Islam in Turkey

ISLAM IN TURKEY • A. J. A. Mango Overlooking the Atatiirk boulevard in the new planned city of Ankara, the imposing Germanic fa,ade of the Faculty of Language and History of the University of Ankara bears in bold letters the inscription "Science is the Truest Guide in·Life. M. K. Atatiirk." It would seem that nothing could be more uncompromisingly secularist. Where other and older institutions invoke divine illumination, the university founded by Atatiirk seems to pin its hope on human science. Yet that university has also had since the war a Faculty of Theology and all the defenders of the Kemalist revolntion are at one in proclaiming that secularism is not to be equated with atheism. Tbey even go further and assert not ouly that it is compatible with the Islamic religion, but that it is almost the best environment in which that religion can flourish in its purest form. It is this contention which I propose to examine theoretically and practically. Atatiirk's maxim about science and life is a useful starting point, not because of any originality of thought or expression, but because it is learnt by every schoolchild in Turkey and, thereafter, becomes the most current cliche in any discussion of the subject, and also because its Turkish wording conceals ambiguities which, whether deliberate or accidental , enable the clerks of the eulightenment to misinterpret the religion they pretend to respect. The Turkish word used for science in the maxim is ilim (Arabic (ilm). The meaning it conveys to an educated Turk today is indeed that of scientific knowledge in general, but this was not what it meant to past generations in an age of religion. (Ilm is the Arabic equivalent of the Greek b"UT~"~ (episteme), that is, non-mystical knowledge as distinguished from ma(ritah, mystical gnosis. But if (ilm was non-mystical, it was not secular. It designated the hierarchical corpus of knowledge subordinated to theology which it included, a corpus available to the rational mind working in the light of divine revelation. (Ilm was what the theologians of Islam, the (u/amii, or men of learning, purveyed. It was based on the revelation of the Prophet ISLAM IN ruRKEY 199 Muhammad, not on that of Auguste Comte. This wise knowledge was indeed highly prized in Islam. Most defenders of secularism in Turkey, iguorant as they are of their own religion, can quote the Koranic verse "Allah will exalt those of you who believe and those who are given (ilm," and the tradition which attributes to the Prophet Muhammad the words "Seek (ilm even if you have to go as far as China," but they forget that the word does not mean secular scientific knowledge as they would like to believe. This fundamental error vitiates the contention of Turkish secularists that Islam is a natural, rational religion, some would say a scientific religion, which, therefore, sanctions all that is done in the name of modern progress. This contention, which was constantly on the lips of Kemalist reformers as they destroyed what was left of the religious fabric of Turkish society, had already been popularized by Abmet Riza, the ineffectual ideologue of the Young Turkish movement, in Mechveret, the newspaper which he published in Paris at the turn of the century. His assertion that Islam was the most rational religion was made to ward off charges of fanaticism and superstition levelled at the Turks by European progressives bent on dismembering the Ottoman Empire and in so doing placing large numbers of Turks under the rule of more rational nationalities. The defensive contentions of Abmet Riza and others were later canonized by Atatiirk. "The Islamic religion," he said, "is the most reasonable and natural religion, and for a religion to be natural it must agree with reason, science, knowledge and logic." The same reasoning is used today when secularism is under attack in Turkey in a controversy of which it is possible to follow clearly the arguments of only one side, for, while the criticisms rumble underground, secularist apologies are extensively published. I shall content myself with one example taken from Zafer, the organ of the Government Democratic Party. It is all the more significant for...