Turkey Classifying Not Revising Hadith

10 Responses to “Turkey Classifying Not Revising Hadith”

1. Nominally Challenged on March 4th, 2008 9:46 am

   The BBC’s article is apparently exaggerating stuff.

   The BBC??? Exaggerating??? What???

   Not possible …

   [/sarcasm]

2. Nobody on March 4th, 2008 10:28 am

   i think you should not take what gormez says at the face value .. it’s clear that he would deny that there is anything out of ordinary here .. they dont need such publicity as the bbc gives them …

   it’s clear that if you confront any person taking part in this project and ask him what they are up to, you are not going to hear something like: oh we are doing something very exciting here, theological revolution, a totally new interpretation of islam …

   they would try to downplay the significance of what they are doing and play innocent… i think the guy from your guardian link has put it right:
   
   I would take the Department’s minimizing of their initiative with a grain of salt as well since their reasons for doing so are that they don’t want to appear like liberals in the eyes of the conservative Muslim community
   

3. Drima on March 4th, 2008 10:44 am

   Same here Nobody, that’s why I said: “Maybe Mehmet Gormez is just telling them different stuff.”

   We’ll just have to wait and see.

4. Suzanne on March 5th, 2008 10:37 am

   The glass is half empty or half full.

5. Karim on March 5th, 2008 10:40 am

   I agree with Eteraz on this, it seems this initiative is primarily designed to get into the EU (although unlikely) and is an example of what the state should not be involved in. Creating a national religion is not reforming it.

6. Suzanne on March 5th, 2008 10:48 am

   But Karim, it can be a first step to actual reformation. If Mohammed Taha’s believes were more appreciated in Sudan, Sudan would have made the first step.

7. Nobody on March 5th, 2008 11:21 am

   # Karim on March 5th, 2008 10:40 am

   I agree with Eteraz on this, it seems this initiative is primarily designed to get into the EU (although unlikely) and is an example of what the state should not be involved in. Creating a national religion is not reforming it.
   

   eteraz for sure got much better ideas about how to achieve it .. in his another article he writes:
   
   So now that we know how extremists came to dominate Muslim dissent (and Salafism failed to check it) what are we to do about it? Three things.

   First, reject all juvenile calls for so-called reformations.

   Second, consider the necessity of a Sunni pope. (!!! NB)

   Third, consider the possibility of a liberal literalism (a sort of ideological inverse of extremist literalism).

   Source
   

8. Nobody on March 5th, 2008 11:33 am

   source was supposed to be this

9. Nomad on March 5th, 2008 6:33 pm

   and an UK media made the promotion ! we know in EU that the only state that wants Turkey inside is UK.

   well, I don’t expect they’ll change soon ; I used to know Turkey a few decades ago and there weren’t veils ; we could wander everywhere as westeners ; now you’d better watch your backs ;

10. Nobody on March 8th, 2008 11:31 am

    drima

    i remember that you have this preoccupation with the issue of women in islam … i think you may like this part of the interview with B.Lewis
    
    What is the place of women in the Muslim-Arab world?

    Another aspect of the same question is the place of women in society. Still today, the place of women in the Western world is very far from one of equality, and in the past it was even worse. But even at its worst, it was incomparably better than the position of women in the Muslim world.

    As far as I know, Christianity is the only religion which totally prohibits polygamy and concubinage. Even Jewish law has been somewhat equivocal on both these subjects at different times and in different places. This has an effect. In Christendom, you have women playing a major role - like Queen Elizabeth of England, Queen Isabella of Spain, Queen Catherine of Russia, Maria Theresa of Austria - something which would have been inconceivable in other societies. It also makes a difference to what we know about rulers. For example, if you look at the history of the Western world, you see we have biographies of major figures. If you look at the Islamic world, on the other hand, although there are many major figures, you will see that there are very few book-length biographies.

    Why is that?

    Because women can’t appear in them. And a biography without mothers or wives or mistresses lacks all context. I mean, if you write the history of Louis XIV of France, the ladies in his life, starting with his mother, are very important. You have this to some extent in the very early Islamic period. We know, for example, something about the wives and mothers of the very earliest caliphs; they were free Arab ladies. But the later ones were slaves in the harem.

    What effect has this had on Muslim countries?

    It’s a great source of weakness. The mid-19th-century Turkish writer Namik Kemal, as far as I know, was the first to raise this point. By that time in history, the Muslims were becoming keenly aware that they were falling behind the previously despised West. And not only were they falling behind, but they were falling increasingly under Western domination, because they were no longer capable of resisting. There was a long argument, which had been going on for more than a century, on why these “infidels” were succeeding, while “we inheritors of the true faith” were failing. They came up with all sorts of answers and tried all kinds of military, economic and political reforms, none of which worked very well. Kemal said that the reason “we have fallen behind is the way we treat our women.”

    He used two very striking metaphors about women and society. “We treat our women, at best, as jewels or musical instruments,” he said, indicating something pretty and entertaining, but with no independent existence. The result, he said, using a second metaphor, is that “compared with the West, our society is like a human body that is paralyzed on one side.”

    He said that women are not less capable than men, and by depriving ourselves of the services and talents of half the population, we are committing a double error. Not only are we losing the women, but we are subjecting the men, for their first years, to be brought up by ignorant and downtrodden mothers.

    A little later, there was an Egyptian - Qasim Amin - who came up with a similar argument. Amin had studied in Paris and acquired a French girlfriend. And he was passionately concerned about the position of women in the Muslim and Arab world. He wrote and argued about it. And there was some response. He was really the one who began the movement. Kemal had been a mere voice in the wilderness.

    Source
    

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