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Zusatztext Contemporary Rationalist Islam in Turkey is a seminal and welcome contribution to public and university library Islamic Studies collections, highly recommended. Informationen zum Autor Gökhan Bacik is Professor of Political Science at Palacky University in the Czech Republic. Zusammenfassung Nineteenth-century Istanbul was an intellectual hub of rich discussions about Islam, in which leading reformists had a significant role. Turkey today appears to be an intellectual vacuum to anyone searching for ongoing critical engagement with Islam. The main purpose of this book is to adjust this view of Turkey by showcasing the modern Turkish theologians who challenge mainstream Sunni interpretations of Islam. Labelling these theologians as ‘rationalist’ rather than ‘reformist’, the author reveals that their theology is inherently anti-establishment and thus a religiously-oriented challenge to the hegemony of the state-sanctioned Islam: for the rationalists, Turkey’s problems have their origins in the Sunni interpretation of Islam. Contemporary Rationalist Islam in Turkey analyses nine prominent scholars of Islam who provide a religious opposition to the Sunni revival in Turkey: Hüseyin Atay, Yasar Nuri Öztürk, M. Hayri Kirbasoglu, Ilhami Güler, R. Ihsan Eliaçik, Ömer Özsoy, Mustafa Öztürk, Israfil Balci, and Mehmet Azimli. These scholars’ writings are almost exclusively published in Turkish, so this book makes their ideas available in English for the first time. It also examines the scope, methodology and argumentation of the scholars’ theology, categorizing their theological interpretations from ‘historicist’ to ‘universalist’ and from ‘empiricist’ to ‘rationalist’. In identifying a new ‘rationalist’ school of Turkish theology and outlining its different manifestations, the book breaks new ground. It fills a significant gap in the literature on Islamic studies and reveals an understudied dimension of Turkey and Turkish Islam beyond the well-known ideas of the AKP and the Gulenists. Inhaltsverzeichnis Introduction The Political ContextThe sociology of Turkish RationalistsDefining Islamic RationalismExplaining the Cases: Historicists and UniversalistsThe Structure of the Book Chapter 1: The Fundamentals: Qur’an and Hadith The rationalists on Qur’anHistoricists on the Nature of Qur’anHistoricists Interpreting Qur’anUniversalists on the Nature of Qur’anUniversalists Interpreting Qur’anThe rationalists on HadithThe Status of TraditionsCriticizing the Hadith LiteratureThe Debate on Methodology Chapter 2: Law: Demystifying Shari‘a The Nature and the Status of Shari‘aCases: A Rationalist Interpretation of Shari‘aCorporal PunishmentSlaveryApostasyJihadThe Status and Rights of Women in IslamThe Law of Inheritance Polygamy Divorce Marriage with non-Muslims Beating Women Women’s Testimony VeilingWho is a good Muslim? A Moralistic Theory of PietyShari‘a in Practice: Comprehensive SunnahIslam and Politics: Towards a Theory of Opposition Chapter 3: History: “De-Islamizing” Islamic History Turkish Rationalists on History and CausalityRevisionism on the History of Qur’anRevisionism on Muhammad’s LifeRevisionism on the Early Islamic History Chapter 4: Politics and Society: What went wrong? The Mainstream Theory of DecayThe Rise of Sunni OrthodoxyAl-Ghazali: The Triumph of Anti-RationalismAsh‘arism: The Paradigmatic RootAl-Shafi‘i: “The Villain”The Umayyads: The Practical Distortion of IslamSufism: Popularization of Anti-RationalismContemporary Islamic Social Movements: A False Theory of Revival Conclusion ...
