Religious experience in Akşemseddin

As a result of the evidence regarding the existence of God being criticized by philosophers such as Hume and Kant, theistic thought entered into new searches. These searches created the concept of religious experience, which was shaped as a result of the new meanings attributed to the concepts of religion and experience. As a result of these results, religious experience has become a preferred way of proving the existence of God. This feature of mysticism has caused it to be seen as a religious experience. In this context, when the concept of religious experience in Islamic culture is considered, Sufis who interpret religion mystically come to the fore. Considering all these, Sufis stated that they experienced God in the light of these concepts. Akşemseddin, one of these Sufis, appears before us as a person who brought new dimensions to the literary, scientific and mystical philosophy of Sufism. While he put forward this idea theoretically in his poems, individual works and sermons, he tried to prove it practically in his life with miracles and extraordinary experiences. This study aims to discuss the importance and position of the concept of religious experience within Akşemseddin's religious thought system, after explaining the concept of religious experience as one of the problems of today's philosophy of religion. For this purpose, it will be possible to evaluate such experiences in Islamic culture with the idea of religious (mystical) experience in the philosophy of religion. In this context, we tried to reveal the place of the concept of religious experience in today's field of philosophy of religion, the types of this experience and how it is classified. Within the scope of our research, we explained how Akşemseddin expressed the concepts of religion, experience and religious experience in order to determine the place of religious experience in his thought system. We tried to reveal how Akşemseddin evaluated the evidence of religious experience and what kind of evidence he brought within the scope of proving the existence of God.