Looking at the heart of the matter

It’s no longer a secret. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) government saw EU membership as a useful tool to create a democracy where its political ideology, which in part is based on religion, could become a legitimate force. Because the Copenhagen criteria aims to create a liberal democracy that recognizes differences, the government started to implement the reform packages. When the government became sure of getting a date to start the accession negotiations, the religious differences between the European Union and the AKP grassroots topped the agenda. The attitude of the EU concerning adultery, coming after the European Court of Human Rights’ decision on headscarves, shows that the differences concerning gender relations, like polygamy and religious weddings, will also top the agenda in the future.

It appears that liberals, like intellectuals, businessmen and the media, are undergoing a parting of ways with the AKP following the passing of the democratization reforms. The public is seeing more of the consequences of the EU membership process as the AKP represents the "less modernized" portions of society.

The gravity of this problem, which has existed since the inception of the republic, is becoming more evident. When confronted with this, we can interpret it, just like before, from the secular-modernist perspective and call for the abandonment of the medieval portion of the religion. Liberal intellectuals, who have lost all contact with religion, may undertake some sociological analysis and say: "Society is yet to be urbanized. It is natural for villagers and those living in shanty towns to react in such a way."

The problem can also be interpreted from the religious perspective. At first glance, interpreting the founding principles of the republic may appear as religion’s interference in politics. That is not correct. The really important thing is the purpose. In other words, the purpose is to harmonize our republic and our religious beliefs with today’s norms and to democratize society as it modernizes, while strengthening the ethical values of the past.

For this, we need to study the 300 year-old formative history of Islam. These developments, which happened mostly in Baghdad or Basra, may not appear as important in today’s world. The members of the religious movements of the time laid their lives on the line to wage an intellectual battle and formulated the Sunni doctrine. The answer to many of the problems we face lie in this intellectual accumulation.

The growth of this search to resolve the issues, which only a few in Turkey participate in, may be very useful. However, most of the religious sections of society are far from waging the intellectual debates necessary, and choose to become part of the obedient congregations around sheikhs. The debates on religion in Turkey don’t even come close to the ones that took place during the Abbasid period in their depth and intensity. All the thinkers of that period, absorbed, not copied, the classical Greek thought and practice and utilized it successfully for their own purpose. These days, we rarely go beyond just reading the Greek classics for general knowledge, and that’s why our debates are almost always shallow.

In short, the religious based problems in Turkey should be assessed in terms of the differences between the Eshari and Hanafi-Maturide perspectives that are part of the dominant Hanbeli thinking of the Sunni doctrine. An intellectual debate should be initiated, beginning with an individual’s free will which will assess women’s status in the society. In order to strengthen moral values, one needs to recognize the individual’s power to choose between right and wrong. One’s religious devotion should no longer be made into a public spectacle, it should be left to one’s conscience.

Such a movement of renewal necessitates the total abandonment of the Wehabi perspective. "Judgment is God’s," blasphemy, internal migration and the finding of a solution in small groups are originally concepts of the Harici movement. The Harici is a renegade movement of Sunni Islam. There can be no democracy or modernization with this.