The Criticism of Materialism in Late Ottoman’s New Science of Kalām
Journal Title: ULUM - Year 2019, Vol 2, Issue 1
Abstract
Materialism, which reduces the whole of existence as simply matter and its interactions, and respectively ignores the intervention of a divine being into the universe; it is often traced back to a time when philosophy was born. However, when we study the historical process, we find that materialism was a thought that was generally rejected by the majority. With the enlightenment and secularism that came following the Renaissance, Reforms and 17th Century Scientific Revolution in Europe, materialism gained more followers. In the 20th century, in what was known as its golden era, it became a world view by manifesting itself in the religious, social, political and economic spheres of life. Materialism came to the Ottomans following the first half of the 19th century through students who went to the West and newly established military and medical schools. Despite materialism forming the backbone of debates on westernization and secularism (perpetuating worldliness) towards the end of the 19th century, this did not deter many intellectuals from endorsing much of the values that came with materialism, and it led to many repercussions within the political and social realms of the Ottoman world. On the other hand, materialism was not welcomed but rather disapproved of by many Ottoman scholars of kalām(mutakallimūn)such as Abdullatif Harputi (1842-1916), Izmirli İsmail Hakkı (1868-1946), Mehmet Şemsettin Günaltay (1883-1961) and Ömer Nasûhi Bilmen (1882-1971). However, their criticism has caused them to break away from the classical period mutakallimūnin some respect. We attempt to outline the mentioned late period Ottoman mutakallimūn’s critique of materialism and compare their views with the classical mutakallimūn’s seemingly materialistic worldview.
Authors and Affiliations
Mehmet BULĞEN
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP621182
- DOI 10.5281/zenodo.3356845
- Views 107
- Downloads 0
Textual Criticism In Shīʿa (PhD. Dissertation)
Beginning with ʿusūls, that is, the ḥadith booklets which were originally formed to record the Imam’s words back in the late second hijrī century, Shīʿī (Ithnā ʿAsharī/Twelver) ḥadith scholarship has developed a comprehe...
Attachment Theory and Child’s Perception of God at 4-6 Ages
Attachment theory has been studied in numerous researches since it was put forward by Bowlby who had that all infants were born with biological and emotional needs toward their mothers or caregivers. Since Bowlby’s attac...
God’s Omnipotence and Impossibility in al-Ghazālī and Thomas Aquinas
During the Middle Ages, most theological and philosophical works were translated into Latin language, such as Avicenna’s al-Shifā: Ilahiyāt(The Metaphysics of The Healing),al-Ghazālī’s Maqāsıd al-falāsifa(The Aims of Phi...
One of The Founders of The Hanafi School Zufar Ibn Hudhayl’s Approach to Istiḥsān
From the earliest times when schools of legal thought (madhhab) have started to form, there has been debate whether or not “istiḥsān (juristic preference; moving away from the implications of an analogy to an analogy tha...
The Influence of the 73 Sects Ḥadīth on the Classification of Theological Sects in Islamic Heresiographical Literature
This article deals with the influence of the “73 sects ḥadīth,” which states that Muslims will be separated into 73 sects, when Jews had 71 and Christians had 72 sects, and that only one of them will be saved whereas the...