Though it is
not a condition of îmân to carry out the commands and to abstain from prohibitions, belief in the necessity of doing the commands and avoiding the prohibitions is a condition of îmân. He who does not believe as such is not a Muslim and is called “kâfir”. However good work and inventions useful to humanity disbelievers may do, they will not escape punishment in the next world. ’Ibâdât and all good deeds, valuable as they are, remain secondary in comparison with belief in them. Îmân is essential and all good deeds are accessory. Îmân and the deeds done by one who has îmân are useful to him
both in this world and in the next world. They make man attain salvation. Good deeds done without having îmân may make one attain happiness only in this world but not in the next world. The religion reformers think of good deeds only, probably because they do not believe in the next world. Because they think only of worldly ease and happiness, they regard good deeds superior to îmân. In the book Kavm-i Cedîd (Modern People), which was published in the time of the Party of Union, real Muslims, having îmân and good deeds are called
“Kavm-i Atîk” (Ancient People). It derides Muslims and says, “They say that a man who has îmân will be rescued in the next world, no matter how much evil he commits, and the person without îmân will get no good in the next world, even if he does every kind of goodness in the world.” However, Allâhu ta’âlâ declares, “Disbelievers’ good deeds [and inventions useful to men] in this world are like a mirage seen distant in the desert. A thirsty man supposes it to be water from the distance. But when he gets near it, he cannot find what he expects. On the Day of Judgement, he will find Allâhu ta’âlâ and give his account to Him, who makes the good deeds done by disbelievers in this world look like a mirage, that is, who annihilates them” (sűrat an-Nűr, 19); “The good deeds of those who disbelieve in Allâhu ta’âlâ are like ashes blown about by the wind on a stormy day. In the next world, they get no use from those deeds” (sűrat Ibrâhîm, 18);
“On the Day of Judgement, We will turn their good deeds into thin dust flying towards those for whom they do them, since they do not do for us,” (sűrat al-Furqân, 23) and “Shall we declare those whose labours prove most vain? They suppose they do good actions in the world. However, they are people who strive in vain. They have not believed the âyats of their Rabb and that they would enter His presence in the Judgement. We annihilate their favours. We do not neutralize their evils with their favours.” (sűrat al-Kahf, 103-4) These âyats show that the Ahl as-Sunna belief is right.
Although the âyats stating the worthlessness of the favours done by disbelievers in this world show that they will be given no reward, they will cause the punishment to be alleviated according to some Islamic scholars. For the âyat, (Their punishment will not be alleviated,” (sűrat al-Baqara, 86; sűrat âl ’Imrân, 88) these scholars said, “It will not be alleviated in respect of time; they will be tortured eternally.” These scholars based their view upon the âyats, “On the Day of Judgement, we will put forward the balance of justice. No one will suffer. He who does goodness as
small as a mustard seed will attain its reward.” (Sűrat al-Anbiyâ, 47) and “He who does goodness in the slightest degree will get its reward.” Furthermore, there are the hadîths stating that Hâtim Tâî who was very generous, and Abű Lahab, who emancipated his jâriya Suwaiba, who had given him the good news of the Prophet’s birth, will be tortured lightly. And the hadîth reporting that the punishment of Abű Tâlib, who loved the Prophet (’alaihi ’s-salâm) very much, will be light is very famous. Disbelievers living in dâr al-Islâm have to follow the mu’âmalât part of Islam, and following Islam causes one to earn reward or one’s punishment to be alleviated. Since there is no reward for disbelievers
in the next world, it is probable that their punishment will be alleviated. Moreover, one who embraces Islam will attain the rewards of the good deeds he has done before becoming a Muslim. As it is reported in the Sahîhain of al-Bukhârî and Muslim, Hakîm ibn Hazâm, when he embraced Islam, asked the Prophet (’alaihi ’s-salâm) about the good deeds he had done before embracing the true faith. The Prophet said, “You became a Muslim, the auspicious and useful deeds you have done before being acceptable.”
[When an unbeliever becomes a Muslim, all the sins he has committed are forgiven[1]. Similarly, when a Muslim (Allah forbid!) loses his îmân and becomes an apostate, all the favours he has done become void.]
The Qur’ân al-kerîm and the Hadîth ash-sherîf show that îmân is the belief within the heart, that is, its affirmation by the heart.
The âyats “Those who believe and those who do pious deeds,” and “Those who perform pious deeds after having believed,” indicate that belief and deeds are separate. If deeds were a part of îmân, they would not be declared separately. When something is attributed to something else, it will be understood that the two things are different. In the âyat, “When two groups of Muslims fight each other, reconcile them,” (sűrat al-Hujurât, 9) those Muslims who commit sins, like fighting each other are still called “Muslims”. The âyat, “Certainly Muslims are brothers. Reconcile your brothers!” (sűrat al-Hujurât, 10) declares that they are Believers. Allâhu ta’âlâ says, “Certainly Allah does not forgive polytheism. He forgives the sins except polytheism of whomever He wills,” (sűrat an-Nisâ, 47, 115) and the hadîth says, “Hadrat
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[1] And he becomes absolutely pure. Therefore, we should try to win his prayer for us by showing respect and affection towards him.
Jabrâ’îl (Gabriel) came to me. He brought the good news; he who dies without having attributed anything as a partner to Allâhu ta’âlâ, that is, without being a disbeliever, Paradise is the place where he will go at last, even if he has committed adultery, even if he has committed theft.”
The âyats and hadîths above indicate that belief and practice are different from each other. The Mu’tazila and the Khawârij, who said that practice was a part of belief, put forth as documents the âyats, “If one becomes a disbeliever, it does not harm Allâhu ta’âlâ who needs nothing,” (âl ’Imrân, 97) and “Allâhu ta’âlâ made you love îmân. He placed it into your heart and He made disbelief, sins and disobedience seem ugly to you.” (al-Hujurât, 7) They further said that the following words of ’Umar (radiy-Allâhu ’anh) also emphasized the meaning they understood from the former âyat: “I wish I could send official inspectors out to find those who have properties but do not go on hajj and to make them pay jizya, for they are in disbelief.” However, the word ‘disbelief’ in the âyat and in this quotation means the ‘denial of hajj’. In the last âyat, îmân and sins are classified in different classes, but it does not mean that they are opposite. There are many things which may be together though they differ in respect of beauty and ugliness. The âyat, “What a bad quality it is to be sinful after having believed,” in the same sűra very openly defines the places of îmân and sins. It tells that sinfulness is a bad quality unbecoming to Muslims and that the sinner has îmân. The latter is understood from here, because real evil and atrocity is in bringing îmân and sinning together, hence a believer’s sinning is worse than a disbeliever’s sinning.
A Muslim, who affirms the Existence and Oneness of Allâhu ta’âlâ and the rules He has declared through His Prophet (’alaihi ’s-salam), certainly feels sorry if he somehow fails to follow these rules. Someone else who does not acknowledge Allâhu ta’âlâ and His Prophet (’alaihi ’s-salâm) and does goodness not as a command of Allâhu ta’âlâ but for some other reason does not even accept to be a human slave to Allâhu ta’âlâ. Allâhu ta’âlâ’s treatment of these two surely will not be the same. A lazy son useless to others but decent and thinks of his faults and feels shame in the presence of his father and another son, who is studious, clever and helpful to everybody but one day opposes his father and utters offensive terms such as, “Who are you? I don’t recognize
you,” are to be treated differently by the father. The first one is tolerated, while the other’s every goodness comes to
naught at once and he is dismissed; begging to be pardoned is the only thing he can do. The Muslim sinner and the disbeliever are like these children.
It simply is not right to get a Muslim, who believes and likes Islam, out of Islam just because of his faults. Îmân, since it means accepting the Muslim program and respecting it even if none of its rules is carried out, is the basis of Islam. If deeds were a part of îmân, every sinner would be a disbeliever. There would be no Muslim in the world. In the Hadîth, some good acts are associated with îmân and some evils with disbelief, but such analogies are intended to tell about the extent of goodness or badness of those good acts and evils. Other âyats and hadîths show that they are apart from îmân and disbelief. The hadîths, “Modesty is a branch from îmân”; “Cleanliness is half
of îmân”; “Îmân is salât”; “A Muslim is a person in whom people will trust”; “A Muslim does not commit adultery while being a Muslim”; “Every habit, every disposition may exist in a Muslim. Only perfidy and mendacity do not exist in him,” must be interpreted in the same sense. By likening the absence of the good qualities such as modesty, cleanliness, salât, trustworthiness, chastity and rectitude and the existence of the evils such as mendacity, perfidy and adultery to the absence of îmân, these hadîths point out their importance. By esteeming some actions as highly as îmân, their importance is emphasized. For the religion reformers who say, “How can the Ahl as-sunna scholars separate from îmân the things which the Prophet included in îmân?” the hadîth, “The person who dies as a Muslim will go to Paradise at last even if he has committed adultery and even if he has committed theft,” is a good answer. The âyat, “Men will not be freed after just having said, ‘We believe,’ but it will be understood whether their word ‘We believe’ is true or false from their enduring the troubles they meet on the way of religion” (sűrat al-Ankabűt, 2) points out the great importance of enduring troubles.
The eighteenth âyat of the sűrat al-Ahzâb declares that the people who prevented others from going to jihâd with Rasűlullah (’alaihi ’s-salâm) and who, in the battles which they occasionally joined hypocritically, did not help him and his companions and who stayed deadly motionless at moments of danger in the battles and whose tongues were sharper than their swords and longer than their spears during the sharing of booties and who escaped from charitable deeds, were not Muslims. It is meant that the people of real and firm îmân would not be so and that all the
worship and useful deeds of those who did so were unacceptable. Hadrat Hasan al-Basrî, one of the distinguished among the Tâbi’űn, has a well-known saying: “One simply does not insert his hand into a hole in which it is known that there is a snake. If he does, it means that he does not believe that there is a snake there.” Likewise, a person who believes in Allâhu ta’âlâ and in Hell should not do things prohibited by Islam. A sinner’s saying, “Allah is the most generous, He likes to forgive. I sin because I rely on this,” is like inserting his hand thinking that the snake will not bite.
Sins taste sweet to the nafs. A Muslim may commit sins being deceived by his nafs, but his reason and îmân make him feel distress while sinning. Man believes with his reason, and he is dragged into sins because they taste sweet to the nafs. Therefore, îmân and disobedience are different. If inserting one’s hand into the snake’s hole tasted sweet to the nafs, or if this action caused something that would taste sweet to the nafs, for example, if he were told he would be given a certain sum of money if he inserted his hand, perhaps then he would follow his nafs and insert his hand.
Deficiency in a’mâl (deeds) does not cause man to depart from the religion. When a sin destroys îmân in the heart, for example, if the sinner denies that it is a sin then it becomes disbelief. Actions peculiar to disbelievers and considered as signs of disbelief, such as wearing rope girdle called “zunnâr” worn by Christian priests and worshipping idols, have been regarded as signs indicating denial and removing îmân from the heart. The religion reformer says, “Why should a Muslim become a disbeliever just because of using something? Why should an action done with the hand, foot or head take away îmân from the heart?” These actions themselves are not disbelief, but they are signs indicating that îmân in the heart is corrupt. Throwing the Qur’ân into dirty
places and making up words, writings, caricatures, plays and motion pictures ridiculing one of the commands and prohibitions of Islam are actions which cause disbelief themselves.
When the religion reformers who want good deeds to be included in îmân are observed carefully, there is next to none among them who performs salât, fasts and abstains from alcoholic drinks and pork. They believe they should not commit these evils so they may be called Muslims. This shows that their proposals are insincere and that they in fact want not to do good actions but to demolish îmân. Moreover, if good actions or conduct were a
condition of îmân, all of those who do evils wold necessarily be non-Muslims except prophets who do no evil, and no one on the earth could be called Muslim. Religion reformers choose some good habits to be conditions of îmân, since, according to them, men make the religion. Therefore, whatever they want is good to them. In fact, they indirectly say that it is not evil to commit adultery, to have alcoholic drinks, to ignore zakât and salât, and indeed they do not regard observance of these as conditions of îmân. They probably do not know that Islam has punishments for many crimes also in this world and that it urges people to do good; it is fard to perform al-amru bi ’l-ma’rűf wa’n-nahyu ’ani ’l-munkar, that is, to give advice, for the ‘ulamâ’ to the cruel
and for ordinary Muslims to one another. While Islam enforces performance of good deeds and abstention from evil things in this manner, reformers do not regard this sufficient, or, rather, they want none of the Islamic commands but some other concepts to be fundamentals of îmân so that they may call most Muslims disbelievers; what might be the purpose of such an attempt?
Islam considers wearing rope girdles worn by Christian priests and worshipping idols and similar acts as signs of disbelief. A person does not necessarily become a member of another religion because of having done something peculiar to that religion, yet it comes to mean that he admits that the thing peculiar to that religion be seen on him, and îmân in his heart may be thought to have been sapped. Hadrat al-Imâm-al-a’zam Abű Hanîfe said, “One may go out of Islam through the same way whereby he enters Islam.” Here, the ‘way’ means ‘believing of the heart’, that is, when îmân goes into the heart one becomes Muslim, and when îmân goes out of the heart one departs from Islam.
A person who says he is a Muslim should not do or use the things peculiar to disbelievers unless there is strong necessity, and he should try not to give the impression of a disbeliever. He should think not that he will be mocked when He does the things peculiar to Islam but that he will be respected, and he should feel honour in doing them. It is not permissible to slight the things which are reported by the scholars of Islam to be important by saying, “What do these have to do with îmân in the heart?” For, there is a way leading to each organ from the heart. The acts which Islam commands are good, and those it prohibits are evil. This is true, though people may not understand it today. When the things Islam prohibits are done, the heart darkens and hardens.
When grave sins are committed frequently, îmân may go
As it is necessary to carry out the duties commanded in Islam, so it is necessary to believe that each of them is a duty. A Muslim who believes so will for certain carry out these duties willingly.
Believing with the heart is not only the basis of Islam but it is also the highest worship. As it is written in the Sahîh of al-Bukhârî, when Rasűlullah (sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam) was asked what was the highest deed, he said, “It is to believe in Allâhu ta’âlâ and His Messenger.” and he recited the Âmentu.
That îmân is essential in Islam does not reduce the importance of deeds (a’mâl, ’ibâdât ), for it is îmân that causes the performance of deeds. Strong means secures the result. A Muslim whose îmân is strong lays more stress on the importance of a’mâl. Since Muslims have to believe every duty to be a duty separately, those who commit sins fear that their îmân may be harmed and even gone. As a matter of fact, he who slights a sin, for example, by saying, “What if I do it,” will become a disbeliever even if he does not commit that sin. I wonder if religion reformers, who want to add some a’mâl to îmân, can realize the importance of a’mâl that well? Those who say that one cannot become a Muslim only by believing with the heart and one must have good actions think
of such deeds not to be for love of Allâhu ta’âlâ and for attaining the next world but for the world and worldly happiness.
It is equally wrong to say, “Accept and believe the commands and prohibitions of the religion and then nothing else could make you better off, whether you perform them or not,” since he who slights these commands and prohibitions becomes a disbeliever.
Îmân means believing with the heart. For achieving this, first of all knowledge is necessary. Knowledge and practice are two different things. Though knowledge necessitates practicing strongly, the two are not the same. They are separated in the French proverb, “Bien penser et bien dire ne sert rien sans bien faire” (Unless done well, pondering well and saying well are useless.) Contrary to this proverb, Islam says that thinking well without including doing well, that is, sole îmân, is useful.
In summary, the good deeds performed without believing in Allah or not because they are His commands but for some other reasons are of no value. Îmân without comprising deeds, however, is valuable and useful. Muslims carry out the rules of Islam in order to escape the probability of being punished in the next world. In fact, the attainment of worldy happiness is possible for
them by observing these rules. Deeds are an essential part not of îmân but of the perfection of îmân. In one respect, îmân is knowledge. While every kind of improvement and happiness in the world is expected from knowledge, why should one be surprised at that in the next world man will attain happiness owing to îmân, which is based on powerful knowledge? Îmân, which is so valuable, should not be supposed to be unimportant. Those who despise it despite the greatness of the eternal reward it will bring to man are the wretched people who have not been honoured with the fortune of attaining it.
While people give so much consideration to worldly advantages and spending most of their energy for them, they do not pay attention to the fact that they are near an endless happiness or calamity. They never think about this. Allâhu ta’âlâ has given men reason and imposed useful duties on them. In order to inform them, He sent prophets (’alaihimu ’s-salâm). If one does not know about the laws of life and how to struggle for life, or if he knows but does not work in accordance with them, he will suffer harm. Similarly it will certainly be harmful not to know or not to follow the religious laws pertaining to the next world, the laws which were put and commanded by Allâhu ta’âlâ more importantly, though you know them. As such questions as “Why did He create the
miserable and the destitude? What fault do they have?” are out of place and do not help such people, so it is useless to say, “Why has He created the men whom He will torture in the next world?” Man, whose birth and death are not in his own power, has no right to speak ill of Allâhu ta’âlâ’s laws pertaining to this world and the next. He can attain happiness only by following these laws.
Some ignorant people who have believed in the lies of communists and freemasons say, “What is religion on earth? Who has seen Paradise and Hell? Such words are the stories of early people and bigots; they are false.” If they understood scientific knowledge and Islamic history by learning them from conscientious teachers and if they saw that scientific improvements and new inventions strengthen and prove Islamic beliefs they would cling to Islam tightly, or at least be respectful, decent towards it. If they learned Muhammad’s life (’alaihi ’s-salâm) from books written correctly, they would fall in love with his intellect, beautiful habits and accomplishments. The events showing that hundreds of thousands of people have been attached to him very sincerely, their
manners, obedience and excessive love
towards him, and that they would sacrifice their possessions and lives for his sake, fill thousands of pages of history all over the world. It is as obvious as the existence of the sun that such a person, who is the source of all knowledge and the master of all beautiful habits and goodness, is Allâhu ta’âlâ’s Prophet (’alaihi ’s-salâm). The Hero, who began alone, defeated the two great empires of the world down to the ground with his intellect, patience and keen sight, established a devoted nation within twenty-three years and left behind an unchangeable book that would make people attain ease, happiness and civilization until the end of the world: these suffice for reasonable and just people to embrace Islam. There is no need for another miracle or witness.
To deny the words of this exalted Prophet (’alaihi ’s-salâm) means to deny history and events. He who knows but does not believe him is a slave to his nafs, to his sensual desires, or an eccentric person who does not wish goodness, working, progress, mutual love, social justice, and who does not think of his and all people’s happiness, or an utterly ignorant person who knows nothing about science and history. Every reasonable and just man who learns the beautiful life of Rasűlullah (’alaihi ’s-salâm) and the subtleties and uses in the commands and prohibitions of Islamic faith should believe him at once, like him and become a Muslim willingly, as humanity requires. It was true that Abű Lahab and Abű Jahl did not believe him though they saw him and the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius and Persian Shah Perviz did not believe
him though they read his letters. Their denying him was a sign of their ignorance, stupidity, ill spirit, or foul heart and persistence.
“While the Christian world was moaning under the cruel, burning torture of Catholics, they were quite behind. Christians would kneel before priests, who seemed to have concealed all the mysteries of religion in their beings, which were like the obscure squares of churches, and who hummed the words of an unintelligible language in a magic manner. They would kiss the pavements of churches and suplicate to these idols whom they regarded messengers between Hadrat ’Îsâ (Jesus) and themselves. Likewise, as the hodjas read the Qur’ân, Muslims of every race listen to this thing without understanding it as if they were bewitched. A reformer among Christians came forth and translated the Bible. When the Bible was understood, priests, who had been looked
on as God’s representatives, began losing their
value. The Luther of Islam has now come forth in Asia: Műsâ Baykiyev of Kazan translates the Qur’ân into Turkish. This good news means that the thoughts and consciences of Muslims will escape slavery. The rules of the religion, which had been put forward by the four madhhab leaders and been mixed with politics even as early as in the time of the fourth caliph, are uncertain.
“How could right and truth be broken into pieces? The four madhhab leaders tell differently how a rite is to be performed. How could all the four be right? Reason does not accept that the intellect of the four leaders surpassed the intellect of all people who have come after them. To say, ‘Only the rules they derived are right; it is not right to derive other rules,’ means to put the human mind into chains.
“People’s needs change in process of time. As it is declared in the Qur’ân, ‘Every day is different.’ To consider the fixed rules derived by the four leaders in the old times as a measure for the everyday needs means not to follow the Qur’ân. The founder of Islam knew that these would happen, so he said that the rules would change in the course of time. It is not compatible with Islam to measure the changing, improving needs with unsuitable rules. The ijtihâd of the four leaders does not mean the religion. As these learned and superior men derived religious rules from the Qur’ân and Hadîth, so every Muslim who has reached the grade of a mujtahid may very well derive new rules from these two sources.”
The reformer starts with the translation of the Qur’ân al-kerîm. Today, majority of those who say they are Muslims complain that the Qur’ân has not been translated up to now and that the religious knowledge has remained secret. They blame Islamic scholars as if these scholars have prohibited translating the Qur’ân. This complaint is quite wrong. Islamic scholars have not attempted to translate the Qur’ân into another language, for they have thought of themselves as incapable of translating Allâhu ta’âlâ’s Word without spoiling the expression, eloquence and perfection in its own language. However succesful the translation might be, it has been concluded that it is impossible to reach the deep meanings of Allâhu ta’âlâ’s Word. The Qur’ân has deep meanings that
do not exist in other holy books. It descended at a time when contests of eloquence took place in Arabia, and it outshone all of them. Translation of such a book must have the same quality, which is impossible. Accomplishing a translation
worth the Qur’ân, which has an eloquence above man’s ability, necessitates having ability above the human ability. This is a matter of ability, that is, it is a matter of protecting the superiority of the Qur’ân. Those who want to taste the flavour of eloquence and deep meanings in the Qur’ân have to learn Arabic literature and many a branch of Islamic knowledge such as tafsîr, usűl al-fiqh, and then they can enter the holy presence of the Qur’ân. They must not expect the Qur’ân to come to them.
Writing a Turkish explanation (tafsîr) of the Qur’ân and translating it into Turkish are different. Its translation is more difficult than explanation. It is not true that it has not been translated into or explained in Turkish. It has been, but it has not been liked by connoisseurs of the subject. Religion reformers are wrong in their claim that the first attempt belongs to Russian reformer. If the conscience of Muslims are supposed to escape slavery with a single translation as they say, they should have escaped it with former translations. Moreover, those who accomplished the Turkish explanations such as Mawâkib
and Tibyân were not utterly ignorant in ethics and religious knowledge like those who attempt to translate it today are. They were authorized, prominent scholars having a say in each of the twenty main branches of knowledge and in the numerous helping branches of knowledge. Muslims have been reading and utilizing them. Do religion reformers, who do not like those Turkish explanations want a different translation suitable for their own points of view? A translation done by the ignorant who do not know even the Arabic grammar will be forced to be accepted as the Qur’ân by all Muslims, and religion reformers will
call a haphazard Turkish translation of the Qur’ân “the Qur’ân” and have the Turks perform salât reciting such a Turkish “Qur’ân”. The real danger endangering one’s being Muslim, probably, is to attempt to recite any translation instead of the Qur’ân in salât, rather than translating the Qur’ân. The Divine Word in the Qur’ân is in its own Arabic words and sentences that are on the peak of eloquence and deep meaning. These words and sentences are not man-made. All of them have been arranged by Allâhu ta’âlâ. Each of them bears various meanings. It cannot be decided in which of these meanings is the Divine Purpose. None of the different translations done according to different meanings can ever be called the Qur’ân.
The âyats of the Qur’ân were given different meanings in different ijtihâds by the religious leaders, and a rule was derived
from each of them by each leader, and these rules made up the four madhhabs, while at the same time the original unity of the Qur’ân was maintained. If the Qur’ân were translated according to the rules of each madhhab, what the Hanafîs, for instance, would recite in salât would be different from what the Shâfi’îs would recite, thus, each school of Muslims, each madhhab, would have a different religious book. Islam, like Christianity, would be in utter disorder. Do religion reformers want the Qur’ân to be translated so that Islam will fall into such a state? In order to protect the unity of the Holy Book of Muslims and to keep Allâhu ta’âlâ’s Book away from the smallest doubt, Muslim scholars have declared to preserve the Qur’ân as it came from Rasűlullah (sall-Allâhu
’alaihi wa sallam). Moreover, because a few âyats quoted by some of the prominent Sahâbîs, such as Abdullah ibn ’Abbâs, Abdullah ibn Mas’űd and Hadrat ’Alî (radiy-Allâhu ’anhum) were very slightly different from the Qur’ân which we possess today and which was authorized unanimously by the majority of the Prophet’s companions, they were called qirâ’at shâdhdha (exceptional recitals) and, though they have been documents for the scholars of fiqh and used in explanations of the Qur’ân, they have never been permitted to recite in salât. How could it ever be permissible to recite Turkish or even Arabic translations, which have been done by this person or that and which are
liked today and probably will not be liked and will take different shapes tomorrow, instead of the Qur’ân in salât? No Muslim scholar has permitted it. Al-Imâm al-a’zam Abű Hanîfa was reported to have said once that the Qur’ân could be read in Persian in salât, yet Nűh ibn Mariam said that the Imâm had changed this ijtihâd of his and the scholars of usűl were opposed to reciting it even in Persian.
Reading the Qur’ân even without understanding its meaning will be given thawâb. This is for protecting the Qur’ân, which stands for Islam’s constitution, from being altered. Turkish explanations or translations of the Qur’ân can be and have been written, and Islamic scholars have not forbidden this, yet it can neither bear the eloquence of the Qur’ân nor convey the Divine Purpose. Muslims who want to understand the Qur’ân and the subtleties in it and to taste the flavour of its eloquence should read it in its own language and they should not be reluctant to learn the knowledge necessary to enjoy its pleasure. As it is necessary to learn English, French and Arabic languages and literatures in order to understand and enjoy the delicacies in the
poems of Shakespeare, Victor Hugo and Mahműd Bâqî, so it is very wrong to attempt to understand the eloquence and subtleties of Allah’s Word without taking pains to learn the necessary knowledge to understand it. Reading anything, even if in Arabic, other than those words which Archangel Jabrâ’îl (’alaihi ’s-salâm) brought to our Prophet (sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam) never means reading the Qur’ân. Reading the Qur’ân when one is junub, for example, is harâm, though reading others is not harâm.
Religion reformers say that one should understand what one recites and what one asks from Allâhu ta’âlâ in salât. Such words indicate that they have not comprehended what ’ibâda means; the salât that man has to perform was not prescribed by man himself but by Allâhu ta’âlâ, who has declared to His Prophet (’alaihi ’s-salâm) how salât and the other kinds of ’ibâdât are to be performed and what is to be recited during performance. Hadrat Prophet (’alaihi ’s-salâm) himself performed them and told them to his companions exactly as he had been taught. Even Hadrat Prophet (’alaihi ’s-salâm) was not allowed to change the fard, wâjib and harâm, which he never did. Our religious leaders understood all of these by seeing and hearing
them from the Prophet’s companions (radiy-Allâhu ’anhum), and they wrote them in their books. As these profoundly learned scholars reported, the Qur’ân al-kerîm to be recited in salât has to be in Allâhu ta’âlâ’s Word. The duty will have been done only in this way. Those who want to understand the meanings of what they recite in salât can learn their meanings beforehand easily by studying a little. Why should not they study for this while they study for many years, learn many a branch of knowledge and many a foreign language for worldly advantages? Outside of salât, a Muslim can pray to Allâhu ta’âlâ in his own language. He can learn the meaning of the âyats he recites in salât from the books of the Ahl as-Sunna scholars. Those who attempt to learn from books of the enemies of Islam and of the religion reformers will
learn wrong, false, loathsome things and their toil will have been wasted.
In order to learn and teach the meanings in the Qur’ân and with pleasure, the religious knowledge correctly and to perform salât easily and Muslims all over the world use Arabic as the religious language. Muslim men have to perform the five daily prayers of salât in congregation in mosque. If everybody performed it with his own language, Muslims who are of various nationalities and speak different languages would not be able to
perform salât together. The same danger arises if the khutba is translated. If it is read in various languages, Muslims will part into separate mosques for salât on Fridays and ’Iyd days, which will result in the danger of the breaking of the unity of Muslims.
Reformers try to eliminate the ijtihâds of our madhhab leaders in order to distort Islam. It is not right, neither for a reasonable friend nor for even an ignorant, slanderous enemy, to say, or even to think, that Islam was spoilt in the time of the Prophet’s companions. How would it ever be possible today to find the real shape of a religion if it had been spoilt one thousand three hundred years ago? If it had been spoilt, these reformers’ efforts to correct the religion, to make “true” ijtihâds, would have been in vain. If the basic knowledge of Islam had not been correctly available for the madhhab leaders, not even the name or sign of that knowledge would have remained for today’s religion reformers. They pretend to make ijtihâd under their masks not by
depending on the Qur’ân and Hadîth but by making up false ideas with their own defective mind and short sight as they please. They say that the right and truth cannot be broken but at the same time they try to belittle the four madhhabs by saying, “How could all the four be right?” Further, their idea that ijtihâd should be free, that modern people, too, can make ijtihâd, is an attempt to break the truth into pieces. While each of them likes what he himself understands or thinks and blames others’ conclusions, and while they try to open the gate of ijtihâd, they do not even notice that they close it. Contrary to their nonsense, Islam has not limited the right and authority of making ijtihâd to four people. Each of the Prophet’s companions made ijtihâd, yet, because we do not possess today the collections of their ijtihâds,
their madhhabs have been forgotten. Only the books of four madhhabs survived. Ijtihâd, like commentating or translating the Qur’ân, is a subject of specialization and ability. It is obvious that these reformers, who are unable even to distinguish things that cause disbelief and polytheism, do not possess this specialization and ability.
“In religions, in social systems, shortly, in all the divine and social rules, there is one common thing; fear. Islam can be put in such a manner as to accomplish the social advantages and prohibit the social evils. If the scholars of fiqh had had this point of view, the most beautiful laws would be Islam today. But by associating all the affairs with the tortures in Hell and the blessings in
Paradise, the scholars of fiqh deprived Islam of a social order. Instead of observing and understanding the greatness of Allah and the delicacies in nature and thus loving Allah, Muslims fear His Hell and fear that He may make them fall into the hands of the cruel. The children fear their fathers and women their husbands. This fear in Muslims fastens the arrangement of social life with a chain of fire. The society of those who have come together with a heartfelt happiness being attached to one another through reason, intelligence and mutual love is certainly better, more sincere and more lasting than a made-up, false and temporary society bound by the power of fear. Men should love their Allah, their Prophet, their religion, their government,
themselves, their families and nation not out of fear, but because they are Allah, the Prophet, the religion, the government, the families and the nation.”
The reformer observes the fear of Allâhu ta’âlâ and fear of government and of parents from one single point of view and attempts to make religious, political and social reforms with a scratch of the pen. Islam, too, rejects the societies based on dictatorship and cruelty. The hadîths, “The most beautiful of alms is the true word uttered in the presence of the cruel men of administration,” and, “If my umma fall into such a state as to abstain from saying, “You are cruel,” to the cruel, Allâhu ta’âlâ does not help them,” indicate this. Then, it is an obvious injustice to impute the social diseases caused by cruel governments to Islam. Islamic religion has always rejected the fear arising from false and temporary forces of the cruel. The reformer mixes the various reasons of fear with one another. The reason for the fear of Allâhu ta’âlâ is quite unlike these false and temporary forces, nor does the chain fastened to it ever break. As the force increases it unites with right. It is for this reason that the result of combats and revolutions furnishes a right for only the winning side. If there is a mediator country stronger than the two warring countries, that can limit the right of the winner. It is seen that force can be limited and deprived from right, too, even if it is more. Allâhu ta’âlâ’s power, above which
there is no power and which is the source of all powers, is also the source of right and truth. It is for this reason that it is as sublime and spiritual to fear and shiver from Allâhu ta’âlâ’s power as it is to love Him.
In this world, it is regarded a humiliation to fear the great, though loving and respecting them is not considered as something damaging one’s honour and esteem. In contrast, those who are
exalted in Islam deem it the greatest honour to humiliate themselves before Allâhu ta’âlâ. This very difference is the subtle point which make fear valuable. As man becomes mature and spiritual, he will still be interested in material needs and material dangers since he cannot escape being material. Therefore, the attachment through fear is the strongest and most valuable. The reformer says that this is not strong, for he sees that the person who attaches himself to Allâhu ta’âlâ through fear changes whenever he finds an opportunity. However, not even for a moment can man find an opportunity against Allâhu ta’âlâ, who sees and knows all his secret and public behaviour and who is never mistaken. The hadîth,
“What a good human being Suhaib ar-Rűmî is. He wouldn’t commit any sin even if he didn’t fear Allâhu ta’âlâ,” provides for unity and indicates that fear is a strong means. Reformers suppose that the fear of Allâhu ta’âlâ and love of Allâhu ta’âlâ are different, and they like the latter and are against the former only because they are foreign to the religious knowledge and sources of Islamic religion.
Men are advised to fear Allâhu ta’âlâ in the âyats, “Those who have much knowledge fear Allâhu ta’âlâ much” (sűrat al-Fâtir, 28); “There are two heavens for the person who fears the greatness of his Allâhu ta’âlâ” (sűrat ar-Rahmân, 46); “They alone are the believers whose hearts feel fear when Allâhu ta’âlâ is mentioned,” (sűrat al-Anfâl, 2; sűrat al-Hajj, 35) and “Those who obey Allâhu ta’âlâ and His Prophet and those who fear Allâhu ta’âlâ and who are cautious of Him are the ones that will be saved on the Day of Judgement.” (sűrat an-Nűr, 52) It is easy to understand now why the reformers who know nothing about these âyats do not have any right to attempt to reform Islam or to criticize the religious scholars who have placed the fear of Allâhu ta’âlâ into Muslims’s hearts. If it were bad to place the fear of Allâhu ta’âlâ in Muslims, it would be necessary (Allah forbid!) to criticize the Qur’ân on account of this. Almost every page of the Qur’ân invites Muslims to the fear of Allâhu ta’âlâ with the command, “O ye who believe! Fear Allâhu ta’âlâ!” It is declared in the thirteenth âyat of the sűrat al-Hujurât, “To Allâhu ta’âlâ the most valuable of you is he who fears and is cautious of Him.” ‘Ittiqâ’ in these âyats means ‘to fear’. It originates from their imitating European Christians that reformers want to eradicate the fear of Allâhu ta’âlâ in Muslims and to replace it with the thought that Allâhu ta’âlâ is only benevolent, merciful and protective over His human creatures, as Christians believe. To
love Allâhu ta’âlâ considering Him only as merciful, bountious and not to fear His wrath and punishments means to consider Him weak like a ruler who is unable to operate the law or like the parents who spoil their children by doing what they wish. Those who make progress in a path of tasawwuf, when they are suffused in His attribute of Jalâl (Severity), can not think of the Divine Mercy or of the love of Allâhu ta’âlâ, and when His attribute of Jamâl (Beauty) surrounds them, they forget about the torture in Hell and the fear of Allâhu ta’âlâ; in these states called ecstacy of tasawwuf, they utter words slighting love or fear, respectively, but when they recover, they repent for such words.
The âyats “Those who work should work for these very happinesses!” (sűrat as-Sâffât, 61) and “Those who compete one another should compete for this,” (sűrat al-Mutaffifîn, 26) order to work willingly for the blessings in Paradise.
Ahmed Mithat, a so-called modernist reformer, in his book Nizâ-i ’Ilm ve Dîn (The Disputes Between Knowledge and Religion), tries to flout the belief in the Rising Day, which is a fundamental of îmân, while he represents each of the blessings of Paradise such as food, drinks and houris as concepts pleasing one’s greed and materialistic desires. It is glaringly evident that the religion reformers, whose sole concern in this worldly life is to run after these pleasures, who castigate the Islamic scholars because they do not state that the religious practices also should be intended to attain these worldly pleasures, and who say that people should devote themselves to worship in order to attain these worldly pleasures, which, to them, are more attractive, more delicious and more
effective than anything else, expostulate about the existence of these pleasures in Paradise for the purpose of maligning the Sharî’at. Such unpleasant allusions to Islamic scholars, who struggled to get Muslims absorbed in performing ’ibâdât in order that they might attain the blessings of Paradise and escape punishment in Hell, have been seen so often. For example, a Bektâshî said:
“Whenever a zâhid[1] mentions Paradise,
He talks about eating and drinking.”
Such words direct unplesant allusions to the eighteenth âyat of
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[1] A person who has much zuhd, i.e. who has freed his heart from whatever is worldly.
the sűrat al-Wâqi’a. Another group in denial of the blessings of Paradise and the punishments in Hell say that they are of no value when compared to love of Allâhu ta’âlâ. Yet the fact is that a person’s performing ’ibâdât for them does not indicate that he does not love Allâhu ta’âlâ. Those whom Allâhu ta’âlâ loves are in Paradise and Allâhu ta’âlâ is pleased with those who are in Paradise. Indeed, the greatest felicity is to attain His approval. But one cannot attain Allâhu ta’âlâ’s approval by ridiculing the blessings in Paradise which Allâhu ta’âlâ praises and tells Muslims to strive to attain. Because religion reformers want ’ibâdât not in order to escape the punishment and
to win reward in the next world but for worldly order and comfort, it is understood that they do not think of Allâhu ta’âlâ’s approval.
Love of Allâhu ta’âlâ is the teaching which Islam considers as the most important. But saying that this love alone will suffice for worldly order and regarding the fear of Allâhu ta’âlâ insignificant and unnecessary, although it is the source of every sort of happiness, is a clear sign of knowing nothing about the Qur’ân al-kerîm and Hadîth ash-sherîf. Hadrat Muhammad (’alaihi ’s-salâm), the most exalted of men in every respect, said, “It is me who, among you, fears and stands in awe of Allâhu ta’âlâ most!” This hadîth and the preceding one about “Suhaib’ point out that the fear of Allâhu ta’âlâ is necessary. Fearing Allâhu ta’âlâ should not be supposed like fearing a cruel person! It is the fear combined with reverence and love. In poems which lovers wrote to their darlings there are many couplets telling about similar fear in them. A lover who regards his darling much higher than himself does not deem himself worthy of this love and explains his feelings in such a fear.
Fear of Allâhu ta’âlâ and love of Allâhu ta’âlâ are like two wings taking people to salvation and happiness. The Prophet (sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam) said, “If a person fears Allâhu ta’âlâ, everything fears him. If he does not fear Allâhu ta’âlâ, he fears everything,” and “The extent of one’s intellect will be evident in the extent of his fear of Allâhu ta’âlâ.” A person who fears Allâhu ta’âlâ tries strictly to carry out His commands and to abstain from His prohibitions. He does not harm anybody. He shows patience towards those who harm him. He repents for his faults. He is a man of his word. He does every goodness for Allâhu ta’âlâ’s sake. He does not cast malicious glances on the possession, life or chastity of anybody. He does not wrong anybody in trade. He does favours to everybody. He abstains
from doubtful things (between harâm and halâl). He never flatters the occupiers of high posts or the cruel. He respects men of knowledge and good morals. He likes his friends and they like him. He gives advice to wrong-doers and does not follow them. He is compassionate towards those younger than him. He shows honour to his guests. He does not talk behind anybody’s back. He does not run after his pleasures. He does not say anything harmful and even useless. He never treats anybody harshly. He is generous. He wishes property and rank in order that he may do favours to everybody by means of it. He does not behave hypocritically. He is not arrogant. Thinking that Allâhu ta’âlâ sees and knows every moment, he never commits evil. He is firm to His commands and
runs away from His prohibitions. In short, those who fear Allâhu ta’âlâ are useful to their country and countrymen.
“Because the Ottoman state was based on the principles of the religion it started everything with madrasa education. In madrasas today, Arabic, sarf, nahw, logic, fiqh, badî’, bayân, ma’ânî are taught. They teach them in order to correctly understand the religious books which are in Arabic. They say that the gate of ijtihâd has been closed. The majority of those who got education in the madrasa have remained on the first steps of these branches of knowledge. Not [even] one out of a hundred hodjas knows how to read and write correctly. Many of the hodjas, whose lives elapse in the madrasa, cannot pass beyond reading and writing as if it were a sea without shores, and the meaning remains unknown to them
like the poles. They are lazy, ignorant and fanatical. I wish their fanaticism were for something which they knew. They are fanatical in defending something which they do not know. And their purpose is to exploit Muslims and live comfortably. Though these hodjas are ideally and morally ignorant, they are in the disguise of religious scholars. There are real scholars among them. It is a debt for us to respect them. Today, there is nothing left of Islam in madrasas. Pulpits, made in order to teach the religion, decency and the Qur’ân, are used for nothing but deceiving Muslims.”
When the excessive reformer Baykiyev of Kazan, Russia, said these words, Islam, whatever was left of it on the earth, existed only in the madrasas which he disliked, and today in communist Russia, whose programs begin with the statement that it is necessary to eradicate religions, none of those madrasas and
mosques, which offend the eyes of this excessive reformer, remains. Religion reformers should know also that religious hodjas who, to them, are reactionaries in every respect are also behind in robbing the people when compared with them. Since their lives elapse in contentment, they get little use from the people. On the other hand, they do not neglect rendering even small services to them. When no hodja was left behind within four years of the First World War to wash dead bodies in villages, it was understood that even the hodjas, who were regarded ignorant, were not unnecessary or useless. Later in the time of Sultan Vahîddedîn Khan, many of the subjects that are taught in today’s high schools were reinstated in the curricula of the madrasas in Istanbul,
yet it was seen that no hodja was graduated as qualified as the earlier ones. We have told briefly in the preface about the reasons that caused the decay of these centers of knowledge which in the past had educated Molla Fenârî, Molla Husrev, Ebussu’űd, Ibn Kemâl, Gelenbevî and many others. Freemasons had not only deprived the madrasas of knowledge and monetary funds but also spread the nickname ‘softas’ (bigots) for ‘students’. It is surprisingly fortunate that, despite such defeatism and neglect shown to them, madrasas have produced men of knowledge who could more or less rebut the enemies of religion, and this must be because of the faid and baraka (blessing) in the exaltedness of the profession of teaching Islam. Some madrasa graduate men of religious profession, being unable to endure the insults directed to them
through official tongues, have had to throw themselves into other areas of business in order to protect their honour, while some others, taking no notice of the insults, have adhered to their religious and national customs and continued living in an endeavour against their nafs. It is obvious that those who graduated from the madrasas which had been brought into an undesired state and deprived of teaching knowledge and science could not be men of knowledge. For this decay, there was another more effective reason, which was unnoticed and therefore not mentioned by religion reformers: the hodjas who should have performed the duty of al-amru bi ’l-ma’rűf wa ’n-nahyu ’ani ’l-munkar more than others kept silent against and even followed the cruel who put the madrasas into such a state, even sometimes helping the degenerate
who introduced irreligiousness into this country and eradicated the religion. Although the fingers distinguishing right from wrong with unmistakable attention and unshaken conviction should
belong to religious hands and there should be men of religion ahead of fighters for Islam opposing to injustice, the recent state of men of religion has been more tragic. Men of religion, who, while teaching that the intended couple had to be of the same social class, held the madrasa student and the Sultan’s daughter in the same category and regarded helpers of the cruel baser than everybody, have been replaced by those who are much baser in piousness than they are in knowledge today.
In the following, the news reported in the daily Vakt dated June 20, 1928, is given:
The professors of the Faculty of Theology in Istanbul have announced the program of the improvements that will be done in our religion suitably with the modern life and progress. This announcement is signed by Köprülü Fuâd, Ismâil Hakký of Ýzmir, Sherâfeddin Yaltkaya, Mehmed Alî Aynî and their friends and says: “Like other institutions, the religion also should follow the current of life. The religion cannot remain dependent upon its old forms. In the Turkish democracy, the religion also has to undergo its development. Our mosques should be made inhabitable; desks and coat-racks should be put in them, one should be allowed to go in them with shoes. Language of worshipping should be Turkish, and the Qur’ân and the khutba should be read in Turkish. Musical instruments
should be placed in mosques. The khutba should be delivered not by imâms but by religious philosophers. The Qur’ân should be studied not with the view-point of kalâm or tasawwuf but of philosophy. We request that this program, which concerns the ultimate policy of Turkey and will have a creative effect on all Muslim countries, be accepted.”
“Children, after learning religious knowledge and believing in many things at home, study mathematics, biology and scientific subjects when they go to school. The things in which they have believed before without seeing and the knowledge which they learn by seeing and thinking about in high school conflict with each other in the children’s brains. The belief and morals which they have learned before deteriorate. And they cannot establish a new belief or morals with their fresh information. I have not seen a youngster who has formed a new belief and morals firm and based on knowledge.”
The religion reformer means that the youngsters who have graduated from high schools have neither religious knowledge or religious morals nor morals that is independent of the religion and
based on sheer thought and mental knowledge. The lessons taught in the high school, science, biology and astronomy do not harm or annihilate the îmân attained at home; on the contrary, they consolidate it. Islam commands learning the latest scientific knowledge with the intention of making îmân conscientious and firm, living comfortably and being ready to stand against disbelievers’ attacks.
“The child believes that the skies are made of layers of ceilings; the student believes that it is an endless space and that the earth stands on the horns of a water-buffalo. When they learn that the earth is not plain but it rotates in space and how our globe has formed, the geologic lessons, how life began, light and electricity; their îmân deteriorates. Those who prepared the curricula in high schools could not think of uniting experimental knowledge, that is, scientific knowledge, with religious knowledge. Astronomy tells the greatness of Allah better than religious books do. Could science and biology be thought of as different from the religion? As religious feelings in school children slacken, morals, customs and national bonds gradually
melt. This situation facilitates the establishment of new morals and belief; yet, since there is not a leader to establish them, it easily makes them immoral or easy preys for any malignant influence. Let us compare incomplete knowledge of a student with the religious and moral knowledge and belief of an uneducated person. The student’s thought progresses very slowly and his valuable bonds have melted. As for the uneducated person, he is ignorant but his religious bonds are rather strong. He is willing to die for them.
“If, instead of melted religious bonds, an education based on knowledge and an idea of patriotism are established in the youth, the youth can live on. But they cannot achieve this. In a confused mood, they recoil from the morals and customs of their country. They admire Europeans but they cannot get their morals, either. What they learn from Europeans is confined within the arid zone of imitation.”
At this point, the religion reformer seems to have perceived the facts and to be rather reasonable. However, if due attention is paid, he implies that the lessons taught in high schools harm îmân and morals. This is quite wrong. Knowledge, whether it is much or little, is not harmful, but it is useful. The harmful thing is to place ignorance and evils into the heads in the name of knowledge, and to appoint ignorant, immoral people to be
teachers. It is not knowledge and science but irreligious, ignorant teachers who harm the religious knowledge and beautiful morals the youngsters have acquired from their mother homes. Such an inefficient, irreligious teacher puts his own irreligious, immoral ideas, lies and slanders secretly amid the scientific facts he teaches. The callow brains cannot distinguish these lies from science and are deceived by believing them as truth. The pure children who fall into the traps of the enemies of faith and chastity are made to read the papers, magazines and novels of the enemies of Islam, which in turn undermine their morals and îmân. This is the method whereby the younger generations are misled out of their faith in communist countries.
It is understood from his writing that this reformer, too, had received pure family education in his family home and later fell into the talons of a vicious teacher hostile to Islam and was poisoned and deceived. When he heard that the skies were made of layers of ceilings, he himself might have supposed that they were storied like an apartment house. He imputes his own misunderstanding to Islam, thus attacks Islam through this way, too. However, Islam teaches that the space which they consider endless and which is full of millions of stars each of which is a sun is only the first sky. This first sky, which they suppose to be endless, is only a drop of ocean beside the second sky. And each of the seven skies is as much bigger than the one it surrounds. Scientists,
let alone being opposed to this teaching of Islam, admire it. The poor reformer once took it that the earth was on the horns of an ox the like of which he had seen in the shed. If he knew about the group of stars arranged in the shape of an ox as defined in the entry ‘thawr’ in Qâműs, he would not write ill of Allâhu ta’âlâ’s Messenger (’alaihi ’s-salâm) in such a manner now. It is estimated today that when this hadîth sherîf was uttered this constellation was on the extension of a straight line that is imagined to be extending from the sun to the globe. Our Prophet (’alaihi ’s-salâm) held out his blessed sword and said, “My Allâhu ta’âlâ created my sustenance on the point of my sword.” He meant that he fought against unbelievers to make his living on what his share of the booty was. A villager who was listening to him asked, “Where is my world?” He said,
“Your world is on the horns of the ox.” He meant, “You plough your land with your ox and earn your sustenance.” The Arabic word ‘dunyâ’ (world) is a noun. One of the infinitives derived from this word is ‘adnâ’, which means ‘to subsist’ as it is defined in Qâműs. In those days
the ropes of the plough were fastened to the horns of the ox. Because its horns were useful, the Prophet (’alaihi ’s-salâm) said so. He signified that the villager should plough his field. This hadîth might have various meanings, but we should avoid interpreting it with our short sight and limited knowledge lest we should fall into the pitfall of denying or doubting it.
Religion reformers frequently recommend national bonds in place of religious bonds in order to unite and improve individuals. However, the original meaning of the word ‘milla’ is ‘dîn’ (religion), and it has been used later for a community of people born and live on the same land, that is, for ‘nation’.
Let’s give some deatils about religion and nation.
Dîn al-Islâm, the religion of Islam, is the belief in Allâhu ta’âlâ, in His Oneness and in all His prophets (’alaihimu ’s-salâm).
Allah is the Being who creates everything, whose existence has no end or limit and whose state cannot be comprehended with mind, but whose attributes forming His Divinity and Creativeness only are known. He exists by Himself and is One. Nothing besides Him can exist by itself. He alone is the One who creates and keeps everything in existence.
‘He exists by Himself’ does not mean ‘He has come into existence from Himself.’ If it meant so, He would have come into existence later. On the contrary, His existence is necessary, and He was never nonexistent. To exist by Himself means that His existence does not need anything. His existence is necessary for the existence of all beings. He has the perfect attributes for creating and keeping everything in such an orderly state. Deficiency, fault or defect cannot exist in Him.
If there were not a single being creating all creatures, everything would come into existence by itself or nothing would exist. It is not reasonable that everything exists by itself; for existing by itself requires being existent before itself, that is, to have existed always; everything had to be wâjib al-wujűd (indispensable being). If it were so, it would not come into being out of nonexistence, nor would it cease from existence. Indeed, every creature comes into existence after it has been nonexistent, and it later ceases to exist. Then, it is obvious that no creature is wâjib al-wujűd. Besides, coming into existence by oneself is not easily understandable to reason. Wâjib al-wujűb has to be single. The Single Being who creates all beings except Himself
is necessary. If the existence of the single wâjib al-wujűd were not
necessary for the existence of creatures, we would not accept His existence by Himself, either.
Existence of every creature by itself is so far from being scientific that even the naturalists say, “Nature made so,” or “Natural forces made it.” Thus, inadvertently, they explain that creatures do not come into existence by themselves, but there is One Maker. However, they refrain from acknowledging this Maker’s Names and Attributes worthy of Him. They adhere to a concept of nature which is without knowledge or will. We do not see any physical or chemical event occur by itself. We say that certainly some force affects an object to start moving or to change its motion or stop moving. To suppose that all creatures have suddenly come into existence in such an order and regularity would be to deny physical and chemical events. Nothing can be as ignorant as
denying the One Creator who possesses Knowledge, Power and Will and creates everything from the atom to the ’Arsh out of nothing, and supposing that every event happens by chance, which is a concept incompatible with the laws of physics and chemistry.
It is not reasonable to say that there is not a creator creating these creatures out of nothing or that everything comes into being by itself, for some work must be done to come into existence from nonexistence and, according to laws of physics and chemistry, every work is done by a force. That is, according to scientific point of view, a source of force certainly has to exist beforehand. If the existence of a preceding being were necessary to create every being, beings’ creating one another would have to go on continuously from eternal past to eternal future. If the case were so, nothing would exist. For, beings which have no beginning and all of which have been born from one another mean nonexistence. This can be explained with an example; I have a dollar
which I have borrowed from you. And you borrowed it from a friend of yours. And he had borrowed it from someone else. Now, if this succession of lending goes round to all the people in the world, if it does not have a beginning, that is, if it does not begin with the last person on the world who initially possessed it not by borrowing but in some other way, the dollar which I say I have, does not exist. That is, it belongs to nobody, for if we suppose that it belonged to someone, he must have taken it from someone else, who does not exist on the earth to give it to him. How can it pass from hand to hand while there is not someone to lend it first? If someone had lent it first, someone else would now posses this
dollar. The existence of the dollar indicates that it has been given not from eternity but from someone first. In other words, if such a chain of dependence were supposed to begin from eternity, every being depending upon another being for its existence without reaching a being whose existence did not depend upon another, nothing would exist. As long as the existence of a being needed another, which needed another and another, and thus one needed another endlessly, nothing could be thought of existing; everything which we see in existence would have to be nonexistent, for it would also need something else which would have to exist before itself, but which in reality did not exist, for it would also need something else
to exist before itself. It is the same with the third, the forth, the fifth... it is always the same.
The existence of Hadrat Âdam can easily be understood after this reasoning. If Hadrat Âdam had not existed and men’s fathers had been infinite, there would have been no man on the earth; for, if the number of fathers had been infinite, there would have been neither the first father nor his children, that is, mankind. Since men exist, the first father has to have existed.
It is very important to believe in the next world, like believing in Allâhu ta’âlâ. If the next world did not exist, the good deeds which have not been rewarded and the evils and wrongs that have not been punished in this world would never be recompensed, which would be a very great defect for this world which, as we see, has the most delicately artistic and orderly characteristics. While the smallest state or any society has a court of justice, this tremendous world, which we call the Universe, will definitely have a court of justice. The need in the next world for giving men their rights is so important that men of idea in Europe, though they cannot understand the existence of Allâhu ta’âlâ through science, think over morals and accept His existence unanimously.
To comprehend the existence of Allâhu ta’âlâ by thinking over morals means that, since it is seen that the conscience, which may always go wrong and cannot control the spiritual responsibilities and is not equally powerful in every person, is not able to protect the morals and since it is also seen that virtues are not appreciated and many an evil are common and cherished although everything in the world has been created very orderly and beautifully, men’s wrongdoings have to be recompensed in the next world.
It is very surprising that Europeans do not comprehend Allah’s existence through science, even though scientific knowledge, which discovers the dumbfounding regularity in,
relations between and laws concerning all living and lifeless beings from the atom to the ’Arsh, shows Allah’s existence obviously. As it is understood that a world called the hereafter is necessary for the retribution of the wrongs done in the world and hence it is thought that these worlds should have a creator, so it is easier to see the orderly, delicate constructions of beings and the well-calculated relations, interactions and laws between them and to believe in Him who creates them. In other words, while the existence of the next world, and hence the existence of Allâhu ta’âlâ creating it, is concluded from the need to recompense the defects and baseness in men’s morals, it is surprising that the Creator’s existence is not understood by seeing the beauties
and regularities in beings. It indicates that men are evil-natured; they acknowledge Allâhu ta’âlâ when they think they need Him, and they pay no attention to Him and ignore His blessings when they think they do not need Him.
The one who creates the beings out of nothing must be one. If there were two creators, for instance, they would not agree on doing something and their wishes would not happen together; if neither wish happened, both of them would be impotent; if the wish of one of them happened, the other would be impotent. The impotent cannot be creative. If what the wishes of both were alike, they would again be impotent, because they would be forced to come to a mutual agreement.
When Islam came, people in Arabia had been worshipping idols and statues. Their thoughts were fixed into the existence of many gods. For this reason, Islam laid much emphasis on the evils of polytheism, and Muslims’ belief began with kalimat at-tawhîd. Men possess religious feelings naturally. For this reason, he who does not believe in Allah is spiritually sick, psychopathic. Such defective people are deprived of a great spiritual support and are in a very deplorable condition. As one of the European men of idea has said, “Piousness is great happiness, but I could not attain this happiness,” so Tevfîk Fikret, one of the religion reformers in our country, ridiculed Islam and Muslims in his poem “Târîkh-i qadîm”, but he could not help expressing the need of
having îmân gushing out from his poetic spirit in his following lines:
“This loneliness is a loneliness like the loneliness in the grave,
To believe! That is the spiritual embrace in that loneliness.”
The Oneness of the Creator whose existence is necessary can also be explained in this way: if there were more than one
creators, their combination would not be wâjib al-wujűd (the necessary, indispensable, being), because the existence of a combination needs the existence of each of its parts, and the being whose existence is necessary should not need anything. Then, no combination can be wâjib al-wujűd. The combination of the parts whose existence is necessary would be neither indispensable (wâjib) nor dispensable (mumkin), for the dispensable being would not exist by itself and needs a creator. Accepting the existence of this creator distinct from the combination would be contrary to the combination’s being wâjib, while considering this creator to be in this combination would come to mean that something would create itself, which is impossible. For example, if the combination
of two indispensable parts were indispensable, this combination would also be dispensable because it needs the existence of both its parts, which is illogical. If the combination of the two were dispensable, it would have to be nonexistent.
This explanation, that wâjîb al-wujűd (the Indispensable Being) cannot be more than one, rebuts the naturalists who say that everything exists by itself and is wâjib al-wujűd. Indeed, as explained above, let alone that everything exists by itself as a wâjib al-wujűd, it is impossible even for a creature to be a wâjib al-wujűd.
The irreligiousness which has been propagated by the progressives imitating Europe up to now has been in the nature of disbelieving Allâhu ta’âlâ. For instance, many have said, “The problem is whether Allah exists. If there is Allah, I will immediately believe all the religious knowledge.” But recently, seeing the new steps taken in science, especially the observations on the atom, radioactivity, matter and energy, hence being unable to deny the existence of Allâhu ta’âlâ, they have begun to speak ill of prophets (’alaihimu’s-salâm). They have said, “Everybody is free. Worship is not forbidden. Everybody worships his Allah as he wishes. Nothing besides reason can be an intermediary between Allah and man.” However, a person who believes in the next world has
to believe in prophets, too. It is very illogical to consign the knowledge about blessings and punishments in the next world to reason. Especially ignorant people can never reason them out. Islam commands to believe in all prophets. Jews and Christians never believe in Muhammad (’alaihi ’s-salâm), the Prophet of Islam. They speak ill of this exalted Prophet. As for Islam, which was preached by Muhammad (’alaihi ’s-salâm), it expels from Islam those who deny Műsâ (Moses) and ’Îsâ (Jesus)
(’alaihimu ’s-salâm) and utter words humiliating them. Suppose a ruler assigns a governor to a province and, after this governor rules that province for some time, the ruler assigns a new governor; how will it sound if some people say, “We won’t disregard the advice of the former governor! We won’t obey the orders which the new governor brought”? While the first governor was the ruler’s official, are not the successors his officials? Jews do not acccept ’Îsâ and Muhammad (’alaihimu ’s-salâm) as prophets. While Műsâ (’alaihi ’s-salâm) was Allâhu ta’âlâ’s prophet, how could it be impossible for them to be His prophets? Christians, even though they see this wrong belief in Jews and disapprove them, are unaware that they themselves do the same mistake and slander
Muhammad (’alaihi ’s-salâm). This wrong belief of Jews and Christians is not based on a scientific observation. It is nothing but taking the old for granted and refusing the new only because of newness, i.e., sheer bigotry.
’Îsâ (’alaihi ’s-salâm) was born without a father. His mother Hadrat Mariam took him from Jerusalem to Egypt. After staying there for twelve years, they came back to Jerusalem and settled in the village Nâsira (Nazareth). He was revealed to be the Prophet when he was thirty years old. Three years later, Jews wanted to kill him. Allâhu ta’âlâ took him to heaven alive. Yudâ Sham’űn (Judas Iscariot), a hypocrite who resembled him, was crucified. Because ’Îsâ (’alaihi ’s-salâm) was without a father, Christians worship him calling him “Allah’s son”. If being born without a father took a person out of being human and made him divine, Âdam (’alaihi ’s-salâm) would more necessarily be divinized, because he was created both without father and without mother. Hence, Christians have spoilt their revealed religion and impaired it to an illogical state.
Jews deny ’Îsâ (’alaihi ’s-salâm) and because he was created without a father regard him illegitimate. Muslims are fair in this respect and, escaping the excessiveness shown by both groups, regard him as Allâhu ta’âlâ’s human creature and prophet. Europeans today are very advanced in science and technology, yet remaining attached to an ancient prophet, they are deprived of the greatest improvement and progress. They have not gotten rid of this fanaticism today, either. Not only retrogressive are they in refusing the new religion, but also they have distorted the old one. Forty years after ’Îsâ’s (’alaihi ’s-salâm) ascent to heaven, the Romans captured and ruined Jerusalem and pillaged and killed or captivated the Jews. There was not any Jew left in Jerusalem.
His
twelve apostles went to different places. The Injîl (the heavenly book revealed to him) was lost. Later new books were written under the name of the Injîl. Four of these books spread widely. The Gospel of Barnabas was almost completely true, but those who had been deceived by corrupt gospels destroyed this gospel, a copy of which has been discovered in the twentieth century and reproduced in English in London and Pakistan. The ’Îsâwî religion, the true religion of ’Îsâ (’alaihi ’s-salâm) was reduced to a form which he could not recognize if he saw it. Thus, Christianity came into being. This regression did not stop until the nineteenth century, when many of them became irreligious.
As the prophethoods of Műsâ (’alaihi ’s-salâm) and ’Îsâ (’alaihi ’s-salâm) were evident through miracles, so the prophethood of Muhammad (’alaihi ’s-salâm) is obvious through miracles. In the time of Műsâ (’alaihi ’s-salâm) magic was very much advanced; medicine in the time of ’Îsâ (’alaihi ’s-salâm) and poetry and eloquence in the time of Muhammad (’alaihi ’s-salâm) were very much advanced. Allâhu ta’âlâ bestowed on each of these prophets the miracles in the fields which each umma esteemed. It is written in books clearly and detailedly that Muhammad (’alaihi ’s-salâm), like ’Îsâ (’alaihi ’s-salâm), resuscitated the dead and that the disbelievers of Quraish called Muhammed (’alaihi ’s-salâm) a magician, as the Pharaoh and his men had called Műsâ (’alaihi ’s-salâm)
a magician.
Muhammad (’alaihi ’s-salâm) was ummî, that is, he did not go to any school; he did not read or write, nor did anybody teach him. But he put forth a book, the Qur’ân, full of historical, scientific, moral, political and social knowledge. He caused rise of emperors who spread justice all over the world only by following that book. The Qur’ân is his greatest miracle. In fact, it is the greatest miracle of all prophets. This miracle was given only to Muhammad (’alaihi ’s-salâm). Religion reformers should feel embarrassed while saying that, when he was a child yet, he spoke to a priest for a few minutes on a journey to Damascus and acquired all his knowledge from that priest. There cannot be another slander as unsound and funny as this one. The masterpieces of
eloquence that had been chosen from among thousands of poems and had been hanging on the walls of the Ka’ba for many years and that had made their authors a genius, a hero each, were torn down and their authors submitted themselves to the âyats that could never be the result of a few minutes’ conversation with a priest! Today, there is no need to
attempt again to understand the eloquence of the Qur’ân. This Divine Book, when Arabic was on its summit, had the most efficient specialists in Arabic language sign under its superiority. Among the specialists in Arabic literature contemporary with Muhammad (’alaihi ’s-salâm), there was next to no one who did not see and believe the divine superiority in the eloquence of the Qur’ân.
He did not arrogate to himself such an honour and perfection which, in an art that was considered as the most exalted skill in his time, made everybody acknowledge its superiority, but he said that it came from Allâhu ta’âlâ whom no one knew, and through this honour and superiority he tried to represent not himself but that unknown person. This is surprisingly incompatible with the human wishes of those who seek for fame and personal advantages. Those who consider the pleasure of governing people superior to the pleasure of knowledge and ma’rifa are those who cannot appreciate the value of knowledge and ma’rifa. A poet will not change even one of his poems that prove him to be in the highest stage of his art for the presidency of government. Even if there
might be someone to change it, he would change it for material advantages. Muhammad (’alaihi ’s-salâm) said that he was not a president and, instead of sovereignty and pomp, he lived moderately like everybody. To his daughter Hadrat Fâtima (radiy-Allâhu ’anhâ), when she asked for something of little value, he said, “We prophets do not leave inheritance behind. What is left behind us will be alms,” and he left nothing for his family when he passed away. One must be muddle-headed and one’s conscience must be darkened to suppose that such a person was after sovereignty. The probability of being a liar (may Allâhu ta’âlâ protect us from saying so!) for that exalted Prophet (’alaihi ’s-salâm) who came forward saying, “I do not say these words from myself. I declare Allâhu ta’âlâ’s commands. I am a man like you,” is so remote, so wrong that European and American men of idea have
had to acknowledge it unanimously. They have had to say that he accomplished the high rank, which he attained through the religion he had put forth, with his keen wit, strong sight and smart intellect. Also communists, realizing that they could not belittle that exalted Prophet, say that he accomplished all these under the influence of a sort of an epileptic fit (may Allâhu ta’âlâ protect us from saying so!) in which he daydreamed an angel coming to him. Though they accept his genius, intellect, diplomacy and accomplishments, they say that he spoke what he
imagined out of illness. This is obviously a folly which they say out of the illness of denial that has pervaded their minds, because one part of their words proves the other to be a lie. In other words, communists refute themselves with their own words.
Literary men understand the author of a poem from the literary style of the poem without looking at his signature. The specialists in literature examined the Hadîth ash-sherîf, which are Rasűlullah’s (’alaihi ’s-salâm) sayings, and the Qur’ân al-kerîm and saw that they were unlike each other. It has never been seen in the history of letters that one person had two kinds of style completely unlike each other; it is impossible. It is like a man having two faces unlike each other.
Another respect in which the Qur’ân is different from and superior to the Hadîth and other divine books is that up to present time it has remained unchanged as it descended from heaven. Not only its letters and punctuation have remained unchanged, but also, besides the various pronunciations of the words in the Qur’ân, their being pronounced in long, short, open, closed, deep or thin voice has remained as Rasűlullah (’alaihi ’s-salâm) revealed and pronounced them. One could not help being bewildered at the science called “ilm al-qirâ’a”, on which many books have been written, and at Muslim scholars’ studies and services in this way. Not a single word has been taken out of or added to the Qur’ân later, for Muslim scholars have put a very strong principle lest the Qur’ân be injured, lest even a small doubt approach it: that the Qur’ân must be conveyed through unanimity in every century. In every century from the Prophet’s (’alaihi ’s-salâm) companions up to today, it has come to us through hundreds of thousands of people who have memorized the Qur’ân and who could not be thought of as agreeing on a lie. It flows towards eternity like an overflowing river that never stops for a moment. Despite the presence of enemies of Islam all
over the world today, every letter and dot of one copy of Allâhu ta’âlâ’s book, thanks be to Him, are the same in another. It may be understood how dependable the faithful’s Book is also from the fact that no matter how emphatic they may be, some different pronunciations, which belonged to some great companions of the Prophet (’alaihi ’s-salâm) but were not accepted unanimously, have not been considered to be of the Qur’ân. For example. Hadrat ’Abdullah ibn Mas’űd (radiy-Allâhu ’anh) conveyed the âyat “fasting for three days”, which defined the atonement (kaffâra) for breaking an oath, as “fasting for three consecutive
days”, and the scholars of fiqh taking this as a document, made it necessary to perform the atonement by fasting for three days without intervals. But, though Hadrat ’Abdullah ibn Mas’űd (radiy-Allâhu ’anh) was one of the great ones of the Prophet’s (’alaihi ’s-salâm) companions and a very dependable person, the word mutatâbi’ (consecutive) was not included to the Qur’ân, because he was alone in his argument. As a precaution, only the meaning of his word was taken and, again as a precaution, it was not put into the Qur’ân.
These are called “qirâ’at shâdhdha”.
Rasűlullah’s (’alaihi ’s-salâm) own sayings are called al-Hadîth ash-sherîf. Surprisingly cautious labours have been done in learning and preserving the Hadîth. Every saying of Fakhr al-’âlam (the ‘Honour of all creatures’, Prophet Muhammad) was memorized by his campanions and conveyed to those who did not hear it or who came later. Thus, ’ilm al-hadîth, which is like an infinite sea, was established. Despite the Qur’ân, the evident, unequalled miracle, why should not Muhammad (’alaihi ’s-salâm) whose life and sayings are minutely obvious and each action was a proof of his prophethood, be a prophet, while believing in Műsâ and ’Îsâ’s (’alaihimu ’s-salâm) being prophets by depending on complicated and obscure histories? We are surprised at and regret this denial and obstinacy on the part of Jews and Christians.
Nationality is not a virtue which one can obtain by working and wishing. Nationality is the unity of advantage of those who have been born and grown up in the same country. It is a favour gained from birth without working for it. One should be thankful to Allâhu ta’âlâ who has endowed this favour upon him. And one is thankful by endeavouring for the continuation of the endowment and for being much more helpful to others. Islam is the integral part of Turkish nationalism and orders that one should work for the continuity of this nationalism and for being more helpful to others, that one should love others and render the same rights also to the fellow-countrymen of other religions and that justice and social rights should be shared equally. Those who live in
the country where the above-mentioned orders and national duties are undertaken should be proud of their nationalism and pray for their ancestors, ghâzîs and martyrs who bequeathed this favour to them. They should love and respect their national anthem and flag which are the symbols of this unity and happiness of theirs. They should obey the laws and government that directs them and works for their welfare, and they should pay their taxes willingly. For those who love one
another as such, not disturbing the members of other religions or sects or doing harm to them is not a defect but a virtue for nationalism and shows that Islam, the religion we belong to, is the righteous religion and that Muhammad (’alaihi ’s-salâm), our exalted prophet, is the blessing over all the worlds of beings. The word ‘nationalism’ is not a meaningless, out-of-date word as it is used by the governing minority in some technologically advanced countries, e.g. in East Europe, especially in Russia. Those who exploit the people believe in and are attached to it only as much as the irreligious are attached to morals. A person needs to be among one’s nation so that he may lead a comfortable life. He has to live in a society so that it may protect his existence,
rights and needs; this is what civilization means. And this society is his own nation. We have already said that men should live in society in order to protect the rights which one cannot gain by himself. Living in a society requires reciprocal help and sacrifice. Let us study the matter to see whether one would rather sacrifice one’s life for one’s religion or for one’s nation.
A nationalist may think this way: the feeling of dying for the nation should be in common. It should be considered an injustice for one person to die while another person enjoys living. The profit of the nation is necessary for my own profit. If I sacrifice myself in that way, I will be sacrificing the real purpose for the sake of the means. I, first of all, think of myself. I cannot sacrifice myself for another person. If self-sacrifice is for receiving fame and reputation, who on earth wants to be annihilated for temporary fame and honour? No one knows on what hill and in what dale the soldiers who, in an army of millions, died for their nation, are, and their names have been wiped out from the hearts of people. Those men sacrificed their possessions along
with their lives. To be more clear, they are, on their account, in a pitiable condition, rather than being praiseworthy. If the self-sacrifice I would render for the nation would not be appreciated and, in addition, if I would be deemed guilty because of those who envy me, what would become of me?
In nationalism, there is no thoughtful or logical reason that forms the power of self-sacrifice in man. Nor can self-sacrifice based on unreasonable feelings receive its reward. Especially the progressives and exploiters, who govern the nation, will never sacrifice their lives for the sake of such feelings. It happened so in communist countries. As it was witnessed in the Second World War, those who had fought in the battlefield and won honour
were executed by shooting when they came back lest they might seize the power. As for the people, they do not have the idea of sacrificing their lives for one another. The feeling and mania of nationalism in reformers, who try to imitate Europeans to the extent of adoration and who suppose their every idea, every deed to be the very truth and the very happiness, are, imitative in this mania as well. Men have adhered to the occupational, professional and sectional bonds, i.e. to nationalism, which they invented with their minds and thoughts, more firmly than they have to racialism. If we put aside the swindler politicians who use nationalism as a means for their own advantages, the remainder’s nationalism results by hearing and imitating. It is seen that religious
men also join in this imitating.
The thirteenth âyat of the sűrat al-Hujurât declares that human beings, the descendants of the same parents, can be graded only according to their fear of Allâhu ta’âlâ, and there cannot be racialism in Islam. Some put forth this âyat in favour of parting Muslims into nations and say that Islam is not against parting into different nationalities and all should be respected. However, to divide Muslims into separate nationalities means to pave the way to racial conflicts.
The hadîth, “On the Day of Judgement Allâhu ta’âlâ will say: ‘O men! I chose a family, a lineage (having common religious qualities, e.g. fear of Allâhu ta’âlâ). You chose another family (you emphasized racial considerations). I said, he who fears Me more is more valuable. You did not give up saying, “He is so and so’s son. For this reason, that man is superior to this man.” Therefore, today I exalt My family and debase your family. You should know very well that My Lovers are those who fear Me,’ ” explicitly shows how Muslims should be.
Fiqh books write that man and woman to be married should be suitable for each other and add the races and nationalities to this criterion. This may make one suppose that racialism and nationality also are important in Islam. Yet the fact is that in nikâh[1] every kind of suitableness, right or wrong, between the man and the woman are considered. If it were permissible to break the nikâh done with the consent of the both sides because of racial and national difference, then it would be rightful to suppose so. Since all the different nations world over are trying to
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[1] Marriage contract prescribed by Islam. There is detailed information about nikâh is Endless Bliss V, 12.
exploit other people to their advantages, we, too, have to care for our own nationality. We, too, have to defend our nationality against our enemies. To do this does not mean to attach a special importance to nationality, for the notion of nationality is based on sentiments, rather than on a scientific essence. Georgy Zaidân, the author of The History of Islamic Civilization, writes that the idea of nationalism existed in the beginning of Islam and that even the policy of Hadrat ’Umar (radiy-Allâhu ’anh) was based on this idea. He puts forth Hadrat ’Umar’s (radiy-Allâhu ’anh) endeavours not to leave any polytheists on the Arabian Peninsula as an evidence to prove to this. However, those endeavours were for a national unity based on religious unity.
In Christian religion there is not a reasonable principle left. It has taken the shape of superstitions and complicated ceremonies. Moreover, Christians belonging to the same faith, even to the same sect, have been living under the administration of different governments. For this reason, European governments looked for another bond. As a result, religious unity developed into the feeling of nationalism in Europe. Islam, establishing commercial, industrial and social order, includes the idea of nationalism. There is no need for establishing an additional concept of nationalism among Muslims. For this reason, it is written in all books teaching elements of the religion, “Religion (dîn) and nationality (milla) are the same.” Moreover, it will be quite right
to say that the Europeans’ suspicions against Islamic religion arise from the fact that there is also a feeling of nationalism in every rule of this religion. If Muslims do not disunite, they will, by getting use of the fact that Islam represents nationality, find a way to overpower many nationalities that have not become firm on the earth.
From Islam’s representing nationality, lingual unity also occurs to the mind, and since the adhân and the Qur’ân are recited in the five daily prayers of salât each day in Arabic in all Muslim countries, it provides for this unity. It is for this reason that in order to separate a nation from Islam and annihilate the unity of Muslims, the enemies of Islam try to change the language, grammar and alphabet of that nation. And the severest blow to be inflicted on a nation’s religion comes through this way. As a matter of fact, Muslims in Sicily and Spain have been Christianized with this method. And now, Russians use this sharp weapon to annihilate the îmân in Muslims of Turkistan. Their dungeons, electric furnaces, expulsions in Siberia and merciless massacres
cannot be as effective as this sharp weapon. Celâl Nűrî
Beg recommends Arabic as a common language for Muslims in his book Ittihâd-i Islâm. Yavuz Sultan Selîm Khan endeavoured for this purpose, and the religious books have been disseminated in Arabic in all Muslim countries in the course of history. Arabic has become a religious language in all Muslim countries. The hadîth says that everybody will speak in Arabic in Paradise. The purpose is not aimed at making every Muslim nation Arabic. While the English language becomes a common language in many countries, no government opposes it. Today it has become a strong necessity for a man of knowledge and science to know one, and even more foreign languages. The Hadîth says, “He who learns the language of a race protects himself against their harm.” It is for this reason that as our youngsters learn Arabic, so it is necessary and useful for them to learn European languages. This may enable them to perform many services which in turn will bring them rewards in the Hereafter. The reason why, for many centuries, Europeans have looked upon us as foreigners is not the difference of national feelings but their not knowing the religion of Islam.
The Hadîth says, “If you do not try to bring the wicked amongst you to the right course, that is, if you do not perform al-amru bi’l-ma’rűf wa ’n-nahyu ’ani ’l-munkar, Allâhu ta’âlâ will give upon you so bad calamities that in order to get rid of them even the entreaties to Allâhu ta’âlâ of the good ones among you will no longer avail.” The 110th âyat of the sűrat âl ’Imrân commands Muslims to perform al-amru bi ’l-ma’rűf wa ’n-nahyu ’ani ’l-munkar. When Yavuz Sultan Selim Khan said to the non-Muslims under his rule, “Either become Muslims or I will put you to the sword,” Islamic scholars said that this would
not be right, that is, they performed an-nahyu ’ani ’l-munkar. So, the Sultan gave it up. There may be eccentric people who consider his behaviour wrong. Indeed, this behavior of that honoured Sultan, who yielded to the religious scholars and understood that these unfair, groundless religious feelings could not be of Islam, is worth praising. The difference between religious ideas and feelings and national ideas and feelings appears on such delicate points as this. National thoughts of the irreligious may neglect right and justice, but Islamic thoughts cannot, for the virtues such as right and justice are within the boundaries of Islam.
Islam has contributed a high, pure feeling of justice to mankind. After the First World War, courts of justice were established in Istanbul in order to exile and kill the guilty
Armenians, but the muftî of Boghazlayan, his hand on his chest full of îmân and his beard wet with tears, opposed the officials in the courts who had tortured the Armenians. Of old, Europeans, thinking that some bigoted Turks could be dangerous for non-Muslims, used to become hostile against real Muslims. By the way, today’s progressives call Muslims, who carry out Allah’s commands and abstain from prohibitions, e.g. those who perform salât and who have their wives and daughters covered when going out and who do not have alcoholic drinks, “bigots”. However, ‘bigotry’ or ‘obstinacy’ means ‘holding to one’s own sect and opinion and refusing others’ right words that are not agreeable with his’. A person who persistently defends an unright thing is called “bigot”.
Bigotry is a bad habit which Islam rejects.
When our master Rasűlullah (’alaihi ’s-salâm) was asked what Islam was, he said, “Islam means to esteem Allâhu ta’âlâ’s commands great and to pity His creatures.” Muslims who walk on the luminous path which Rasűlullah (sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam) points out in this hadîth know that it will deserve a severe punishment in the next world to meddle with others’ rights no matter of what race, nation or religion they are. The above-mentioned behaviour of a muftî shows obviously that no one will suffer harm from Muslims. Though in Islam working is for the benefit of individuals and of the society, Muslims’ purpose
is a divine thing which is above this usefulness. It is natural and necessary to think of advantages, yet it is a shame, a defect and bad egoism to consider it superior to every purpose and one cannot escape this egoism by considering national feelings to be above everything. A person who behaves with such national feelings thinks that he also is of that nation and therefore he behaves more or less egoistically. As for the purpose that motivates Muslims, it is purer and nobler. Above all, every Muslim who works for Islam, for Allâhu ta’âlâ, behaves with great love and sacrifice. Advancement of his nation will be easier and firmer. It will not harm other nations. Muslim means one who takes his each step for Allâhu ta’âlâ and does all his reckonings within the consideration of His approval. Such a person cannot do any
harm either to himself or to anybody. In contrast, those who abandon the religion and Allâhu ta’âlâ and who think of nationality devoid of religion may not, at least sometimes, behave rightfully and fairly against other nations. To be religious means to be for everybody as in the French proverb, “Chacun pour soi et Dieu pour tous.”
The sixty-forth âyat of the sűrat âl ’Imrân says, “O Jews and Christians, who say, ‘We believe in Allah’s book’! Come to the word [îmân, six principles of îmân] on which we have no disagreement.” We refer this difference between the nationality that provides religious freedom and that does not to the arbitration of humanity!
“In the Islamic family life, the man is the absolute ruler and the woman is the natural subject. In Anatolian villages there are women who work more than their husbands and who plough like their husbands. The man works outside and the woman works inside the house. They do not have time to go around or to divert. Their material and spiritual needs are quite limited. The man, crushed under poverty and oppression, tortures his wife as if he revenges himself on his wife. The woman obeys and never rebels. The man’s thought is not so extensive as to treat his wife rightfully and with pity. The woman’s intellect and thought are not so much as to look for the reasons why she endures all these hardships and for the way of escaping them. For this reason,
divorce hardly occurs to her mind. In big cities, where people admire Europeans and try to be like them, divorce takes place more often. They lose Islamic customs, their personalities, their spirits, and the value of family. For such reasons as money, beast-like sexual desires and following the fashion, women also have to work. The religions, nationalities, ideas and feelings of these people, who are called ‘progressives’, are unlike one another. Especially the girls who have received education in Europe or America and come back have lost their spiritual values all the more. They live like Christian women. Their behaviours are insincere and imitative.”
The religion reformer’s point of view and writing are reasonable here. We hear about those women who admire even Christian women’s confessing before the priest. How terrible an example of injuring the basis of our religion out of a craze of imitating Europeans and Americans! In Islam, one does not need be forgiven by a man before one can entreat Allâhu ta’âlâ to forgive one’s sins; let alone having one’s sins forgiven by a man, it is not permissible even to tell about one’s sins to another person. As it is a guilt to commit sins, it is another guilt to tell someone else about them. See this delicacy, this purity in our religion! While it would become one to admire this delicacy in Islam in protecting man’s dignity and honour, one should have fallen into the
ditches of aberration dug for the progressives if one admires
the scandal of confession in Christianity, which casts down chastity and honour, especially of women.
In Islam, a woman does not have to work or earn money, neither indoors nor outdoors. If she is married, her husband, if she is not narried, her father, or, if she has lost her father, her closest relative, has to work and bring her everything she needs. And the government’s treasury called “Bayt al-mâl” provides for the woman who is without anybody to support her. In Islam, the burden of living is not shared between wife and husband. A man cannot force his wife to work in the field, in a factory or in any place. If the woman wishes and if her husband allows, she may work at places where there is work for women without joining with men. But, what the woman earns is her very own. Her husband cannot take anything from her by force. He cannot force her to buy what she needs for herself, either. Nor may he force her to do the work inside his house. The woman does the housework as a gift and favour to her husband. And this is a virtue which Muslim women have. It is a noble sentiment inherent in them. Islam’s
recognition of such rights for the woman and its protecting her against being a slave or a plaything in men’s hands, indicate that Allâhu ta’âlâ has endowed her with a great value as a birthright.
Islamic books detailedly explain the beautiful duties of the woman towards her husband, of the man towards his wife, his children, his parents, towards his neighbors and even towards non-Muslim citizens. The Hadîth says, “Among you, the one who has the most perfect îmân is the one with the most beautiful morals”; “The best of you is the one who is good towards his women at home”; “I was sent to preach to you all the good morals.” In Islamic books, there are innumerable other hadîths that arrange the family life, that separate the duties of the man and the woman and encourage them to work. Religiously ignorant people’s wrong, depraved behaviors incompatible with these hadîths cannot be defects or stains for Islam. Seeing these facts, it is obvious how wrong and unjust the writings of the people who call themselves “progressives” are.
“The modern, imitative lady wants to go around naked like a Christian girl. She wants to flirt with the man she wishes. She wants to go wherever she wishes whenever she wishes. She is unaware that she is tearing up her faith, morality and customs. She looks at the veiled Muslim women hatefuly and mockingly. Ýn
fact, she swears at them. A youngster meets a girl by chance near a bridge, in market place, at a place of entertainment, in a gathering at the neighbor’s, on a passenger boat or in school, and they come to an agreement and get married. Yet they do not know that such a marriage will bring forth a terrible immorality in the future.
“In every corner of the world, there is a different understanding of woman’s chastity. In Islam, woman’s chastity begins with veiling. The religion has clearly pointed out to whom of the relatives Muslim woman will show herself and whom she will not. The woman is chaste as long as she follows it. At the minute this chastity slackens, moral corruption commences. Today, the man goes out with his improperly dressed wife. The husband and wife look for their different pleasures in others. The man goes to taverns, to gambling-dens and to brothels. He does not hesitate to commit every sort of immorality. The moral corruption in women is caused by their husbands. I know a university student married to a prostitute. A woman who has dirty memories in
her mind cannot be a chaste wife. A married man whom I know goes to family gatherings with his wife. His wife went to bed with a father and he with a young mother. One day, I saw four of them together. Another progressive married a woman who was also a progressive. He had his wife show herself scantily dressed to his friends. When the man was not at home, his wife accepted male guests. Eventually, she fell in love with one of them. She got divorced from her husband and the home was ruined. A month later, she loved another.
“School is a place of education, a home of virtue. Yet, let me say with regret that even the most decent children lose their decency there. The child learns loathsome words and evil habits in school. It spreads the dirty things it learns in school or outside even at home. They do not hesitate to say that they dislike the religious, moral behaviors of their family.
“Our women’s addiction to music and to instruments has become a nuisance. They listen to the tunes of sexy, lazy, drunken people whose hearts burn with the deprivation of the pleasures in their imaginations, tunes that do not arouse emotion in the spirit but stir only the basest bestial emotions such as dancing and embracing one another. Pay attention to the songs listened to on the radio also. They are all entreaties and adventures of the voluptuous persons who tremble with the desire to embrace one another. The meanings of the sounds of radio coming out from the
houses, reveal that the virtues of religion, morals, modesty and embarrassment in the families gradually fade away. When the jazz band starts, all the beings move with a magic wire to which the souls are fastened. With their heads, hands and with every part of their bodies, they proclaim their love to one another. Sometimes eight or ten or even fifteen men tack themselves on to a woman, and I compare them to cats and dogs which follow their female in groups and oppress it. While the man is able to think that the dishonesty which he perpetrates against a stranger woman will be done to his own mother, sister or mate, he still does it. Now I ask, what is this if it is not because of the absence of the feeling of chastity in him? Since religious
and moral feelings continue in villages, fornication and dissipation are very seldom.”
Though there are admonitory facts worth attention about women in the religion reformer’s long writing above, he does not propose any solution for this complicated problem. These social diseases have been reported from a resonable point of view as they are seen, yet he considers European women superior to Muslim women in Istanbul and does not say that it is bad for Europeans to dress immodestly. In fact, he wants the youth of Istanbul to be educated like them. About the excessive honesty of our women in villages, he means that it may corrupt soon because it is not based on principles pertaining to knowledge. In the lines he grievously tells about the immoralities among the learned and progressive women in Istanbul contemporary with him, it is not understood
what knowledge he wants to be taught in order to protect them against evils.
Everybody, learned or ignorant, knows that honesty and chastity are very precious and praiseworthy qualities. But many people do not act in accordance with this knowledge of theirs. The religion reformer is not right in his thought that, though there is much honesty in villages, the idea of honesty is weak. When the customs and beliefs that have settled unconsciously and unknowingly become sacred traditions, they are more dependable than thoughts and theories based on intellect and knowledge. Moreover, it is unfair to assume that fear of Allâhu ta’âlâ and the feeling of honesty and chastity based on such strong fundamentals as religion and morals are deprived of fundamental knowledge.
“It is a very weak precaution to form separate groups for men and women or to put silk curtains between them in order to protect the honesty of women. In Muslim countries, through our
sharp imagination we think a Venus of every woman under her coloured silk dress, and, by deriving meanings from these wonderful statues, we fill the empty parts of our heart with them. Among the western psychologists, there are many who admire the imaginative pleasures in the veiling of the east as well as its sunny, flowery horizons.
“It is for certain that veiling increases the beauty of woman. The reason is that, while we see the subtleties and perspectives of everything close to us, distance makes these subtleties and perspectives seem decorated to us. As our eyes do not clearly see from the distance the things which they are used to seeing closely, our imagination completes the beauty of the things which we suppose to be beautiful. Things that are ours and which we do not esteem today will be valuable when we lose them. Now, when distance and curtains come between something and us, our emotions and sorrows arise proportional to our desire for that thing. When we see a veiled woman outside, our imagination wakes up. We imagine what is in our mind to exist under the
veil. In order to arrange our social life, we should give the woman the place she deserves. Islam commands the woman to veil herself. But it does not explain how she will be veiled, nor does it prohibit to give the woman the rights which exist in her nature. If the purpose of veiling is to keep the generation pure and chaste and to protect it from adultery and evils, we could provide for it in some other way. For example, we should control ourselves, by training our minds and intellects, which Allâhu ta’âlâ has endowed on human beings. Thus, we should clean and correct the nafs in such a manner that it should desire goodness instead of running after its bestial desires. A highly learned, educated girl whose reason and thought function can obtain the spiritual strength to protect her honesty through her reason and thought
even if she could not find it in the religion. When she gets used to being with boys in her early ages, it will not do her harm when she becomes an adult. It is never harmful for a girl, who has reason and thought enough to understand what chastity and honesty are, to go out unvelied as she wants, to go where she wants. Yet this change has to be made in the process of time. We cannot say to Muslim women, ‘Come on, throw your veils away and act as you wish.’ We should act very shrewdly. We see that we have not been able to establish the constitutional government well. Its consequence has been very dismal. Let the woman dress stylishly and gracefully for the time being to satisfy the sense in her
creation. Later on, her unveiling will gradually replace. The government should put the dressing of the woman in an order for the time being. Beautifully dressed as she may be, let her cover the parts tempting sexual desires and accept the headgear and mantle instead of veil. Later on the process will follow its natural course. Moreover, women are rightful to go about, to know the pleasures and life. For example, let it be her right to eat in restaurants, to go about, to go to movies and theatres. Yet, before doing these, men should be prohibited through a law to assault them.”
If attention is paid to the religion reformer’s words, it will strike the eye that they are the plans, programs which freemasons prepared centuries ago and have had their men say in every century. These were said and written by the religion reformers in the time of the Union Party. When they brought freemason Reshid Pasha to the fore, they had him say the same things. When they made the ignorant and ignoble members of the Party of Union to seize power by providing weaponry and substantial aid for them, they, on the one hand, had religion reformers say these and, on the other hand, they passed new laws. They began attacking Islam. I say, “the ignoble members of the Party of Union,” because the majority of these cruel people, who declared wars stupidly, caused
bloodshed of hundreds of thousands of Muslims and killed innumerable innocent people in dungeons and on gallows, were ignoble. But if Muslims learn their religion well and teach it to youngsters, the plans of the enemies of Islam will fall down on their own heads. Allâhu ta’âlâ declared in the eighth âyat of the sűrat al-Isrâ, “When Islam comes, polytheism and unbelief cannot survive.” This âyat shows that if Muslims work depending on reason and on Islam, unbelievers cannot harm them. Those who attack Islam will die away.
This reformer writes many other important and dismal facts; in fact, it is a masonic tactic to write an entire book of true, sweet and creamy facts among which they cunningly plant a single line of their venomous ideas in order to poison the younger generations and mislead the people. Another technique of these enemies of Islam apply for deceiving Muslims is to coat their poisons with sugar and have Muslims swallow them like pills.
The Muslim woman veils herself not only for protecting her honesty but also to draw the spiritual border distinguishing woman and man from each other. Owing to veiling, man behaves formally and respectfully even towards a woman of his family in
the street. Veiling is the curtain of modesty put between man and woman. If a veiled woman is imagined to be more beautiful in a man’s fancy, this will increase, rather than decrease, her honour.
He says that, rather than aesthetic beauty, social use should be looked for in a woman and she should be given a place in social life. This is not right because a woman does not give up adorning herself in the present social place of hers, either.
It is necessary to train the nafs in order not to be taken in by the bestial emotions. Yet it is never correct to leave this job to self-control and to give up veiling. It is often seen in newspapers that, among the people who receive education and training, there are many who cannot control themselves. Self-control is something easy to talk about but difficult to exercise. It is declared in the sűrat Yűsuf that even a great prophet as Yűsuf (’alaihi ’s-salâm) said, “I do not say my nafs does not want evil things.” What is left for others to say? The degree of self-control is different in everybody. One even cannot understand this by himself. Especially according to the person who has received the lesson of honesty and chastity not from the religion but from his own reason only, the value of honesty does not go further than the thought of pretending to be honest. No matter how much the value of honesty is appreciated, no matter how much reasonable his intellect and thought are, reason may be unsuccessful against the nafs that exists in man’s creation and can deceive anybody. For this reason, it is necessary yet at the beginning not to let the nafs move and to close the ways tempting it. The veiling of women is a measure closing these ways most decisively and most easily.
It is not correct, either, to think of co-education to form the familiarity between girls and boys which will in future help them to protect their chastity and honesty. If the youngsters get used to mixed life, it will cause the danger of regarding its evil consequences most normal. Women’s exposing themselves to men is a natural state indicating natural attraction between man and woman. Any man, let alone Muslim, will not believe in the mendacious, silly words denying this reality. In beaches, where women exhibit their arms, shoulders, necks and legs to men and where they divert together, do men no longer look at them? Women, seeing that exposing their arms, necks and legs was being natural, began to expose their breasts, back and shoulders and to use miniskirts.
This piecemeal indulgence, with its destination untold, is symptomatic of a forceful instinct innate in women. Ýn
other words, as women feel that exposing certain parts of their body is being something observed with indifference, they begin to expose their other parts as well. In process of time their former immodesty turns into a degree of modesty looked on as unnaturally conventional. This coactive spreading of the gradual slackening in the measures of dressing among women is evidently for reasons other than the professed purposes such as physical convenience and airing. Any degree of unveiling, whether suddenly or slowly, may be a step taken towards moral corruption. Even this immodesty, with which men partly satisfy voyeuristic desires with women, is dissipation itself. The examples showing that women’s exhibiting themselves to men and living in mixed societies give
way to fornication, immorality, home ruining, family disasters and deaths, are encountered frequently.
Islam does not say, “Do not talk with women or girls! Do not amuse yourselves with them! Live without women like priests.” Islam says, “Do not seduce your neighbor’s wife or daughter; do not tear their modesty veils; do not ruin homes; marry the girl you like; amuse yourself with her freely, comfortably and as you wish.” In order to make a girl happy, it commands to work, earn and marry early when young.
It is seen with regret that women’s dancing with other men, or being exchanged as partners in balls, does not bring her to ease, nor encourage her to work but ruins her home.
The balls, which have arisen against the man-woman relations’ remaining only between wife and husband and done in order to embody mixed and unlimited relations, began to take the place of the assemblies of nikâh in Islam, with the difference that Muslims’ nikâh announces that a certain man and a certain woman come together, while in the society balls, many men and many women, married or unmarried, are announced to approach one another at random. Islam permits a man and a woman’s coming together only after (the Islamically prescribed marriage contract called) Nikâh.
If the woman, like in society life, is given the freedom of living with other men, her male relatives and husband will be jealous and suffer the pangs of conscience, and it gives way for the husband to amuse himself with innumerable other women. Who on earth does not know or understand this? Though the so-called primitive and reactionary men desire this pleasure very well, the pangs of conscience brake and stop them. Loose-willed men who could not stand against the desires of their nafs have broken this
brake of the conscience under the pretext of being civilized and advanced and dived into the so-called social life, which is very sweet to them. Those who run after their sensual desires spread this life quickly. Some people consider this life “advancement”, while others evaluate it as “following nature”. However, Islam points out the way of living which is most suitable with nature. Islam, though the most natural religion, departs from nature on occasions when human nature departs from virtue. It sides with virtue. Whether it is called a civil right or a return to nature, and no matter how much it is praised, the most evident cause of this current and the power which drags it along are lust and pleasure. If society men did not think of their own mutual pleasures
but intended to give women rights and freedom instead, they would not want to exchange their wives. It must be for this reason that some male feminists, when they understand that they cannot take advantage of someone’s wife or daughter, do not allow their own wives and daughters not only to talk to him but also to show themselves to him. It can be understood very well that those who offer their wives and daughters to other men at balls and night clubs are the ones who sacrifice them for better posts. If attention is paid to those men who want women to be given rights and freedom more than women want, they are the people who seek for diving into the odorous, soft gatherings of women who swarm in the halls and overflow into the streets and for amusing themselves easily with others’ wives. These wretched people cannot
think that other men also will freely attack their wives, daughters and sisters. Or, being in ecstacy with these pleasures and flavours, they forget about this excruciating harm, or they do not hesitate to sacrifice them for their amusements and lusts.
In society life, those men who gain much satisfaction and little loss are the ones who do not have young women among their relatives beautiful enough to be looked at. Among the main reasons why men want women to be given freedom are such deceitful and egoistic reasons. There may be some people to say that we write excessively on this subject. But this is the home truth of the matter; for this idea has not come to women brought up in Muslim countries out of admiring men’s progress in knowledge and science. Such a desire for freedom has not been seen in the women of honest men who have high posts in knowledge and science. If men had not fallen into the life of amusement and dissipation, there would not have been women who want this kind of freedom. Nor would
there have been men
who would have sided with and advocated such women.
Those men who want women to be given such a freedom say, “We do not ask for something illegitimate.” When they are asked what legitimate things they want, they cannot answer. They dismiss it by saying, “We will rescue women from slavery.” It is declared in the 33rd âyat of the sűrat an-Nisâ, “Men are the educators, employers of women. Allâhu ta’âlâ has created men superior to women.” They will rescue women from their place pointed out in this âyat! What on earth is legitimate in this? There are many reasons and uses why Islam holds men superior to women. This superiority is a must, a necessity for the orderliness of family life. Nor does the word, “Man and woman should have equal rights in the family life. Life is in common,” have any value. It is declared in the 22nd âyat of the sűrat al-Anbiyâ’, “If there were another god besides Allâhu ta’âlâ, the Universe would get out of order and be in utter disorder.” According to those who base their thought on the strong logic in this âyat, every member of the family should have a separate right, value, honour and degree, and a head among the family is necessary. Even in a republican government, in which the people are said to be given all rights, there is a head of the State. Then, as in government administration, the final word has to be ended up by one person in every assembly and in the family, which is also an assembly.
In order to prove that their statements are right and legitimate, some reformers support their words by saying, “We will give women independence in knowledge and science.” Since by independence or liberty they mean, “We will rescue women from men’s control,” they intend to say, “We will change the âyat,” and they call it “slavery” for women to be under men’s control and not to be able to go where they want without men’s permission. While Anatolian women, who are crushed under employment, do not want to escape slavery, the free women of Istanbul do! They say, “Owing to the freedom of knowledge and arts, women should work like men and thus escape depending on men for their living.” Do men twit their women with the bread they bring home that they will rescue
women from this parasitic, derogatory life? On the contrary, modern women twit their men with the work they do indoors. They even try to load men with housework. When attentively observed, Muslim men are in a more pitiful situation than their women are, for the burden of earning money, finding and bringing the home’s needs are on men’s shoulders. To attempt to load women also with this burden
by saying, “Life is in common,” will mean for men to shake women off their protection by saying, “Look after yourselves,” which is thoroughly against women.
If the statement, “Life is in common,” means, as the religion reformers defend it, for women to help with the burden of earning, with which men are loaded, they might as well render this help inside the house. Many of the society families have servants in their houses. Like men, women also have their dresses made by tailors. What is more surprising is that, in the houses of the society women, cooking, looking after the children and almost all the housework are done by servants. Thus, the woman’s own earnings cannot even afford the expenses of her own ornaments, cosmetics, perfumes and hair-dresser’s and the servant’s wages. The burden of subsistence still remains on the man’s shoulders.
It is seen everywhere in what a miserable and pitiable situation the women who share the burden of subsistence are if they are too ugly to be looked at on the face. The beauty of the girls who rely on their beauty and who try to be pretty decreases as they get older, and especilly the skin of those women who use powder, lip-stick and rouge become uglier being worn away by friction day by day. When they do not use rouge, their faces become wrinkled, ugly like tripe. Therefore, when they get up every morning, they have to make their toilet and make up for hours in front of the mirror. On a winter morning, as I was riding the tramcar in the twilight, I saw a dustwoman sweep the snow on the ground. I was grieved for her. I wished that this Muslim granny had, instead
of having attained such a freedom, been lying down in her warm room or reading or preparing her children’s needs. Islam has loaded all the needs of the woman to her husband. If she is without a husband, her closest relative is to supply her needs. If she is without anybody, Bait al-mâl, that is, the government treasury, is to support her. Every need of the woman should come to her. We have heard very often about women’s laments, complaints about their own lives.
Religion reformers, who cannot deny the miserable, dismal position of ugly working women, attempt to defend this also and say that if pretty women are put at the sales departments, there may be customers who would more probably buy their beauty instead of the goods for sale, and thus the sales may decrease. Let alone the misery of ugly women who, having attained their freedom, work among men and the exhaustedness of those who strive hard before the mirror to make themselves pretty every
morning, the real meaning of this freedom and independence, which the remainder are supposed to have or, rather, are defended to have by those men who are more loyal to the king than the king is to himself, is to depart women from their virtues and natural tendencies, such as forming a family, bringing up children, arranging a home, and to make them join the hard, troublesome life of men, to get rid of the need of marrying and to become like single men or immoral men who are not faithful to their wives. This disorderly life, which has demolished the family life, has first commenced in those men who imitate Europeans, and later women also have been dragged down to this ditch. Where is the helpless young generation being dragged? Showing respect and politeness
towards women, which has become a custom in society life, is sheer ostentation and done in order to diminish the miserableness and pitiable condition of women. In Europe today, there is nothing cheaper than women, married or unmarried. Society women who have gone far away from Islam are dragging on to this condition, too. It is obvious how numerous the unmarried couples are. The reason why voluptuous thought is dominant in oriental poetry is because life of fornication and dissipation has been very little in the east. An oriental poet wants to write about the kiss which his sweetheart has promised him, but which is something never seen, in order to make his lyric poem more vivid. On the other hand, in Europe this is done in the street, but no one takes notice. Widows are cheaper. Today, in Europe and in Muslim countries
where society life and freedom of women have been spread, men get married easily. As for women, it is difficult for them to find a husband. Men are reluctant and look for beauty and money in marriage. As for the woman, she readily accepts a man’s proposal of matrimony. Contrary to this trouble which women have in setting up a home, they are easily accepted by those youngsters who look for a mate for one or two nights.
In Muslim countries, there cannot be found a girl too old to find a husband. Men and women share one another, and each of the remaining women has become a housewife owing to the blessing of ta’addud al-zawjât in Islam. In contrast, in Europe the remaining girls earn money from men without being married and illegitimately, and they look for a husband to marry.
In Europe, at places where there is society life, there is not the thing called love because women and girls swarm everywhere. Yet in Muslim countries, a man sees a pretty woman once in a blue
moon. On this rare occasion he falls in love with her. The curtain which this love has put before his eyes and the curtain of veiling of other Muslim women come together not to show him a prettier one. In fact, because the second curtain does not show him -let alone another- the same woman once more, the flame of love gets fanned. This shows that the woman is so valuable and important in Muslim countries. What value can women have in society life, which takes them away from the state of belovedness?
Let us listen about the pitiable situation of the society women from a great lady poet of France, Madame de Lara Mardirous, as translated by Cenâb Ţihâbuddin Beg in his magazine Evrâk-i Eyyâm: “Tell your [Muslim] girls to appreciate the value of their happiness! Let them get used to living veiled. Living veiled will protect them against so many inconveniences that... Oh, if they could only know the number of girls who have sobbed and cried on my shoulder. My ears are full with the very terrifying and heartrending complaints of the beloved girls. Yes, it seems as if it were very sweet to be able to enter a ball full of lights and flowers. But, what a grievous serpent is the jealousy that gnaws at the heart of the woman who has gone there with her husband she loves. Could you imagine it? Each of the balls, theatres and places for meeting is a cell of torment of ‘Saint office’,
a hell for a man who is faithful to his wife or for a woman who loves her husband. Inform your wives and sisters well about these facts!”
There is a saying which is chewed like a gum in the mouths: “The advancement of women is necessary for the advancement of men, because a nation, one of whose two wings cannot function, cannot make progress. It can make progress only together with the women.” Such complicated, vague words show that those who cannot explain their purposes clearly attempt to communicate them under helping words. The advancement of women means not to leave them ignorant, not to slight their morals and education. Islam says nothing against having women do fine arts, which are suitable for their delicacy. It is permissible for women to do the fine works which men cannot do both in warfare and during peace and to learn them from other women. But, still they should stay away from
men not related to them.
The strongest thing that attaches the Muslim Turks to their country is their religious and traditional pure life in the family. Among them, those who consider this life of women’s and nâ-
mahram[1] men’s being away form one another as a duty are attached to their country with a most sensitive vein.
Another powerful weapon which religion reformers use to defend that women should work among men is material and economic advantages. For example, “You open a shop and put a girl at the cashier or counter. The customers will increase with the lustful gifts which the shop presents to the sense of sight,” they say. However, Muslim customers do not go to such shops where immodestly dressed women work and alcoholic drinks are sold. The earnings that come through harâm means are wicked and without Allâhu ta’âlâ’s blessing. Their consequence will be harmful both in this world and in the next.
It is harâm and a grave sin for women and girls to exhibit themselves undressed to nâ-mahram men and for men to look at them. It does not become a Muslim to earn worldly property by means of harâm. Goods earned in such a way are useless and without Allâhu ta’âlâ’s blessing. He who slights the harâm becomes a kâfir.
If a person claims to be a Muslim, his actions have to be in conformity with the Sharî’at. If he does not know how he should behave, he has to learn by asking a scholar in the Madh-hab of Ahl as-sunna, or by reading books written by scholars belonging to this Madh-hab. If what he has done runs counter to the Sharî’at’s prescription, he is by no means free from the state of sinfulness or denial (of Islam). In this case, he has to do true penance daily. Any sin or any act of denial is definitely pardonable, depending on the (trueness of the) penance one has done. If the person concerned does not do true penance, he will be tormented, i.e. punished, both in this world and in Hell. Kinds of these punishments are written at various places in our book.
Parts of the body that men and women have to cover, both during namâz and elsewhere, are called “Awrat Parts.” If a person says that Islam does not contain any concept in the name of awrat parts, he becomes a disbeliever. If a person does not attach importance to the fact that one has to cover those parts of one’s body that are awrat according to the (agreements of the scholars called) ijmâ’, i.e. in all the four Madh-habs, or that one should not look at those parts of other people’s bodies; in other
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[1] Men and women who are forbidden to show themselves to members of other sex are called nâ-mahram. There is detailed information on this subject in Endless Bliss IV, 8.
words, if he does not feel any fear as to the torment he would be subjected to (in case he failed to observe this important rule), he becomes a disbeliever. Parts between a man’s knees and loins are not awrat parts according to the Hanbalî Madh-hab. A person who says, “I am a Muslim,” has to learn and respect the credal tenets of Islam and the commandments and prohibitions that are communicated in ijmâ’, i.e. in agreement by all the four Madh-habs. Not to know them does not grant an exemption. It is equal to knowing and disbelieving. A woman’s entire body, with the exception of her face and hands, is awrat according to all the four Madh-habs. The same rule applies to women’s exposing their awrat parts, singing, or reciting
aloud the (eulogy that praises our Prophet ‘sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam’ and which is called) Mawlid, in the presence of men. If a person floutingly exposes a part of his, or her, body which is not awrat with ijmâ’, i.e. which he, or she, does not have to cover according to (at least) one of the remaining three Madh-habs, he, or she, will not become a disbeliever, although an act of this sort is one of the grave sins. An example of this is men’s exposing their limbs between the knees and the loins, e.g. their thighs. It is farz for every person to learn what he or she does not know. And as soon as he or she learns any new religious tenet, (such as, covering the awrat part), he or she has to do penance and begin to observe it, (e.g. cover the awrat part concerned).
The following hadîths are quoted from the book Zawâjir [Egypt,
“Do not show your thigh, and do not look at the thigh of a person dead or alive.”
“Allâhu ta’âlâ will severely punish those who show the private parts of their body to others.”
“The parts between men’s knees and navels are their private parts.”
“It is a grave sin to expose one’s private parts.”
“Three kinds of people will never go to Paradise. The first one is the dayyűth, that is, the person who takes no notice of his wife’s relations with other men. The second one is the woman who makes herself look like men. The third one is the one who continues to have alcoholic drinks.” Women’s making themselves look like men means to dress like them, to wear coats and trousers like them, to cut their hair like theirs, which are grave sins.
“There are two groups of people who will go to Hell: in the first group are those who carry whips or truncheons and beat people unjustly. The second group are the women who show themselves undressed to men, that is, who go near men in a thin, transparent dress. Such women go near men for evil purposes.”
Abű Dâwűd reported Hadrat ’Âisha (radiy-Allâhu ’anhâ) as having said that her sister “Asmâ’ came near Rasűlullah (sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam). She had a thin dress on her. The colour of her skin was visible. Rasűlullah (’alaihi ’s-salâm) did not look at his sister-in-law. He turned his blessed face away and said, ‘O Asmâ’! When a girl arrives the age of performing salât, she should not show men her parts other than her face and hands.’ ” It is understood from this hadîth that it is a grave sin for women to go immodestly dressed near men. Imâm az-Zahabî says that Allâhu ta’âlâ will punish in this world and in the next those women who show men their ornaments, e.g. gold, pearls over their outer dress, who use perfumes or are dressed in multi-coloured, silk tissue, with broad cuffs which expose their arms, and show themselves to men in this manner. Because these evils exist mostly in women, Rasűlullah (’alaihi ’s-salâm) said, “On the Night of Mi’raj, I saw Hell. I saw that the majority of the people in Hell were women.”
“He who believes in Allâhu ta’âlâ and in the Last Day should enter the public bath wrapping himself with a large bath-towel. He who believes in Allâhu ta’âlâ and in the Last Day should not send his wife to public baths!”
“The country of Iran will come into Muslims’ possession. There are buildings called ‘hammâm’ there. Men shall enter the hammâm covered with a large bath-towel and send their wives there only for a bath-cure or for getting clean from haid and nifâs!”
“A person who believes in Allâhu ta’âlâ and in the Last Day should not stay with a nâ-mahram woman in a room!”
“Towards the end of this world, it will become harâm for the men of my umma to go to hammâms; for there will be people whose private parts are exposed there. May Allâhu ta’âlâ damn him who uncovers his private parts and him who looks at another’s private parts!”[1]
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[1] It goes without saying that the public baths mentioned in these hadîths were not used by both sexes at the same time. There were different public baths for each sex. The limitations imposed in these hadîth-i-sherîfs, therefore, involve those public baths used by only one sex at the same time.
“The person who commits adultery is like the person who worships idols.” This hadîth points out that adultery is a grave sin.
“When a Muslim who insists on drinking wine dies, Allâhu ta’âlâ punishes him like a disbeliever worshipping idols.” Adultery is certainly a graver sin than drinking wine.
“This umma will go on being auspicious until adultery spreads among them. When adultery spreads among them, Allâhu ta’âlâ punishes all of them.”
“Allâhu ta’âlâ’s punishment becomes halâl for people of a country where adultery and ribâ have spread.”
Rasűlullâh (sall-Allâhu ’alaihi wa sallam) asked as-Sahâbat al-kirâm (radî-Allâhu ’anhum), “How do you consider adultery?” They said, “O Rasűl-Allah! Allâhu ta’âlâ and His Messenger have forbidden adultery. It will be forbidden until Rising-Day.” He said, “If a person commits adultery with his neighbor’s woman, he will be tortured more than he who has committed it with ten different nâ-mahram women.”
“Paradise is harâm for the dayyűth,” Dayyűth (cuckold) is the person who knows but keeps quiet and does not get angry at his wife’s committing adultery.
“The hand of the person who touches a nâ-mahram woman lustfully will be fastened to his neck on the Day of Resurrection. If he kisses her, his lips will be burned in Hell fire.”
It is a grave sin to commit fornication. It is a graver sin to commit adultery. The sin graver than this is fornication or adultery committed with a mahram relative. It is a graver sin for a widow to commit adultery than it is for a girl to commit fornication. It is a graver sin for an old man to do it than it is for young people. It is a graver sin for a religiously learned man to do it than it is for an ignorant person.
The reason why we have written long about the harm of women’s uncovering themselves is because we do not want our fellow countrymen to get into trouble in this world and the next, and it stems from our feelings of goodness and service for them. In fact, it does not become a Muslim to know himself honest and good and to consider uncovered women and men and society women base and bad. When a Muslim sees those who go about uncovered, drink alcohol and live society life, he should feel pity for them or, if possible, advise them in kind words or writings compatible with the Book and laws or, at least, pray for their desisting from that harmful life. When we see a sinner, we should
remember our own sins and think of the punishments that will be given to us in case our faults and sins are not forgiven! It is harâm to find fault with, to slander or backbite (ghîba) anybody, which is a graver sin for us than their sins. Allâhu ta’âlâ loves those who have patience, do goodness, give service to and advise others, and who have soft words and smiling face and do favours. He does not love those who admire themselves. We should do the good things Allâhu ta’âlâ likes! We should be sweet-tempered. Harsh treatments and punishments are the government’s duties. A Muslim does not hurt anybody with his tongue or hand. It is a sin to hurt anybody and arouse fitna. And causing fitna is a graver sin. It does not befit a Muslim to sin. He obeys the State
and laws. He does not violate any law. He is an honourable person who wins everybody’s love and regard.
The Hanafî ’âlim Khair ad-dîn ar-Ramlî wrote in the subject of “Nafaqa” in Al-fatâwâ’ al-khairiyya: “It is wâjib for the husband to have the wife live in a house he owns or rents. The husband who does not supply the wife with nafaqa (livelihood, means of subsistence) is to be imprisoned. The house should be among the neighbors who are sâlih. These neighbors help the woman in her religious and worldly affairs and prevent the husband’s oppression. The house should contain a kitchen, a toilet, a bathroom and rooms. Anyone whom the wife does not approve cannot live in this house. If the husband escapes or disappears and does not supply her livelihood, the wife applies to the court for nafaqa. She cannot demand separation from the husband. The judge determines the amount of alimony according to the customs and tells her to borrow that amount of money from her rich relatives, to whom he orders to lend her. He imprisons those who will not lend her. The court finds the husband and has him pay the lender. Because the husband has committed a grave sin, he is also punished with ta’zîr. If the wife, seeing her husband’s escape and fearing that he will not give nafaqa, applies to the court demanding him to appoint a guarantor, the judge orders him to appoint a guarantor. If the husband does not escape and does not bring the nafaqa, the judge determines the nafaqa, that is, the amount of [money for] food, clothes and rent and makes him give it to her every month. A man who owns (the amount of) nisâb[1] and has to pay zakât must give the nafaqa of the (wife even if she is) rich. If the woman proves with two witnesses that her husband
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[1] Border of richness dictated by Islam. Please see Endless Bliss V, 1.
has fled and has not left nafaqa, the Shâfi’î judge abolishes the nikâh. After the ’idda (length of time within which a woman may not remarry), she may marry another man according to the Hanafî madhhab. If, later, the husband turns up and proves that he has left nafaqa, it will be overruled. Nafaqa is not given to the woman who is obstinately disobedient or who is told that she has been divorced.” Yet, it is not easy to divorce the wife and to demolish her home and happiness.
He wrote in the subject of “Nikâh”: “If a father has given his adolescent daughter in marriage to a man without taking her permission, and if she does not accept it when she learns it, the nikâh is not sahîh. She is to be believed if she says, ‘I refused when I heard.’ ” The passages above show that the Muslim woman is not a toy in the hands of the man and that women’s rights are under the guarantee of the state.
“Woman is not a creature whom man will use as he wishes or dismiss whenever he wants. According to the will of Allâhu ta’âlâ, who wishes people to be happy in this world and in the next, we should set rules for matrimony. Though Europeans have prohibited having more than one wife, many of them have a few illegitimate wives or mistresses.”
Polygamy is one of the reasons why European progressives or imitators attack Muslims. The fact, however, is that whereas Muslims marry up to four women, Europeans cohabit with several women. Islam has laid conditions for marrying up to four. Not everybody can fulfill these conditions. For this reason it is limited for Muslim men to marry more than one and it is the lot of very few people. Besides, it is not a command but a conditional permission. It is seen that in places where it is forbidden to marry more than one woman, prostitution and adultery increase.
Its unpleasant effect on women is the main reason which religion reformers put forth why they speak ill of marrying more than one woman. They also say that marrying more than one causes an increase in population. The word that this increase is peculiar only to hot climates and the assertion that sexual power decreases in those whose brains function are ideas incompatible with observation and reason. In fact, when we observe the reasons for the propagandas based on women’s rights and freedom in cold countries that are said to be civilized, voluptuous desires for women appear from under the masks.
Though it is obvious that the imitators of Europe amongst us run after their sexual desires in this respect, their real aim, principle purpose, is to attack Islam; this can be understood from every statement they make. Their idea of giving rights to women or freeing sexual, bestial desires remains secondary; it is seen that they strive with all their forces to annihilate Islam by attacking the rules and even the permissions peculiar to Islam and to bring into their place the immoralities of Europeans and Christianity. See how Ziyâ Gökalp, a very insidious, clever religion reformer working behind the curtain of Turkish nationalism outpoured his venom in his poem “Din ve Ilm” (Religion and Knowledge):
“As long as the woman is incomplete, this life will remain deficient!
So that the structure of familly be suitable with justice,
Betrothal, divorce, inheritance; in these three equality is a must!
As long as a girl is a half man in heredity and one-fourth in matrimony,
Neither the family nor the nation will advance.”
As he attacks the Qur’ân and salât in his other writings so in this poem of his he attemps to blemish Islam under the cloak of women’s rights. The progressives insist on that woman and man should be equal. Why don’t they correct the anatomical and physiologic inequality which Allâhu ta’âlâ has made! A cock directs eight to ten hens. But two cocks cannot stay together in a flock of fowls. This is the same with almost all kinds of animals. People who live on breeding sheep keep two or three rams in the flock and slaughter or sell the others.
Equality between man and woman does not exist in every respect. Woman can ifluence man only with her attractive power on man. She is always inferior to man in many ways. In every place of the world, woman wants to adorn herself. No matter how much cherished they are, they are in the position of belonging to others like a precious thing. Women, who cannot sacrifice the desire of looking pretty for anything, consider themselves as rewards for men or for those who are chosen from among men. The rights given to them in some countries, for example, their equality with men, cannot remove the defects in their creation. Though man’s brain is bigger and heavier than woman’s, women in villages work as much as or even harder than men. Yet these labours have not rendered
them dominant or ruling. It has been
declared in the Qur’ân that men are superior to women. Allâhu ta’âlâ has created men stronger than and dominant over women. Parents mostly want a baby-boy. This indicates that man is a support, a power in life, and women is a deficiency. Women, no matter what she does, can have only one child in a year. Here, man’s activity is without limits. A man can have as many children as the number of his wives in a year, and the father and mothers of these children are known. In respect to bringing up children, a man is sort of equal to hundreds of women.
Furthermore, the number of girls born is bigger than that of boys. Wars decrease the number of men more. And sometimes, where men are reluctant to marry, the number of women is thousands more than men. We often read in newspapers that this is so. For example, the report from the daily Türkiye of Rajab al-fard 3, 1393 (August 2, 1973) Thursday issue said:
“According to the vital statistics prepared in the United States, women live longer than men.
“Statistics show that the female population is 2 million more than the male population and that, of the people aged 25 and above, women are more than men.
“According to the statistics of the world population, for 1000 men of age 65 and above, there corresponds 1275 women; in
“Again in the United States it is estimated that newly born baby-girls die seven years later than baby-boys among all who die in childhood. The reason is that the possibility of death of the prematurely born baby-girls is 50 percent less than that of such baby-boys. Within the first month after birth, the death of baby-boys is 50 percent more than that of baby-girls. Of the babies that die within the first age, 75 out of 100 are boys.
“During the period of growth, girls grow more rapidly, begin to speak earlier and, up to a certain age, develop more quickly than boys. The ratio of boys to girls who die between the ages of 5 and 9 is 2. Between the ages of 10 and 19, this ratio is 1.45.
“In all age-groups, the number of men who have heart-disease is more than that of women. In the critical period of the ages
between 40 and 70, two out of 3 deaths of heart-disease are men. Ulcer, cancer, pneumonia and tuberculosis are more common among men. Women’s cancers, for example, of womb or breast, are more easily cured than men’s cancers of lungs, stomach or prostate.
“May be women catch many more kinds of diseases; but their diseases are less mortal. It is found out that men and women more easily catch 245 and 120 out of some 365 kinds of dangerous diseases, respectively.”
On Rajab al-fard 5, 1404 (April 18, 1983), Hürriyet, a daily published in Istanbul, reported: “According to the official results of the census, the ratio of widows to widowers in Istanbul is 17:4.” This means that the number of widows is four times greater than that of widowers.
Another evidence showing that women are more numerous is that there is an enormous number of women who live on selling their honesty. It is obvious that such women are numerous especially in advanced countries. If a married or single man who cannot help having intercourse with such a woman marries her and spends his money for her home instead of paying it to her for dishonesty, will it be bad? Religion reformers or progressives cannot say, “It won’t be bad, it will be good,” for they want women to remain in a status that would always keep them prone to supersedure. Those who dislike marrying more than one must be those who are afraid that not many women will remain for them to amuse themselves with.
If they say, “Man’s view of the women with whom he has intercourse illegitimately and his view of his own wife are different,” they in fact regard those women who work illegitimately as lowly people who have lost their value. For this reason, they consider the sexual relations of a woman of high rank a much more shameful deed, a scandal.
Women are led to prostitution out of necessity, need or seduction. It cannot be thought of for man because he does not earn but pays money. This also shows that woman cannot be equal to man.
No matter how pretty she is, a woman does not give up trying to be attractive for man. Those with diminished bashfulness turn womanhood into a commercial material. It is seen that woman is more timid than man. This timidity is not because their lust is little, but because they are more capable of concealing their
sensations than men are. As lust is more in women, so their bashfulness is more than men’s. Even a woman with diminished bashfulness sits awaiting at the brothel. It is the man who visits her and even pays her. In no place of the world is there a brothel where clients are women and prostitutes are men.
Women’s bashfulness provides them with greater patience and determination. It prevents them from rushing into many heavy jobs. With the exception of communist regimes, where human beings, regardless of sex, are held equal with animals and slaves, although some of them, for the purpose of deceiving Muslims, disguise their administrations under spurious appelations such as “Socialist Islamic Republic’, there is next to no country where women are armed and sent to the battlefield no matter how difficult the conditions are. When men decrease in number, they employ women in supply service behind the front and in easy jobs. In reply to men, who undertake these heavy and risky jobs and who sacrifice their lives for their country and children, such a self-sacrifice
as not being sorry for their husbands’ marrying more than one can be expected from women in order to prevent the loss of population caused by heavy industries and wars.
In fact, men’s jihâd against the enemy is compared to women’s struggling with their nafs in the Hadîth:
“Allâhu ta’âlâ imposed jealousy on women and jihâd on men. The woman who believes and endures this task will be rewarded in the Hereafter as if she were a martyred fighter for Islam.” This hadîth points out that women should be patient about their husband’s marrying another woman. The woman will both be jealous and endure this. And this great self-sacrifice has been held equivalent to men’s jihâd. It is correct to hold jihâd equivalent to ta’addud az-zawjât, because the latter causes the population to increase and war causes it to decrease. In the magazine Bayân al-haqq,
Mustafâ Sabri Effendi (rahmatullâhi ’alaih) explained this equivalence in detail.
Islam does not command ta’addud az-zawjât, but it permits it. Though it is not sinful not to use this permission, it is a religious duty to believe in that this permission is compatible with social life, knowledge and reason, and to refute those who say that this is not so. Moreover, it is a condition for those who do not want to use this permission not to meet the need of ta’addud az-zawjât in a sinful way. Although there is no one who attempts to use this permission today, religion reformers censure it as the separatists reiterate the combats between ’Alî and Mu’âwiya (radiy-Allâhu
’anhumâ) that took place fourteen centuries ago -the ‘fait accompli’ which have been evaluated well by Islamic scholars- and thus caluminate the Prophet’s companions (radiy-Allâhu ’anhum). Such out-of-place and out-of-time discussions serve nothing but sow discord among Muslims and motivate the enemies of Islam. Ta’addud az-zawjât is not a command but a permission. It is written in the Turkish book Ni’met-i Islâm that it is even not a mustahab[1]
but a mubâh.[2] It is fard to believe in that it is not permissible to criticize this permission of Allâhu ta’âlâ. It is kufr to deny or dislike this permission, which is clearly declared in the Qur’ân. Let us also add the fact that the husband who, because the laws forbid it and he respects the emotions of his wife, prefers to live only with her will be rewarded in he next world for having done without ta’addud az-zawjât. Islam’s permitting it is intended to protect chastity and to increase the population. If we look carefully at the words of those who dislike it, the thing which annoys them is not marrying more than one but marrying up to four, since they obviously have more than four mistresses and do cohabit. If all brothels were closed and public and private prostitution were prohibited, they would immediately
change their opinion; such words as, “Since ta’addud az-zawjât is unnatural, it has not held on among Muslims,” would not be uttered any more and ta’addud az-zawjât would spread by itself.
Marrying more than one could not hold on because of its unsuitability; so it was replaced by prostitution and adultery, which are suitable for civilized men! Is that right? Many men are in a position that will not allow them to deny that they fill the vacancy of ta’addud az-zawjât with illegitimate affairs. Therefore, by tearing the curtains between man and woman, they play with women’s chastity and honour. In European countries where women are given full freedom, men and women are all mixed up. Islam has set an equilibrium between women and men and commanded women to veil themselves in order to maintain the order.
Though the foregoing discussion provides the necessary response to a modernist religion reformer who says, “A man’s marrying up to four women is injurious to women’s rights. One man’s having one wife is the equal and evenhanded commitment of human rights. Ta’addud az-zawjâd spoils this equality and
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[1] A deed or behaviour commended, though not commanded, by Islam.
[2] Permission.
justice,” the following points also will be helpful:
It is obvious that in countries where there is not ta’addud az-zawjât, illegitimacy and prostitution have spread out instead. Then, how can one ever say that pushing women towards prostitution will make them attain a right and an equality? It can be understood that all these clamours are intended to provide men with their amusement under the mask of giving women rights. The statistics show that the number of women in the world is greater than that of men. For this reason, more than one woman corresponds to a man. When women are fewer than men, ta’addud az-zawjât disappears by itself; the words ‘injustice’ and ‘inequality’ will remain without reason. Man, being unable to find another woman, will live with one woman. But, when there are more women and a man
cannot overcome his desires, should he opt the legitimate way or the illegitimate way? Here is all the difference of views between religion reformers and Muslims. Is it necessary to close the legitimate way or the illegitimate way? Certainly, it is necessary to close one and to spread and facilitate the other. But which one? It is seen that this difference is based on the difference between being Muslim and not being Muslim. Advancement and progress of Muslims can be achieved by holding fast to Islam. It is impossible to attain salvation by abandoning Islam, which is unnecessary.
Many people argue saying, “While nikâh is performed, every sort of condition can be laid down. The woman can demand from the man whom she is to marry to remain with a single wife throughout their married life and to give her the right of divorce.” These words are right. Islam gives woman this right, too. There is detailed information on this subject in Radd al-muhtâr.
If a man, for the sake of his respect for the emotions of his first wife, should not marry another woman, should he succumb to his sexual desires and satisfy his desires in other places. Should he injure his own chastity and honesty and spoil the chastity and honesty of another woman? Should he sin as much as he wants and deserve the punishments stated in the above-quoted hadîths? Should evil feelings arise in his wife when she finds out these illegitimate, evil deeds of her husband? Should her chastity be injured lest her feelings should not be injured? We wonder if a woman who might hear that her husband cohabits with bad women will not suffer a heavy blow? Will not the effects of being a dishonest man’s wife be added to this? Moreover, if we think about
the harm done to the wife’s chastity; its harm to the
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husband; the harm done to the husband or wife of the woman or man with whom they have illegitimate relations, respectively, and the harm done to the children affected by these offenses, and the health that is risked to venereal diseases, it will be easier to decide correctly and reasonably. Syphilis and gonorrhea spread through promiscuous relations and threaten the whole world. See the Divine Wisdom! Allâhu ta’âlâ has sent the worst, the most dangerous diseases in the actions outside of Islam. The children involved are not only the children that have not been born; Islam’s subtle command rajm (stoning to death) against adultery is the punishment commanded by Islam to prevent the birth of the child that would be born out of adultery as a degenerate bastard and would have no honour in humanity. When the children in the home are smeared with these dangerous diseases, the whole family will be dragged on to death materially and spiritually. With ta’addud az-zawjât, which prevents all these harms, only the first wife is harmed slightly. This harm is psychological but not a harm pertaining to conscience, for ta’addud az-zawjat is what Allâhu ta’âlâ, whom she loves more than her life, permits.
In order to prevent these harms, Islam expects from women this self-sacrifice, which will be rewarded in the Hereafter. Thereby they will contribute to the population increase and help other members of their sex to find a husband. If women be brought up with this sacred, religious education, the uses of which are obvious, the side-effects of ta’addud az-zawjât, which are only to emotions and to the nafs, will disappear. The progressives claim that they are determined to make progress by enduring all kinds of difficulty. While the man is ready to die in war, should not he expect an insignificant self-sacrifice from his wife, since it will rescue the individual, the family and the entire society from a great disaster? Would not it be good if she, instead of
having the baseness of ignoring her husband’s habitual, evil, harmful deeds, accustom herself to a useful, noble feeling? They will be helpful to men in their struggles to protect their chastity, and at the same time pay their religious debts in return for men’s sacrifice in warfare.
In the time of the Union Party, Mensűrî Zâde Saîd, the deputy of Manisa, offered the National Assembly to pass a law to prohibit ta’addud az-zawjât. The majority of deputies said it was impossible. The law was not passed. As for the question what Muslims should do in a country where such a law is in operation, Muslims do not violate the laws even if they are in a country of
disbelievers. They do not commit any crime. Each of them live with one woman with whom they marry according to Islam and to the laws, with nikâh and a formal registration. Opposing the laws and the government gives way to punishment, trouble and fitna (mischief against Muslims.), which is not permissible. It is declared in the Hadîth, “Fitna is asleep. May Allâhu ta’âlâ damn him who wakes it.” May Allâhu ta’âlâ protect Muslims against fitna and calamities! Âmin.
In the Ottoman Empire, marriage contracts were registered at municipalities or marriage offices, where marriage licences were obtained, and canonical marriage contract (nikâh) was performed compatibly with its principles by a pious Muslim who knew the religious knowledge of his madhhab correctly and performed salât regularly. The quantity of gold money which is called mahr-i mu’ajjal or mahr-i muejjel and upon which the couple agreed was recorded in the licence during the performance of nikâh. Mahr-i mu’ajjal was paid by the man to the woman before the wedding. Mahr-i muejjel was the money he was obliged to pay in case of divorce. If he did not pay it or the alimony for his children to her every month, either an equal amount was allotted from his salary and paid to her or he was imprisoned. Because of the fear of this high compensation, of misery of remaining a bachelor or of failure to marry again, nobody would divorce his wife. In fact, nobody would marry his daughter to the man who had divorced his wife unfairly. Till death, every Muslim led a happy, prosperous life together with his wife and children in mutual love and in peace which formed out of the karâma inherent in nikâh. He was an honourable person among his circle and acquaintances and was given high esteem and credit by everybody.