The theological aspect of modernist historicist thought: The example of Fazlurrahman ve Hasan Hanefi

Historicism, which emerged in the West under its own historical conditions, has generally come to the fore with its evaluations of practical rulings when it was transferred to the İslâmic world, as a method of understanding that foresees that some religious provisions that are agreed upon are historical and therefore need to be changed according to the conditions of the modern period and that the Quran should be read from a historicist perspective. In this respect, it has been a thought mostly addressed in the tafsir chairs in the academic world. However, in terms of its own consistency, it seems to be an academic necessity for a historicist approach not to be limited to the large-scale changes it proposes to make in the practical field and to build a theoretical ground that includes the re-determination of some basic concepts in religion. Based on this necessity, there have been those who have gone beyond the practical dimension mentioned above among those who defend historicist thought. For them, historicist thought has a comprehensiveness beyond the provisions that concern the field of transactions. For some, the Quran is the life of Hz. While it was considered as the word of the Prophet, it was seen as completely historical except for some basic messages, while other historicists expanded the scope of the historical to include Allah and his attributes. However, this dimension of the issue, which mostly concerns the science of theology, has not been addressed sufficiently. When the sensitivity and basic dynamics of religion in terms of belief are taken into account, the importance and necessity of discussing the theoretical dimension in question, rather than the practical dimension, is beyond explanation. Therefore, in this study, historicist thought has been tried to be revealed with its dimension in the fundamental issues of religion such as the conception of god and the conception of prophet through Fazlurrahman and Hasan Hanafi. Within this framework, the thesis introduces historicism and the science of theology in various aspects by using the qualitative method, and then, by applying qualitative and analytical methods, the relationship between the concepts of god and prophet of the aforementioned thinkers and their approaches on this issue and historicism has been discussed and the methodological consistency of this relationship has been evaluated. Finally, a conceptualization proposal is presented in the context of historicism, a new phenomenon for the İslâmic world, and the thesis is concluded with a conclusion section that includes some views and suggestions.