The contributions of Gumushanevi Dervish convent on Islamic economy in Turkey

This study examines The Gümüşhanevi Dervish Convent which, with its own methods, looked for a way to economic, military, political and socioeconomic backwardness that began with the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and its influences extended over Republican Turkey. The backwardness before the West continued after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in Turkish Republic who took foreign systems as models. Ahmed Ziyaüddin Gümüşhânevi, who raised concern about mental and moral dimesions of this economic decay which continued in the late 19th century even after the establishment of Turkish Republic, called on Ottoman society to raise awareness, enlightenment and Islamization through its historical root with the help of his Dervish Convent. Because he attributed the cause of this socioeconomic backwardness to the changing mindset due to the moral collapse, and to the separation from moral and Islamic life as a consequence of this change of mentality. The aim of religion is not only to prepare people for the life in Hereafter but also to make the life in the world livable. Human beings have questioned the concepts of Being, Hereafter, Happiness, Good and Evil from their minds since the creation of the world and they have made these abstract concepts concrete in their minds by being addressed to the divine message. Despite the fact that Gümüşhânevi, with his accurate detection and diagnosis, managed to enable upbrining of well behaved individuals and realization of various investments with interest-free borrowings in accordance with the practical remedies he had developed among his disciples, in short terms he failed to be effective in the whole society and naturally he could not prevent the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. However, Gümüşhânevî, who is the foresight owner and the sheikh of the Khalidi branch of the Naqsh sect, was conscious of the fact that the tenets on the issue he was trying to spread would take effect in the long term and in this context he provided models that would produce solutions to socioeconomic development of countries, of Turkish Republic being in the first place.