Theses supervised by Prof. Dr. Recep Şentürk
21 theses · Ibn Haldun University
The contested grounds of human rights in Islam and the West: A comparative study
In this thesis we explore the problem of the contested grounds of human rights in Islam and the West. While we live in an era in which human rights are at the center of our global moral discussions, human rights have been challenged for their bias in Eurocentric ethics and anthropologies. At the same time human rights were secularized in the twentieth century and divorced from their historical theological underpinnings, without being supplanted by any viable philosophical alternative. This has left modern human rights philosophically ungrounded and in need of a theory of justification. The current "crisis of human rights" has instigated new scholarship on the philosophical grounds of human rights, especially in Christian and Jewish ethics. The Islamic legal tradition is notably absent from this debate. Research on Islam and human rights almost exclusively focuses on a "narrative of conflict" and lacks a sustained engagement with classical Islamic law (fiqh) and legal philosophy (uṣūl al-fiqh). Both Orientalists and human rights lawyers have claimed Islam has no conception of human rights and is merely a "duty-based system". This thesis moves beyond the reductionism of legal Orientalism and approaches Islamic law discursively as a legal-philosophical tradition that can make worthwhile contributions to contemporary philosophical debates. Through the frameworks of comparative legal studies and conceptual history (Begriffsgeschichte), this thesis traces premodern human rights discourses in medieval and early modern Islam and the West. In doing so, we explore how human rights were conceptualized, justified and grounded, and how they may speak to our current moral concerns today.
Ampirik ve etik ayrımın ötesinde: İbn Haldun'un çok katmanlı siyaset ve eğitim felsefesi
Why is there a tension between the empirical and the ethical approaches in political and educational theory? For many, this tension is the legacy of David Hume who separated "is" and "ought" claims, and of logical positivism, which sharply distinguished between facts and values, hence between empirical and normative forms of inquiry as well. This philosophical principle has contributed to the indecision in the field of political theory over the last century, oscillating between empirical-positive and ethical-normative approaches, or in other words, descriptive and prescriptive perspectives, as scholars have struggled to balance these two frameworks. There was a division of labor: empirical political theorists focused on the empirical "is" of politics, while normative political theorists concerned themselves with the ethical "ought" of politics. Empirical approaches to political theory are concerned with discovering the causal laws that explain why society is the way it is. Normative approach to political theory, on the other hand, is concerned with ethical considerations, values, and prescriptions about how societies ought to be organized and governed. With the empirical and normative binary in mind, a contemporary reader of the Muqaddimah might find it challenging to ascertain under which of these two categories Ibn Khaldun's political theory most appropriately fits. To address this issue, the present study proposes revisiting Ibn Khaldun's political and educational theories in the context of the empirical-ethical binary and related discussions. One of the guiding questions of this dissertation is how helpful this distinction is for an adequate understanding of Ibn Khaldun's socio-political thinking generally, and his political and educational theories in Muqaddimah more specifically. This study reveals that Ibn Khaldun's political theory addresses both types of questions: the ontological-descriptive question about the state as "What makes a certain object a state?", and the ethical-normative question about the state as "What makes a state a just or an ideal state?". This suggests that Ibn Khaldun's political theory defies categorization within the narrow confines of the empirical-ethical binary. While Ibn Khaldun explicitly aimed to provide a scientific and realistic analysis of historical facts in a descriptive manner, differing from the utopian studies of the al-Farabi school, his work inherently serves a cognitive and instructive purpose to regulate society and guide policies, as implied in the name of his book, Kitāb al-ʿIbar. This aspect also speaks to the recent debate on ideal and non-ideal political theory, in terms of how to justify normative claims in order not to be 'too abstract.' The normative claims of the Muqaddimah are justified by the real facts of life and the divine revelation, which go hand in hand, providing a model for contemporary political theory that seeks to integrate the empirical and the ethical in how the ideal might be achieved in practical steps. The primary goal of this dissertation is to elucidate why there is no exclusion between the empirical and normative dimensions in Ibn Khaldun's political theory and to explain how this integration is achieved. The main argument of this study is that the philosophical foundations of Ibn Khaldun's political theory provide a multiplex framework in which the empirical and ethical dimensions coexist harmoniously, without being mutually exclusive or in binary opposition. It is this multiplex paradigm that makes his thought resistant to modern ways of thinking that typically operate within set dichotomies, i.e., distinctions that have translated into separations. Once the multilayered framework underpinning Ibn Khaldun's socio-political thinking is in view, we can then understand how his political and educational theories are simultaneously empirical and ethical, or descriptive and prescriptive, and why they are inevitably so.
Imām Abū Hāmid Al-Ghazālı̄'nin düşünce sisteminde ilim ve eğitime bütünsel yaklaşım
The purpose of this thesis is to explore the means of knowledge acquisition put forward in Imām Abu Ḥāmid al-Ghazālī's theory of knowledge, with particular focus on those elements that would, today, be deemed prelogical in light of modern epistemic convictions. I will argue that such means are not prelogical or irrational, as they have been described in several places, but are the natural epistemic dimension of an extensive and sophisticated metaphysical theology that differs significantly from the metaphysical outlook (or lack thereof) that motivates such pejorative labeling. I will further argue that Imām al-Ghazālī's inclusion of these means is not a symptom of intellectual weakness or ritualistic bias, but a valuable illustration of the wholistic nature of Islamic thought, in which the metaphysical, the physical, the epistemological, and the ethical are all treated as inextricable facets of existence whose separating boundaries are, in many cases, impossible to delineate. Thus, Imām al-Ghazālī's conviction that seekers of knowledge should conduct their search through metaphysical, spiritual, and ritualistic means does not detract from, but rather lends coherence and strength to his theory of knowledge, which has become canon within the vast intellectual tradition of his faith.
Batıda islamlaşma karşıtı counterjihad hareketi ve islamlaşmayla ilgili dini terminolojiyi kullanımları
Counterjihad hareketi Amerika'da gerçekleşen 11 Eylül saldırıları sonrası dönemde ortaya çıkmış Batı'da İslamlaşma karşıtı İslamofobik bir akımdır. Batı medeniyeti değerleri ile İslam değerlerinin bir birinin antitezi olduğu, bir arada bulunamayacağı savunup çatışmacı bir anlayışı benimseyen hareketin hedefi Batı ülkelerinde cari olduğunu iddia ettikleri, İslami hakimiyet kurma amaçlı İslamlaşma olgusunun durdurulmasıdır. Counterjihad grupları bu hedefe yönelik yayınlarda bulunmakta, propaganda faaliyetleri yapmaktadır. Bu yayın faaliyetlerinde gözlenilen odur ki Counterjihad retoriği İslamlaştırma/hakimiyet kurma ile ilişkilendirdikleri belirli dini kavramlar olan ''Cihad'',''Hicret'',''Takiyye'',''Zımmilik'' kavramları ve bu kavramlarla alakalı alt terimler üzerinde dönmektedir. Tezde öncelikle Counterjihad hareketinin organizasyon ve düşünce yapısı hakkında bilgiler verilecek geri kalan bölümlerde Counterjihad'ın İslamlaştırmayla irtibatlandırdığı kavramlara verdiği anlamlar incelenecek ve bu anlamlar İslam kaynakları baz alınarak değerlendirilecektir. Tezin amacı hareketin kavramlara İslamlaşma/hakimiyetle irtibatlandırarak yaptığı tanım ve açıklamalarının çoğunlukla İslam ve Müslümanlar hakkında tehdit algısı oluşturmaya yönelik bir çabanın ürünü olduğunu ve Müslüman kaynaklı bazı yorum ve uygulamaların bu algıyı pekiştirir nitelikte olduğunu göstermeye çalışmaktır. Anahtar Kelimeler: counterjihad, islamlaşma, medeniyet cihadı, hicret, takiyye, zimmi.
Lübnan siyasal sisteminin açık ve kapalı medeniyet yaklaşımları
Bu çalışmada, medeniyet kavramına getirilen açık ve kapalı medeniyet yaklaşımının siyasi ve hukuki düzlemdeki teorik çerçevesini ve bu iki yaklaşımlar arasındaki farkı ortaya koyarak, bu yaklaşımın ışığında modern dönemde iki medeniyet yaklaşımını da tecrübe etmiş hususi bir vaka olarak Lübnan Devleti'nin son 200 yıllık tarihindeki siyasi olayları ve hukuki gelişmeleri ele alınmıştır. Açık ve kapalı medeniyet yaklaşımlarının Batı ile dünyanın geri kalanı arasındaki kırılmanın düzlemini yansıtması ve bu kırılmaya rehber oluşturabilecek bir yaklaşım olarak Recep Şentürk tarafından ortaya konmuştur. Bu anlamda Lübnan tarihinin 1860-1920 yılları arasında huzurlu geçen, açık medeniyet yaklaşımının modern devlet sistemi ile uyumlu yapısını gözlemlediğimiz mutasarrıflık dönemi incelenecektir. İkinci olarak Birinci Dünya Savaşı sonrasında Fransız mandası altında geçen 1920 ile 1943 yılları arasındaki kapalı medeniyet paradigmalarının bir idare sistemi oluşturmaya çalıştığı ve Batı medeniyet düşüncelerinin yerleşik medeniyet anlayışı yerine ikame edilmeye çalışıldığı dönemi; üçüncü kısımda ise Lübnan'ın Fransa'dan bağımsızlığını kazandığı 1943 sonrasından bugüne değin artık yerleşmiş bulunan kapalı medeniyet yaklaşımının siyasi ve toplumsal düzlemdeki sonuçları anlatılıp, sonuç bölümünde bu iki yaklaşım karşılaştırılacaktır.
The concept of matters and plants: Scriptural and philosophical approaches
There is today a dominant concept of materials and plants based on the positivistic view. Islamic classical views challenge the current concept of them. This thesis aims at a rediscovery of Islamic classical thought on the concepts of materials and plants with a special focus on their potential faculties. Since the 7th century, Islamic thought has provided humanity with the great knowledge of nature. The main sources of this study rely on the Qur'an, Hadith, and works of two Muslim intellectuals. However, there are small differences between perspectives of these sources, and thus this research also conducts a comparative exploration on the concepts of materials and plants among the above sources. This study has a great significance. The concept of materials and plants are changing. This thesis will show Islamic classical concept of them, and at the end, this will serve to charge our concepts of nature and environment. It will help to establish a meaningful relationship between human beings and nature. In addition, this study gives an important basis for environmental ethics, which is gradually attracting attentions of people all over the world. By the methodology, I analyze the concepts of materials and plants based on concerned verses of the Qur'an and authentic hadith reports and then display concepts of these souls from works of Ibn Sina and Erzurumlu Ibrahim Hakkkı.
Son dönem Osmanlı kelam geleneği: İsmail Gelenbevi (1730-1791) ve kelam risaleleri
Ismail Gelenbevi (d.1790) was an Ottoman scholar of great importance in the 18th and 19th Centuries. Most if not all studies to date have discussed Gelenbevi's contributions to the disciplines of logic, argumentation theory, and mathematics. This thesis provides an introduction to Gelenbevi's life and works by providing a succinct biography and an annotated bibliography of all of this works. Furthermore, it focuses on his contributions to the science of kalam, or systematic Islamic theology, by providing a study of his main kalam work, a gloss on Dawwani's (d.1509) commentary on Adud al-Iji's doctrinal primer. In particular, this thesis examines Gelenbevi's treatment of infinite regress, epistemology, human agency and subjectivity. These discussions demonstrate that Gelenbevi furthered the development of kalam in all of these areas, by providing new and more powerful arguments, in addition to providing a more in depth and unprecedented theorization of human subjectivity. The thesis also includes 6 editions of treatises by Gelenbevi that have not been published before: (1) a treatise on the tafsir of a Qur'anic verse; (2) a long treatise on the question of faith and action; (3) a treatise on priority (taqaddum); (4) a treatise on opposition (teqabul); (5) a treatise on the medium (wasita).
The jurisprudential foundations of human rights protection in the late Ottoman constitutional documents
I will attempt to examine whether the constitutional reforms in the late Ottoman Empire were indicative of political expediencies or religious legitimacies in this thesis. The subject matter of this thesis is the human rights protection of the late Ottoman constitutional documents. The Ottoman Empire underwent remarkable constitutional movements in the nineteenth-century. Throughout the century, numerous constitutional documents appeared between 1808 and 1875, which is characterized as "the Tanzimat period" in literature. These documents were the very first written official charts that guaranteed fundamental rights of all Ottoman subjects for both Muslims and non-Muslims. The question whether the rights, which these documents guaranteed, were shaped in conformity with classical Islamic jurisprudence or appeared under the influence of western institutions has been controversial in academic circles for a number of decades. Situating the discussion in the context of human rights in Islam and the history of law, in an interdisciplinary approach, I will attempt to reveal the Islamic jurisprudential foundations of the constitutional documents in terms of fundamental rights. The concept of `iṣmah has been utilized to protect and guarantee fundamental rights in Islamic jurisprudence since the very beginning of fiqh. In my thesis, I will examine the influence of the concept of `iṣmah on the human rights protection of the Constitutional documents in an attempt to illustrate Islamic jurisprudential foundations of the protection. The contention of this thesis is substantiated by the fact that the constitutional reforms were carried out (i) as a consequence of the metamorphosis of the state into a modern state, (ii) considerably in favor of the bureaucratic class, (iii) paying regard to the expectations of the Western states, and (iv) in conformity with Islamic jurisprudence in the Tanzimat era.
Din ve medeniyet arasındaki sınırın aşılması: İslam ve Batı medeniyeti çalışmalarında akımlar ve örnekler
What may account for the nature of relation between "religion" and "civilization" and how this is reflected in the study of Islamic and Western civilizations? Standing on the shoulders of formative figures in the field of "Civilization Studies", I studied how, on the one hand, religion and civilization are positioned among the various theories of civilization, and on the other hand, how this debate is particularly framed in the study of Islamic and Western civilizations. Apart from generally reviewing literatures in the field, the study closely examined the works of Ibn Khaldun, Toynbee, Hodgson, Spengler, Guizot, Jaspers, Comte, Halim Paşa, Al-Faruqi, and Karakoç. This review of theories revealed there were three major trends subsuming typical characteristics, especially in the study of Islamic and Western civilizations. These were Historic-empirical, Religiophilosophical, and Multiplex. These trends differ from one another based on the methods or approaches adopted; the preponderances of certain themes or contents; and their particular focus in the study of Islamic and Western civilizations. Of these trends, it was only in the study of Islamic civilization all the three trends were present. Except the Multiplex trend, the remaining trends generally dominate the study of Western civilization. This absence of Multiplexity could be attributed to the tendency that theories under this trend theorized about civilization, particularly Islamic civilization, without necessarily being confined to the traditional disciplinary confinements, which is rather common in the study of Western civilization. The study concludes although the nature of relation between religion and civilization tend to show divergence in the study of these civilizations, religion remains as an indispensable element. Keywords: Civilization Studies; Historic-empirical; Islamic civilization; Multiplexity; Religiophilosophical; Trends; Western civilization.
II. Meşrutiyet Dönemi Türk düşüncesinde doğu-batı algısı: İctihad ve Sırat-ı Müstakim dergileri örneği
Bu çalışmanın konusu II. Meşrutiyet dönemi Türk düşüncesinde Doğu ve Batı algısıdır. Tezin temel sorusu ise "İctihad ve Sırat-ı Müstakim dergileri etrafında kümelenen fikir muhitlerinin ben ve muhatap algıları neden ve nasıl değişti?" şeklinde belirlenmiştir. Bu bağlamda çağdaş Türk düşüncesini ve siyasetini şekillendirmede hala önemli bir yer işgal eden Batıcı ve İslami Yenilenmeci akımların 'kendi'ni ve 'başkası'nı nasıl tanımladıklarını açıklığa kavuşturmaya çalıştık. Elbette, tezin konusundaki zaman sınırlaması takdiri bir sınırlamadır ancak söylemlerin oluşumlarının tarihi-soyolojik bağlamdan etkilendiği gerçeğini dikkate alarak, çağdaş Türk düşüncesini şekillendiren söylemlerin daha belirgin olarak ortaya çıktığı II. Meşrutiyet dönemini tezin araştırma zamanı olarak belirledik. Söylemin inşasını tarihi ve sosyolojik bağlama indirgeme hatasında düşmemek için de "düşünce sosyolojisi" yöntemini tercih ettik. Böylece fikirlerin doğrudan söylemin inşasına etkisini ve temsilcilerinin konumları ile fikirlerin irtibatını anlamaya imkan bulunabileceğini varsayıyoruz. Tez dört ana bölüm ile sonuç ve değerlendirme bölümlerinden oluşmaktadır. Doğu-Batı kavramlarının Türk düşünce dünyasında nasıl ve niçin kullanıldığınının bağlamını vermek için tezin birinci bölümünde II. Meşrutiyet dönemi Türk düşüncesinin genel bir çerçevesini çizdik. İkinci ve üçüncü bölümleri ise doğrudan İctihad ve Sırat-ı Müstakim dergilerinin Doğu ve Batı algılarını tespit etmeye ayırdık. Dördüncü bölümde de sözü geçen dergilerin yaklaşımlarını, farklı başlıklar altında düzenlediğimiz tablolar halinde vererek karşılaştırmalı bir değerlendirme imkanı sunmak istedik. Çalışmanın neticesi gösteriyor ki, İkinci Meşrutiyet dönemi Türk düşüncesi bir yandan İslam ilim ve düşünce geleneği ile irtibatını sürdürmekte, öte yandan da Avrupa'nın düşünce mirası ile irtibat halinde bulunmaktadır. Buna rağmen, özellikle Sırat-ı Müstakim dergisinin, günümüzde Doğu ve Batı kavramları ile tanımlanan varlık alanlarına ilişkin kullandığı kavramlar ile seleflerinin kullandıkları kavramlar arasında güçlü bir irtibat ve belli bir süreklilik olduğunu gördük. İctihad dergisi çevresi ise İslami bir meşrulaştırma ihtiyacı duymasına rağmen, açıkça Batılılaşmaktan yana bir dil tercih etmektedir. Bu çerçevede "Sırat-ı Müstakim çevresinin mevcudu yeniden yorumlamayı, İctihad çevresinin ise yeni bir hayat tarzını ithal etmeyi tercih ettiklerini söyleyebiliriz.
"Münazara" and the internal dimension of argumentation ethics: A translation and commentary on Ahmed Cevdet's Adab-i Sedad in the light of sufism and western argumentation theories
Münazara is a contraction of Adab al-Bahs ve al-Münazara that could be translated as "Applied Ethics of Argumentation and Deliberation". It refers to an institutionalized discipline of disputation that started from al-Sarmaqandi's Risala fi Adab al-Bahs (mid. 13th century), comprehending juridical dialectics, philosophical dialectics and Sufi criticism of dialectics. After demonstrating the relation between Sufism and Münazara, I compare this eristic tradition with Western theories of argumentation, especially the New Dialectical School and the New Rhetorical School. I show that the main differences between these theories concern the understanding of "truth" and "ethics". Based upon Ahmed Cevdet Paşa's Adab-ı Sedad, I argue that argumentation discipline of Münazara does not only involve an external approach of ethics (i.e. etiquette) but also an internal one requiring from every discussant the control of their inner-self in order to implement a proper debate. I claim this internal dimension of argumentation ethics has not only a procedural role (conducting a proper debate) but also an epistemic one (defining what is not true).
İslam medeniyetinde misafirperverlik: İbn Battuta'nın Seyahatnamesinde fütüvvet
Hospitality is a familiar and valued ethic across times and civilizations. It has been worked upon as an ethical concept by ancient and modern philosophers. Hospitality is also a very broad term, starting with its familiar every-day usage and extending to topics such as migration, refugees, the other, the stranger and moving on to include the modern commercial hospitality sector. My aim is to take a holistic look at the concept of hospitality in the Islamicate civilization, in its normative and practical dimensions. This involves normative dimensions of hospitality in Islamic thought and the practical dimension, which is a case study of the great traveller Ibn Battuta's travelogue in terms of the hospitality that he was received with along his vast journeys. The normative dimension includes hospitality in primary Islamic sources of the Quran and the Sunnah, which provides the base for all Islamic ethical system. Moreover, it also includes the codification of Islamic ethics with the formation of futuwwa thought and organization in the ninth century Islamicate world. Here, I look at the principles of futuwwa in the futuwwa books, akhism and and zawiyas. In the practical dimension I want to answer the question of how these hospitality norms were applied in real life Islamicate civilization, a case study to look at the overlap between the normative and the practical. The time range set for the practical dimension is Marshall Hodgson's "Middle Periods" of the Islamicate civilization (950-1500 A.D.). These were flourishing times of Islamicate civil networks and institutions. The aim in this part is to look at how some of these institutions embodied the ethical notion of hospitality in their practices. In order to analyze this, I chose Ibn Battuta's travelogue as it is considered one of the most important books representing the society and the living conditions of the time. In this part I analyze Ibn Battuta's travelogue the Rihla, in terms of his experiences of being hosted as a traveller around the Islamicate world.
Imam al-Ghazali's understanding of human ontology and behavior
This study aims to scrutinize Imam Muhammad Al-Ghazali's (d. 1111) understanding of human ontology within a psycho-spiritual system as well as his explanation about the formation of human behavior. It also analyzes the spiritual formation of a human being with presenting certain spiritual constituents which are the reason-intellect ('aql), heart (qalb), spirit (ruh) and self (nafs). The heart, which is the subtle tenuous substance and the essence of the human beings according to Ghazali, is under the influence of both the interactions among these spiritual elements and the external factors like angels, demons and other human beings. Depending on the interactions and influences, this study investigates how and for what reason the psychological state of human beings changes based on the levels of the self (maratibu'l nafs). In light of this, it, then, presents the ideas of Ghazali about how behaviors of human beings are produced and about the motives behind the behaviors. For Ghazali, all the behaviors stem from the heart, so the state of the heart is the essential determinant in behaving in a certain way.
İslam savaş hukukunun kökenleri: Kur'an ve sünnet'te savaş
Savaş ve barış devletlerarası tarihin vazgeçilmez tartışmalarından olmakla birlikte temelinde meşruiyet tartışmaları yatmaktadır. Savaşın meşruiyetini ifade eden haklı savaş kavramı her ne kadar batı merkezli bir kavram olsa da çok eski zamanlardan itibaren kaynaklarda savaşın meşruiyeti hakkında farklı yaklaşımlar bulunmaktadır. Bu yaklaşımlardaki farklılaşmanın özünde ise epistemolojik, kavramsal ve kuramsal farklılıklar yatmaktadır. Tüm din, devlet ve medeniyetlerin savaş anlayışları ve savaş hukukları olduğu gibi İslam'ın da kendine özgü bir savaş kuramı ve buna bağlı bir savaş hukuku bulunmaktadır. İslam savaş hukuku, Kur'an ve Sünnet temelinde şekillenmiştir. Bu tezde İslam savaş hukukunu teori ve pratik olmak üzere savaş kuramı ve savaş hukuku şeklinde iki başlık altında sınıflandırdım. Savaş kuramı Kur'an ve Sünnet çerçevesinde olup bunun üzerine inşa edilmiş fıkıh ve kelamı da kapsamaktadır. İslam'da savaşın düşünsel ve inançsal arka planına dair kaynaklar incelenmiştir. Savaş hukuku da Kur'an ve Sünnet'te savaşın uygulamasının nasıl olduğunu kapsamakta olup; savaşa başvurma hukuku, savaş içi hukuk ve savaş sonrası hukuk olmak üzere üç ana başlık altında kaynakları çerçevesinde analiz edilmiştir. Çalışmada Kur'an ve detaylı izahı için Nesefî Tefsiri ve Ebussuûd Efendi Tefsiri, Hadis kaynağı olarak Sahîh-i Buhârî ve Sahîh-i Müslim, Fıkıh kaynağı olarak Şerhu's-Siyeri'l-Kebir gibi ilmi değere sahip eserlere başvurulmuş olup Kur'an ve Sünnet'te savaşın kuramsal ve pratik genel bir çerçevesi çizilmesi hedeflenmiştir.
İslam medeniyetinde bir sembol olarak cami: Günümüzdeki camiler etrafında dini, siyasi ve estetik tartışmalar
İslam medeniyetinde bir sembol olarak cami: Günümüzdeki camiler etrafında dini, siyasi ve estetik tartışmalar isimli bu çalışma; İslam mimari ve toplumsal tarihi açısından taşıdığı önemin yanında küreselleşen dünya ve değişen algılarla bugün tartışmalı bir şekilde ulusal ve uluslararası düzeyde ele alınan camileri incelemektedir. İslam medeniyetinin bir sembolü olarak caminin anlamı nasıl bir değişim göstermiştir? Bu bağlamda günümüzdeki camiler etrafında dini, siyasi ve estetik tartışmalar nelerdir? Sorusu irdelenmektir. İslam medeniyetinde merkezi bir öneme sahip olan cami, hem estetik hem de sosyal önemi açısından klasik ve güncel örnekler ile incelenmekte, medeniyetin değişim ve dönüşüm süreci bu güçlü sembol üzerinden okunmaya çalışılmaktadır. Yakın tarihte İstanbul'da inşa edilmiş; Şakirin Camii, Ataşehir Mimar Sinan Camii, Çamlıca Camii bu çalışmanı ana örneklerini oluştururken toplumsal tartışmalara konu olmuş farklı örnekler olan Köln Merkez Camii ve Roxbury Camii ve Kocatepe Camii de incelenen camiler arasında yer almıştır. Anahtar Kelimeler: İslam Medeniyeti; Sembol; Cami; Estetik; Mimari
How does islam treat people outside the Abrahamic religions? between Adamiyyah and İbrâhimiyyah
This thesis demonstrates the divergent positions on the legal status of the communities adhering to non-Abrahamic religious traditions in Islam. The thesis analyzes the generally accepted positions of the different schools of Islamic law on this question, with a primary focus on the inviolability of the basic axiomatic rights of these communities. This will be carried out by philological surveying and analyses of primary sources of Islamic law, engaging with their epistemology, and attempting to classify rationales of their adopted positions, in addition to commentaries and secondary sources on the topic. The thesis is divided into three interrelated sections. The first section deals with the theoretical framework of the status of these communities, generally referred to in the Islamic texts as non ahl al-kitāb, according to the schools of Islamic law. It uses the discussion on the jizya payment, a payment Muslims required from their non-Muslim subjects, as a key to understand this view. The discussions reveal a divergence on universality. Two positions are outlined in this context: the position of Adamiyyah, which accepts the inclusion of all human beings, including those who are non-Abrahamic affiliates, in the circle of inviolability by virtue of their humanity, and guarantees their rights under the Muslim rule; and the position of Ibrahimiyyah, which restricts the inclusion in inviolability and the acceptance of the jizya to the religious communities belonging to the Abrahamic traditions. The second section provides three examples of inclusion and inviolability of non-Abrahamic communities under the Muslim rule of Iran, North Africa, and India. The section shows that a vital underlying rationale for this inclusion is the framework established by the jurists. The third section highlights the continuity of the Adamiyyah tradition to the contemporary times and its validity to discussions of the rights of religious communities in today's world
Ampirik ve etik ayrımın ötesinde: İbn Haldun'un çok katmanlı siyaset ve eğitim felsefesi
Why is there a tension between the empirical and the ethical approaches in political and educational theory? For many, this tension is the legacy of David Hume who separated "is" and "ought" claims, and of logical positivism, which sharply distinguished between facts and values, hence between empirical and normative forms of inquiry as well. This philosophical principle has contributed to the indecision in the field of political theory over the last century, oscillating between empirical-positive and ethical-normative approaches, or in other words, descriptive and prescriptive perspectives, as scholars have struggled to balance these two frameworks. There was a division of labor: empirical political theorists focused on the empirical "is" of politics, while normative political theorists concerned themselves with the ethical "ought" of politics. Empirical approaches to political theory are concerned with discovering the causal laws that explain why society is the way it is. Normative approach to political theory, on the other hand, is concerned with ethical considerations, values, and prescriptions about how societies ought to be organized and governed. With the empirical and normative binary in mind, a contemporary reader of the Muqaddimah might find it challenging to ascertain under which of these two categories Ibn Khaldun's political theory most appropriately fits. To address this issue, the present study proposes revisiting Ibn Khaldun's political and educational theories in the context of the empirical-ethical binary and related discussions. One of the guiding questions of this dissertation is how helpful this distinction is for an adequate understanding of Ibn Khaldun's socio-political thinking generally, and his political and educational theories in Muqaddimah more specifically. This study reveals that Ibn Khaldun's political theory addresses both types of questions: the ontological-descriptive question about the state as "What makes a certain object a state?", and the ethical-normative question about the state as "What makes a state a just or an ideal state?". This suggests that Ibn Khaldun's political theory defies categorization within the narrow confines of the empirical-ethical binary. While Ibn Khaldun explicitly aimed to provide a scientific and realistic analysis of historical facts in a descriptive manner, differing from the utopian studies of the al-Farabi school, his work inherently serves a cognitive and instructive purpose to regulate society and guide policies, as implied in the name of his book, Kitāb al-ʿIbar. This aspect also speaks to the recent debate on ideal and non-ideal political theory, in terms of how to justify normative claims in order not to be 'too abstract.' The normative claims of the Muqaddimah are justified by the real facts of life and the divine revelation, which go hand in hand, providing a model for contemporary political theory that seeks to integrate the empirical and the ethical in how the ideal might be achieved in practical steps. The primary goal of this dissertation is to elucidate why there is no exclusion between the empirical and normative dimensions in Ibn Khaldun's political theory and to explain how this integration is achieved. The main argument of this study is that the philosophical foundations of Ibn Khaldun's political theory provide a multiplex framework in which the empirical and ethical dimensions coexist harmoniously, without being mutually exclusive or in binary opposition. It is this multiplex paradigm that makes his thought resistant to modern ways of thinking that typically operate within set dichotomies, i.e., distinctions that have translated into separations. Once the multilayered framework underpinning Ibn Khaldun's socio-political thinking is in view, we can then understand how his political and educational theories are simultaneously empirical and ethical, or descriptive and prescriptive, and why they are inevitably so.
Osmanlı fazilet eksenli siyaset teorilerine Kınalızade Ali Çelebi'nin katkısı
Despite the increasing numbers of studies in various disciplines (Hursthouse, 1999; MacIntyre, 1981, 2016; Skinner, 1996, 2002; Philp, 2007; Hankins, 2019; Vasalou, 2019), virtue ethics is an understudied branch of normative moral philosophy whose importance for the global history of political thought is not yet given its due credit. This thesis explores the early modern contribution of a sixteenth-century scholar to the articulation of a virtue political discourse that occupied a central space in the history of Ottoman political thought. Ali Bin Emrullah, otherwise known as Kınalızade Ali Çelebi (1511-72), authored one of the most important books on moral philosophy, titled Ahlāḳ-ı ʿAlāʾī,(supreme ethics) in post-classical Islamic thought in any Islamicate language. By focusing on various aspects of the book and by connecting the work to his contemporaries, I argue for the existence of an Ottoman tradition of virtue politics whose duration extends up to the demise of the empire. Through the example of Kınalızade, I show the particularities of virtue politics in two broad statements: i) Virtue-based political discourse takes into account a notion of politics in terms of articulating a morally-cultivated selfhood for the political subject, and ii) it is closely developed and formulated by means of the techniques of rhetorical prose composition. With these two statements, my study shows how the Ottoman tradition of virtue ethics is key to unearthing a particular trend of thinking about politics which was made possible by various virtue categories and instruments of eloquence.
Khalwat dar anjuman ('Solitude within society'): An Islamic ethico-mystical response to the dialectical tension between solitary and social life
This dissertation explores the question of why world civilizational traditions came to idealize either solitary or social life through a conceptual history and theoretical approach. It will be demonstrated that the idealization of one of these two ways of living was highly germane to the different ways in which civilizations had envisioned the good life, esp. in terms of virtue and piety. In addition, the study will investigate whether there existed a tension between life in solitude and one in society; what this dialectic entailed in theory; and how it was dealt with in practical terms. In this context, part one of the first chapter begins by assessing the civilizational traditions of Judaism, Buddhism, Greek antiquity, and Christianity. This assessment will be used as a counterpoint to frame the analysis in part two on the civilization of Islam. It will be argued that in light of Islam's vision of the good life, the tension between solitude and society becomes not only a relatively more prominent feature in Islam when compared to its counterpart traditions, but that it also becomes characteristic of a dynamic interplay and takes on much more of a polemical tone in the realm of both theory and praxis. Chapter two conceptually situates the said dialectic within the Islamicate civilization through a literary survey of Muslim advocates, detractors, and reconfigurators of solitude. Chapters three, four, and five draw on the Khwājagān-Naqshbandī Sufi ṭarīqah as a case study and mainly focus on their (ostensibly contradicting) principle of khalwat dar anjuman (lit: 'solitude within society'), viz. an ethico-mystical precept that stipulates mystical absorption in God and spiritual detachment from the world, and at the same time insists on maintaining an active social presence and participation in temporal activities. More specifically, chapter three delivers an ideational and socio-historical investigation on khalwat dar anjuman – a concept that is interpreted to be a reconfiguration of the conventional idea of solitude in both its ascetical and mystical variants – in order to pinpoint how it emerged as an alternative orientation for mystical attainment. Chapter four deals with more practical considerations, analyzing how the Khwājagān-Naqshbandīs negotiated other-worldly mystical pursuits and this-worldly mundane activities through their practice of khalwat dar anjuman. And, finally, chapter five concludes with an examination of how the Khwājagān-Naqshbandīs persevered in confronting modern realities vis-à-vis the principle of khalwat dar anjuman. It will be argued that khalwat dar anjuman was paramount in reconciling – as opposed to resolving – the dialectical tension between solitude and society from both a conceptual and practical standpoint. Moreover, although khalwat dar anjuman, admittedly, existed in both theory and practice prior to its formulation, its novelty lies in how it was conceptualized and turned into an operative principle at the organizational level, and also how it essentially transformed the general landscape of Sufi thought and salvational activity in the here and now. All in all, this dissertation partly aims to give substance to the point that khalwat dar anjuman served not only to justify and sanctify involvement in worldly matters, but that it also fostered a radical shift as a consequence of its basic premise which posits society as the sole arena where all spiritual and mystical activities are to be carried out and realized.
Silence acts: Pragmatics of silence in communication
Silence, like speech, is an act. Even though silence is more ambiguous than speech, its contextual effects enable it to carry an illocutionary force, as much as speech does. Silence that carries an illocutionary force is referred to as eloquent silence and is often equivalent to speech acts. This study attempted to build on the existing literature by investigating pragmatics of silence in a tradition where it plays an important role in communication, namely Islam. It is firmly based on an examination of the relevant texts in two sources which are the basis for the Muslim way of life: the Qur'ān and the Sunnah. To investigate pragmatics of silence in communication in the selected texts, we first identified the main elements of communication, namely speaker (S), message, addressee (A), and response. Second, we tried to answer the following questions: 1)What did S or A do with silence? and 2) Why did S or A remain silent? The answer to the first question helped us understand functions of silence and the answer to the second question helped us identify its motives. Each chapter ends with a discussion of pragmatics of silence in light of communication theory in general, and speech act theory, in particular. We concluded from our analysis that silence is not only equivalent to a performative but may, in some communication settings, be equivalent to a transformative act. We referred to silence that has a performative effect as performative silence and to silence that has a transformative effect as transformative silence.
What do we do with arguments?: Situating munāẓara in contemporary argumentation scholarship
This study introduces Ādāb al-Baḥth wa al-Munāẓara, literally the manners of inquiry and argumentation, to contemporary argumentation scholarship. To do so, I begin with a rather broad research question: Why do argumentation theories envision different goals? To what extent do different conceptions of self and truth shape this diversity? The thesis argues that our conception of truth and self informs our model of argumentation by shaping the theoretical preferences and analytical tools such that they determine what amounts to observation and violation of the idealized rules of argumentation. Employing the five components of a research program in argumentation as its methodology developed by pragma-dialectics, in the first section, I explore pragma-dialectics, epistemological approach to argumentation, virtue approach to argumentation, and formal pragmatics of Habermas. I show how these theories are developed within certain philosophies of reasonableness shaped by considerations of truth and self. In the second section, I proceed to Munāẓara. I introduce the discipline and provide its intellectual history and development, its procedure, the disagreements between Munāẓara scholars, and finally, its peculiarities in comparison with the contemporary theories. I argue that Munāẓara is a dialogically-epistemic agent-driven theory of argumentation. I trace its attention to the dialogue, knowledge, and virtue to the multiplex theory of truth. The self can gradually arrive at truth, first through justification and argumentation, second through virtue.