The criticisms on Force and Matter in the context of new science of kalam

Scientific materialism, asserting matter as the mere reality, had gained an enormous momentum after the scientific revolution and the enlightenment. Scientific materialism was introduced to the Ottoman Empire by the establishment of Western-style schools and the translation of the works in which materialist ideas were simplified and popularized. The most resonant of these works is Louis Büchner's (d. 1899) Force and Matter (Kraft und Stoff, 1855). Force and Matter is translated by the fierce defenders of materialism Baha Tevfik (d. 1914) and Ahmed Nebil (d. 1945) in 1911 and qualified criticisms were written on this translation by the intellectuals of the period. The works that we will examine within the scope of our research are Ismail Ferid's (d. [?]) İbtâl-i Mezheb-i Maddiyyun (İzmir, 1895), Harputizade Hacı Mustafa Lutfi's (d. 1920) Red ve İsbât (İstanbul, 1912), Şehbenderzade Ahmed Hilmi's (öl. 1914) Huzûr-ı Akl ü Fende Maddiyyun Meslek-i Dalâleti (İstanbul, 1914) and Ismail Fenni Ertugrul's (d. 1946) Maddiyyun Mezhebinin İzmihlâli (İstanbul, 1928). The inexorable rise of materialism after the Second Constutional Era brought the renewal of Kalam considering the demands of the age into the question. Our aim in this study is to reflect the atmosphere that makes the construction of the New Science of Kalam indispensable and to draw attention to substantial function of Kalam that is shedding light on the problems of belief of the age.