Philosophy of Harpûtizâde Hacı Mustafa Lütfi Efendi with respect to his book Red ve İsbât proof and disproof

When we look at history of Islamic thoughts, we will see that scholars always have been respected. In the west, philosophy and philosophers are two things which come to mind first when we talk about thoughts. On the other hand, thoughts usually evoke ulema (religious scholars) in the Islamic world. Some claim that the history of Islamic thought is dogmatic, and regretting philosophy and reasoning, but it is not true. In this study, I will examine life of Harpûtizâde Haci Mustafa Lutfi who served as mudarris (teacher in madrasah) and mufti, wrote books, and educated many students in the 19th Century when there were dramatic changes everywhere. It is commonly assumed that a religious scholar cannot be a philosopher, or religion and philosophy cannot be together. However, although Mustafa Efendi is a religious scholar, muderris and muftu, he dignifies philosophy and emphasizes reason, logic, and science in his works. He discusses that there is no conflict between religion and science. If Mustafa Efendi and many other Ottoman scholars are studied, it will be seen that Muslim scholars widely studied philosophy, and claims about the lack of philosophy in the Ottomans are not true. This study has three chapters excluding introduction chapter. In the introduction chapter, we studied history of Islamic Philosophy within the time frame when philosophy entered to Islamic World until Harpûtizâde Haci Mustafa Efendi?s time. We also analyze philosophy?s effects on Turkish-Islamic World. Moreover, this study provides some comparisons in terms of similarities and differences between Mustafa Efendi and philosophers from the West and Islamic World. At the end of this study are given an extensive bibliography. Keywords: Harpûtizâde, Buchner, materialism, prove-i-obligatory, intellectual movements