What is Modernity?

Modernity is the name given to a system of social values that emerged with the Enlightenment philosophy in Europe in the 18th century and spread all over the world over time. In general, it means being against tradition and breaking away from it. This understanding is inherent in all transformations and changes in the individual, social, economic and political fields.

Modernity is derived from the Latin word “Modernus”. The dictionary meaning of Modernus means "now" and emphasizes the new. However, one of the most basic jokes of modernity is that it describes the situation of "disconnection and differentiation".

Modernity has expelled the transcendent and the sacred from human life and has placed humans, whom it has made captive to scientific knowledge, at the center of its system. He tried to define everything that is included in the sacred by the human mind. Since modernity is against transcendence (holiness), it is not possible to understand and explain transcendental phenomena such as revelation and non-physical entities such as souls and angels.

Modernity is a mentality based on human self-sufficiency, as in the Enlightenment philosophy. Thinking that the human mind is sufficient in every field, he took rationality as a criterion in all areas of social life. Therefore, he put forward that man does not need traditions and can make his own history. He thinks that only his mind is enough to guide people here. He has shaken the authority of loyalty especially God.

The concept of reason offered by modernity is inextricably linked with liberation. Liberating reason is equivalent to freedom, equality and property. With this idea, all social life has been rationalized. Democracy is also a product of modernity. You can read how democracy is full of contradictions in our article titled "Islam and Democracy".

Modernity is the work of emerging capitalism in the 17th century and proceeded with its worldwide spread. However, today globalized capitalism has endangered universal civilization with many contradictions. This means that modernity has entered a crisis. Because the one step after the principle of "History (tradition) should be abandoned", which is the only common god of modernists, is a big "nothing".

In fact, modernity is an ideology of Western centrism. It is a way of thinking that aims to build a Europe-centered world. To achieve this goal, cultural propaganda activities were continued for a long time. However, the expected result was not that bright. After the 1970s, these activities lost their appeal. Because the war and terror that surrounded the world after the 1970s showed people that this path was wrong and dead-end.

Modernity has today become a phenomenon that is tantamount to moral decline and instability. Because, by denying people's natural needs and instincts, it has directed them to a social structure that is hostile to the development of human personality. In modern societies, people are not freer and more peaceful than in previous societies. Because it is under much more control and pressure than in ancient societies. People who are successful and do not have financial power are pushed out of society. Therefore, modern man aims to be successful in his life only to earn money and gain.

According to modernity, humans exist to produce and especially to consume. However, consuming less than what is produced will ensure that consumers are healthy, and the unconsumed portion will be sent to those in need, ensuring that people do not go hungry. Today, while some people consume too much, some people suffer from hunger. According to statistics, 50 years ago, the income of the richest 5% of the world was 30 times higher than the income of the poorest 5%. While this rate was 60 times 25 years ago, it increased to 114 times in 2002. This is a result and contradiction of modern understanding.

Today's technological products, such as television and mobile phones, have not added much to humans. People who moved away from divine and sacred concepts lost their own identities. They no longer have their own idiosyncrasies. They have become robots whose thoughts and beliefs are controlled from outside. Wars aimed at destroying each other and other people continued for centuries. People were filled with hatred and hostility towards each other. The result of this is the collapse of the civilization they thought they had established.

 

Principles of Modernity

Modernity claims that it is based on rational principles such as reason and experiment. This is not entirely true. Because there are a series of paradigms on which it is based. Paradigm is a prediction that is adopted as a leading principle on any subject, whose accuracy is not doubted, and is excluded from discussion. Some of the paradigms of modernity are evolution, progress, innovation, scientism, individualism and secularization. However, each of these principles is being shaken today, and therefore representatives of modern culture are experiencing serious concerns.

Evolution: Evolution forms the basis of modern culture. According to the theory of evolution, all living things, societies and cultures transform from "primitive to advanced". This theory is valid for all beings. However, from today's species, especially after human, they cannot determine what kind of species will emerge. This is a closed end for them and a point where they contradict themselves.

Modernists view societies as mechanical entities. They accept that they change their structure like changing clothes. With an imperialist logic, they claim that all cultural formations outside the West will eventually be erased. What pushes the West to think this way is the economic prosperity of the West compared to other countries in the last 3 centuries. However, the truth of where this wealth comes from is hidden from people's eyes. Capitalism is trying to impose modernity on the world to protect itself. As an example, we can give the legal guarantee in the USA that the theory of evolution cannot be discussed.

According to modernity, evolution is one-way. However, such an evolution requires the existence of a super-existent constructor. This is only the Creator. However, the theory of evolution does not accept a creator; He accepts that everything happens spontaneously. Each philosopher has explained this phenomenon in his own way. Interpretations such as mental power, technology, spirit, production process and social differentiation have been made about the phenomenon at the center of this development. This means that the principle at the center of evolution is not an absolute principle. If it were so, everyone would agree on it. Therefore, the processes depicted are what the philosopher expected to happen.

Progress: Modernists claim and believe that everything is moving towards the better, the positive. However, progress only occurs in material phenomena such as economic development and technology. However, they can never explain spiritual and cultural formations. With the development of industry and the advancement of technology, weapons are being produced to destroy each other. These weapons will drown the world in blood and fire. Can people be happy and live in peace this way? What kind of understanding of progress is this?

Progress is a phenomenon related to the production and consumption mechanisms of industrial capitalist societies and cultures. These are not measures of spiritual values. Economic and technological progress has brought about many moral problems in society and people. Values such as being truthful and not violating someone else's rights have been forgotten for individuals whose aim is only to gain profit. This means moral collapse in societies. There is no such thing as moral values in modernity. According to them, if you have money you are happy, if you don't have money you are doomed to struggle.

Innovation: According to modernity, everything becomes new as it evolves and progresses. According to them, everything new is good. It is possible to give examples of these claims being false. Newly produced weapons are more lethal. Should we perceive them as better things? If spiritual values are not taken into account at all and one lives only with purely material satisfactions, any innovation can be attractive to the human soul. But is this an absolute gain for people?

Science: Modernity accepts that the concepts that make up our knowledge come from the objective world. It is not possible to understand Sufi knowledge with this understanding. Modern science is based on logical hypotheses. These hypotheses cannot be proven true. In this respect, scientific knowledge is a rational fictional phenomenon. We cannot find a satisfactory answer to the question "why" in scientific knowledge, but we can find an approximate answer to the question "how". In this science, questions like "Why do humans exist?", "What is the purpose of life?" are ignored.

Modernity confronts knowledge against emotions and beliefs. Many human phenomena that make humans human, such as belief, emotion and intention, that do not take reference from science are found meaningless. There are three types of sources of knowledge: before the object (transcendental), after the object (nominal), mental content "conceptual". Modernity accepts only nominal knowledge, not super-objective knowledge. For this reason, it is incapable of explaining many events in the universe. He denies the existence of jinn and angels, but they exist and are with us in the universe.

Modern science is not as naive (natural) as it seems. This science includes a worldview, that is, it serves as an ideology. Modern science is a philosophical ideology of positivism. Therefore, the positive understanding of science is a paradigm of modernity. It is claimed that the modern understanding of knowledge will solve all people's problems over time. People have believed this claim for a long time. However, many problems could not be solved with these approaches and the claims lost their meaning. Environmental problems, diseases, wars, terrorism and starvation have been increasing for centuries and are heading towards insolvency.

Individualism: Individualism is the reduction of all kinds of human formation to one's own doing. In this formation, divine connections are ignored. In this respect, individualism is a driving force that reveals one's selfish desires and lowly feelings. In modernity, the individual is the source of accurate information. However, reality is something that exists outside the individual. According to modernity, reality is within the boundaries of the individual's logic, and what is not rational is unreal.

Since modernity is an individualist mentality, it brought personal development, liberal thought, competition and, ultimately, rapid development. This process is a race in which only the strong can exist, not the right ones.

Although it is claimed that individualism liberates the person, many problems have also arisen. It has led individuals to fight for superiority over each other. This eventually led to conflict. As a result, it caused the individual to melt down and lose many of his characteristics. Individuals are herded and managed through mass media. This prevents people from having personalities. In the end, this means that principles such as rights, freedom and democracy gradually lose their meaning.

Another problem caused by individuality is the problem of identity. Some people see their own identity as superior and humiliate others, or place them below their own identity. In other words, some people see others as inferior, suppress and ignore them. This causes violence. Therefore, the source of most of the terrorism in the world today is modernity.

Secularism: The mutual separation between religion and the world is one of the most fundamental principles of modern social life. The doctrine of modernity, which rises on the philosophy of Enlightenment, tries to organize the world outside the sacred area. For this reason, he is not at peace with religion. He sees religion as a field of personal belief rather than a field of action. It reduces religion to private life and combines social life with the world. Secularism or worldliness is a principle of modernity that is reflected in everything. Undoubtedly, everything has a worldly side, but nothing can be reduced to mere worldliness. For example, according to our Sufi knowledge, matter is also alive and has a soul.

Secularism is being shaken today, but it can continue its existence with the support of modern societies. The following criticisms are made against secularism:

● Throughout human history, religions have solved social problems and have never been more problematic than the secular world.

● Secularism has created a moral vacuum. Because he handled the problems by staying within himself, thus the inner nature and basis of legitimacy of the affairs were lost.

● Secularism is not a naive process. It came to life with the pressure of authority. This is not compatible with being a libertarian.

● Conscientious processes have been injured by excluding religion.

Secularism generally refers to the emergence process of an individualistic morality. Being rational is its infrastructure. Thus, the values of transcendental religion have been eroded. However, this caused chaos to emerge in societies and thus caused people to turn to religious beliefs again.

Modernity is not at peace with religion. It systematized all deviations from religious values. While doing this, he established himself here by creating a gap between social life and religion. As a result, generations that were faithless, stray and had no ideals were created.

In fact, religion is man's spiritual home where he takes refuge and is his fixed spiritual address. Modernity has dispersed this home and left many people without an address. Modernity has negatively affected individuals and society by removing religion from the social and public sphere.

Secularism is a system that replaces religion as the controller of social life. Accordingly, secularism is an armor created against society. With the help of this armor, religion is kept under surveillance and control by the state.

Modernity, which tries to construct the world order with reason and uses the logic of enlightenment philosophy, knows that the only phenomenon that will disrupt its fiction is religion. For this reason, he wants to remove it from all social areas. Thus, it tries to prevent religion from intervening in the production and consumption process in society due to moral concerns. For this reason, it keeps religion under surveillance and control with the principle of secularism. The simplest example in this regard is exploitation. Capitalism's main purpose is profit and it exploits the people it governs. Religion is completely against exploitation.

Modernity emphasizes ostentation; for them, there is no such thing as private (secret). People's private lives are revealed. One wants to enjoy it. Sexuality is one of them. In reality, having everything happen publicly makes people unhappy. But people are pushed into this with the idea of being free. This lies in capitalism's desire to make profits. Sexuality and free life open many new doors of profit for capitalism.

Modern culture is selfish. There was no hesitation in killing millions of people for one's own benefit. It is estimated that an average of 100 million people died in colonial movements between the 16th and 19th centuries.

Modernity is an expansionist mentality. They exhibit an expansionism based on imperialism. Because capitalism can sustain itself through expansionism. Since modernity is the work of capitalism, it progresses with its spread throughout the world.

Modern culture is not universal but global. Because being universal means that a culture becomes the common value of humanity, wherever it occurs. Justice is a universal value. It has no country or nation. Democracy is a global value and not universal. Because, first of all, it is a political system that ensures the good functioning of the industrial capitalist order.

The modern mentality is based on the belief in a new and superior situation. Modernity has no concrete existence. It has no physical indicator other than economic development. It is a projection system that finds its reflection in everything.

 

Islam and Modernity

Societies representing modern culture are today struggling to rebuild hostility towards Islam and are becoming more aggressive as their paradigms are about to collapse. When those who believe that modernity will eliminate religion see that this is not successful, they think that religion must be actively intervened and they implement this. According to Western modernists, the religion of Islam must be eliminated. Otherwise, modern culture will lose its future. For this reason, Western modernists are trying to reconstruct the Islamic religion in accordance with their own understanding. The USA's Moderate Islam and the EU's Euro Islam projects were put forward for this purpose. Military and political attacks on Islamic countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq are no longer enough. They aim to destroy Islam by redesigning the Islamic religion. In this context, it is claimed that most of the Hadiths are not true and it is stated that some verses of the Quran have lost their validity and therefore the Quran should be rearranged. The modern world resorts to violent military interventions to achieve these goals. Many terrorist acts in Islamic countries are organized by Westerners. Excuses are created to justify these actual interventions and these are regularly reflected in the Western public opinion.

The religion of Islam is incompatible with the basic principles of modernity. However, the opposite of Islam is not modernity. Being against modernity does not mean refraining from using the science and technology produced by the West. Because modernity is not identical with technology. In no era throughout history has technology been identified with any form of mentality or civilization.

The construction and use of technique along with modernity began with the philosophy of the Renaissance. The aim here is defined as man's domination over nature. Dealing with wilderness is an important goal of modern culture. However, the techniques used in industry later plundered, squandered and polluted nature. Because capitalism only sees profit, so the rest is just a detail. Exploitation of nature's resources through technology does not concern them.

In Islam, nature is considered a deposit of God to humans. Nature is a blessing given to humans by God, and humans should appreciate this blessing. However, when this understanding was tried to be eliminated by modernity, technology began to dominate nature in a rude way. This dominance was used as a tool of pressure on other people. Learning about people's private characteristics over the internet is an example of this. Modernity tries to change the mentality of all people with the help of technology. Many perception mechanisms are activated for this purpose. Thus, modernity tries to manage and direct people as they wish with the help of technology.

From the perspective of Islam, economic success has no meaning apart from other areas of life. The Western economy is successful in terms of creating goods and wealth. However, the West has reached its current level of prosperity by using capitalist means of production and cheap labor obtained through legitimate or illegitimate means, damaging the environment when necessary. However, this is not acceptable in terms of Islam. Because Islam basically rejects unfair gain. According to Islamic belief, whoever kills one person unjustly is as if he had killed all the people, and whoever keeps one alive is as if he had kept all the people alive. Therefore, in the Islamic understanding of economics, there is profit earned through honest means, which is called halal lokma.

The religion of Islam is not against economic development and progress. One of the duties of Muslims is to improve the world. But this zoning should be for the benefit of societies. In this respect, all kinds of economic, scientific and cultural activities aimed at the benefit of all people are considered as worship. In a hadith, the Prophet (pbuh) states the following:

“If you know that the apocalypse will come tomorrow, do not hesitate to plant a sapling you have.”

Being a Sufi person does not require one to stay away from worldly affairs. Sufism prohibits man from serving his own self unnecessarily. It is obligatory on every Muslim to work for the welfare and health of people. Therefore, the saying "religion is opium, it prevents people from progress" is wrong. These words are expressions made up by Westerners to distance Muslims from Islam.

Islamic metaphysics lived yesterday, still lives today, and will continue to live in the future. For this reason, Islamic metaphysics has produced and will continue to produce answers at a religious and even intellectual level to the challenges of  modernism that arise in the form of historicism, rationality and empiricism .

 

Criticisms of Modernity

1) Modernity is not a model of universal progress. The development models that the West exported to other countries did not develop these countries, and underdevelopment continues. Therefore, the universality of modernity is meaningless and this claim is eroded every day.

2) Modernity has made social projects such as human rights dysfunctional. Although they claim that it honors human personality, the category difference between people has increased and deepened day by day. They introduced feminism by claiming that women were oppressed in non-modern societies. On the one hand, they claimed that they were based on respect for women's personality, and on the other hand, they used her as a means of consumption. Never in history has women been abused to this level. By using a woman's sexual appeal in advertisements, her body has been perceived as a sexual object thanks to her nakedness. In no culture in history has a woman's sexual appeal been publicly displayed in this way and turned into a consumer item.

3) Modernity has degenerated urban life. Many problems surround today's cities. An intense sense of anarchy and terror prevails in the cities. Traditional and religious virtues such as tolerance and compassion have disappeared over time and have been replaced by violence and terror. Since modernity destroyed people's opportunities to live in rural areas, everyone was crowded into cities, but they also had to live together in cities. This intertwined lifestyle has reached very distressing levels such as disorder, prostitution, injustice and imbalance. The density of tall buildings in cities is the source of these negativities. The hadith that says "Do not build tall buildings, otherwise adultery and prostitution will increase" expresses this situation very well.

State institutions, which have difficulty controlling large masses in cities, are becoming increasingly despotic and turning into a police state day by day. The open society that modernity prides itself on building is increasingly closing. In cities, concepts such as neighborhood disappear and everyone lives an introverted life. The media also plays a big role in this. Everyone started to express themselves in the media and stopped noticing the person next to them. People's minds are manipulated by the information pumped out by the media. This has caused people to completely lose their personalities and become remote-controlled robots. Those who want to cause terrorism and anarchy can easily organize and take action through the media. People are easily provoked through the media by ideologies and concepts that have become people's nerve endings, causing tensions in society. As a result, it is estimated that social explosions will increase. This is a truly sad situation for the peace and health of the society.

4) The paradigms of modernity are bankrupt. Concepts such as globality, universality, pluralism and secularism have become contradictory with each other. These concepts are not innocent. Because these are tools of a Western-centered hegemony. Contradictions between these concepts have increased. In many societies, these concepts have lost their credibility and reputation.

5) Information has become a tool of power. Because through knowledge, some can dominate others. Being an information society serves to legitimize the interests of some people. Information obtained through scientific research is a means of generating profit. The purpose of the economic models produced is to increase returns. Information produced in fields such as the pharmaceutical industry and the weapons industry creates new powers and increases tensions between societies. Scientists are also abused by being employed in these jobs.

6) The transformation of societies into modernity has led to the emergence of problems that have never been seen before in human history. Mobility, transience, rootlessness, loss of identity, work anxiety, consumer fetishism, man's disconnection from the spiritual world and tendency towards violence have been realized by demolishing some things and building other things in their place. However, most of the newly built buildings were not healthy and did not make humanity happy.

7) Alcohol, drugs, gambling, prostitution, bribery and nepotism have become indispensable parts of modern life. So much so that modernity can present sexual deviations as a human right without shame. In fact, these deviations are encouraged, and openness and nudity are encouraged as a modern attitude. On the other hand, a serious war is being waged against moral values and symbols such as the headscarf.

The modernity project ends before it reaches its desired goals. Because expectations and hopes were not realized. There is no possibility of it happening in the future. Evolution, progress, secularization, and even modernization itself are no longer considered absolute paradigms.

 

Status of Muslim Societies

Islam spread everywhere shortly after its emergence in the 7th century. People in the Middle East, North Africa and Turkestan regions adopted Islam and established a civilization under its light. The prosperity and peace brought by Islam covered these regions, and science, art and culture produced many original works that appealed to the whole world. This rise reached its peak between the 8th and 12th centuries. Muslims relaxed, imagining that they had reached the top. This caused them to pause. In addition, during this period, many political events were encountered that stopped and regressed the rise of Islamic societies.

In these centuries, European societies were in a dark period and lived in a feudal and despotic structure. Those who ruled in Europe organized crusades to Islamic countries under the pressure of the church. Because they could not stand the rise of Islamic countries. The Crusades were held between 1096-1272. The people in Europe attacked the lands held by Muslims with various promises and partially captured some regions. They even occupied Jerusalem. Even though Muslims took back these occupied places, these wars caused great economic and political damage to Muslim societies.

The Mongol empire in Central Asia attacked Anatolia and eastern Europe between 1220 and 1265 to expand its territory. The Mongols invaded Anatolia, shed a lot of blood and destroyed many places. The city of Baghdad, a center of science, was plundered by the Mongols. Many scientific works were destroyed by them. This invasion significantly hindered the progress of Muslims. Politically and economically, this region has been unstable. Later, the Ottoman state was established in 1299. The Ottoman Empire made progress again and expanded the country's borders to Europe and Asia, turning it into an empire. Stability, peace and prosperity filled the country again. During this period, Muslims produced many new works in science and culture. The Ottoman Empire maintained its power until the 17th century, but from the moment it imagined that it was at the peak of its power, it began to decline and gradually entered a process of social disintegration.

After this, Muslim countries lost their strong stance against the West. The West, on the other hand, became richer with the industrial revolution it carried out, and the balance of power in the world has changed to the detriment of Muslims until today.

Islam has been cited by some people as the reason why Muslim societies are weak against the West. Most of these people are Western orientalists. According to their claim, the religion of Islam is against progress and knowledge. For this reason, Muslim societies are poor and weak today. These claims are certainly intentional and aimed at misleading Muslims. These are efforts to alienate Muslims from their religion and eliminate the religion of Islam.

The West should not forget that Muslim societies were more advanced than the West between the 10th and 15th centuries, and the West did not gain technical and economic superiority before the 17th century. 14 centuries ago, Islam created a theory that included the integration of all structures of human life (technical, economic, social, psychological), which the Western world had only recently discovered. This theory is not only in theory, but has also been applied in practical life in matters such as urbanization, trade, agriculture, production and fair sharing, which constitute a natural dimension of Islamic civilization.

Muslims settled in Andalusia starting from the 8th century and taught Islamic civilization to Europe. During this period, Muslims were much more advanced than Europeans in many areas such as urban planning, agriculture, mining, clothing, jewellery, construction and music. They were teaching these to Europeans. In addition, they were also very advanced in science. Muslims, who knew how to make paper in the 8th century, wrote and published many scientific books. The city of Cordoba was a center of science and culture to which European students flocked. All these are events long before the Renaissance. It is possible to see the influence of Islamic culture of that day even today. Because there are many Arabic technical terms in Spanish.

All these are proofs that the religion of Islam is not against science, economic progress and technology. If Muslim countries are poor and weak today, this should be sought not in the religion of Islam but in the mistakes in life and thought of Muslims. Without examining the reasons for the present superiority of the West, Muslims believed that Islam was causing a decline by falling for Western propaganda. For this reason, they believed that it was necessary to reform the Islamic religion. As a result, many movements and ideas that wanted to renew Islam emerged, supported by Western missionaries. However, all of these movements and thoughts are contradictory and do not reflect reality.

Islam is a religion of revelation and a system of belief and action established by Allah Almighty. A Muslim with true faith easily realizes that a system like this does not need reform. Because Allah Almighty is omnipotent and encompasses everything with His knowledge. There are no flaws or cracks in the system He describes. It should be known that the problem here stems from Muslims not fully implementing Islam. If Muslims truly practice Islam fully, they will rise again with the help of Allah:

“Do not relax, do not be sad, if you truly believe, you are definitely the superior.” (Surah Al-i Imran, verse 139)

However, in order for Muslims not to reach this awareness, their minds are confused by constant broadcasting. Many comments that are contrary to Islam are heard every day. Most of the hadiths are denied and some of the verses of the Quran are requested to be canceled. Many people who are theologians confuse the minds of Muslims with many un-Islamic statements such as "There is no questioning or torment in the grave", "There is no such thing as a Huri", "Miraj event is not real", "Prayer is three times a day". In addition, non-Sunnah movements such as Salafism, Wahhabism and Shiism are spreading. All of these have only one purpose, and that is to make people accept the idea that "Islam is now obsolete and it is necessary to reform it."

Islam does not need reform. Quran verses and hadiths are universal. Their validity and right are permanent. Muslims must thoroughly understand these distortions and reject them. The religion of Islam is not something produced by man. It is the last religion that Allah sent to people and it will remain unchanged until the day of judgement. Allah will complete His religion even if the unbelievers do not want it:

“They want to extinguish the light of Allah (the Holy Quran) with their mouths, and Allah is not pleased. But Allah wishes to complete His light even if the unbelievers do not want it.”, “He is such a Allah that He sent His Messenger with guidance and the true religion to make it superior to all religions, even if the polytheists dislike it.” (Surah At-Tawbah, verse 32- 33)

Some people attribute the reason why Muslim societies remain poor and weak today to the wrong management styles. According to them, being under the management of a single person prevents progress. This idea is completely wrong. Because Muslim societies have progressed, prospered and lived in peace in many periods when they were governed by a single person. Some societies were poor and powerless even though they were governed by democracy. The problem here is not one-man rule. What is important is whether Islamic rules are applied in management or not. It is not possible for societies where the rules of Islam are applied in governance to remain backward, weak and poor. The main reason why today's Muslim societies are weak and poor is that Islamic sharia is not implemented in these societies. For this reason, whether societies are governed by a single person or democracy does not affect the outcome. What is important is that those who govern the state behave as Islam commands.

 

Conclusion

The modern mentality is an immanent, secular, centralist, individualistic and power-oriented understanding of culture based on knowledge, that is, mental fiction, rather than faith. It started with the 16th century Renaissance in the West, developed with the 18th century enlightenment philosophy, and reached its peak with the 19th century materialist philosophy. However, this understanding turned into a project over time. This project was incapable of solving people's problems and created new problems. Therefore, their paradigms have been shaken over time and deviated from the general cultural line of humanity.

Modernity tried to bury religion in history, but today Islam, the religion it fears most, has emerged alive. They are trying with all their resources to eliminate the religion of Islam. However, it is impossible for them to succeed in this. Islam is a stumbling block to modernity. Because there are serious reactions against modernity in Islamic countries.

However, the religion of Islam is neither for nor against modernity. There are elements that he will accept and elements that he will not accept. What is important for Islam is its own value system. This is a system of divinity, at the core of which is the belief that Allah is the only deity and power. This is where they part ways with modernity. Because modernity has created a systematic polytheist world that fights against the monotheistic religious tradition.

There are very harsh criticisms of the paradigms of modernity from the perspective of Islam. Unfortunately, these criticisms are not taken into account by modernists. They do not want the religion of Islam to help them get rid of their own contradictions. Because they are fundamentally against the religion of monotheism. Another dilemma for him is that he is trying to eliminate the criticisms of Islam, the religion of monotheism, by force, and they have now realized that this is not possible. But there is no other option for them. They will be even more violent in their opposition to religion. This shows that their understanding of culture will collapse even faster. Because there is only one complete power and perfect power in the universe, and that is the power and strength of Allah Almighty. Resisting this will only cause the resister to collapse.

 

References

“Islam and the Problem of Underdevelopment”, Abdurrahman Kurt, U.Ü. Journal of the Faculty of Theology, C. 17, p. 2, page 35-72, 2008

“Islam between East and West”, Aliya İzzetbegoviç, Nehir Publications, Istanbul, 1992

“Modernity, Capitalism, Socialism”, Zygmunt Bauman, Say Publications, Istanbul, 2014

“Modernity, Democracy and Religion”, Samir Amin, Yordam Kitap, Istanbul, 2016

“Looking at Modernity from the Outside”, Mustafa Aydın, Açılım Kitap, İstanbul, 2017

“The Crisis of the Modern World”, Réne Guenon, Ağaç Publications, Istanbul, 1991

“The West's Fight with Islam”, Asaf Hüseyin, Pınar publications, Istanbul, 2017

“Today's Issues in Islam”, Erol Güngör, Ötüken Neşriyat, Istanbul, 1983

 

 

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Islam and Modernity

Publication Date: 22.03.2024