Tarık Çelenk wrote: Can't religious communities and sects offer universal values?

I recently came across an old short video interview by Dücane Cündioğlu. The topic has been popular for a long time, but unfortunately, the discussions often revolve around those outside of their real audience. In the interview, Cündioğlu emphasized that a significant portion of the religious community prefers the closed structure of religious communities for "protection" and is reluctant to venture beyond these structures. He added that in doing so, they adopt distinctive dress and behavioral patterns.

According to Cündioğlu, the idea of ​​establishing a relationship with the "other" is a suffocating experience for members of the community; the other is not only a stranger but often a potential enemy. This perspective makes it nearly impossible for communities to contribute to humanity, universal values, and the society they live in. Moreover, this closed organizational structure has, over time, propelled them into a position of decisive power in both wealth and politics. Cündioğlu's most striking observation was that he viewed the "inability to establish a relationship with the other" as a characteristic of nomadic communities, stating, "There's a certain nomadism involved in this."

This perspective is both thought-provoking and hurtful for members of the community. Naturally, a cognitive dissonance mechanism will kick in, and they will attempt to alleviate the stress of these painful observations through defensive tactics such as denial, introversion, backscattering, and fabricating disbelief or conspiracies.

I personally take these findings seriously, as I've been pondering these issues for many years. However, I also believe it's important to discuss the bright side of the glass.

Since approximately the 18th century, as pointed out by orientalists such as Bernard Lewis, it is possible to speak of a "crisis of Islamic civilization." This crisis was fundamentally political, but due to unmet doctrinal inadequacies, it gradually transformed into an existential angst, an anxiety. This situation constantly fueled the tension between "confrontation and non-confrontation" in Islamic societies. Even during the Ottoman period of stagnation, not only religious institutions but also bureaucratic institutions lacked the capacity to understand the other.

The fundamental reason why an "Islamic renaissance" failed to materialize in the 15th century was the failure of single-centered authority and religious scholars to achieve independence from politics. A madrasa model that would interpret the relationship between Islam and modernity and establish a new doctrinal architecture based on the equation of reason, revelation, intuition, and cause and effect failed to emerge. The Darülfünun (House of the Darülfünun) was attempted as a way out, but it failed to achieve a radical transformation. Today, madrasas, devoid of philosophy and science and relying solely on language, memorization, and classical books on jurisprudence and theology, remain the primary source of nourishment for communities. These institutions were constantly rebuilt but never renewed. Most remain as one-dimensional structures, largely town-sized, devoid of any connection to sports or the arts.

The republican revolutions were necessary, but they had serious side effects. In response to the primitive, positivist, and imposing understanding of history and religion of the 1940s, the religious orders and the devout public, who inherited the foundations of the madrasas, refused to send their children to modern schools. The fear of "becoming an infidel" was a decisive factor. Even if they had been sent to Oxford, given the mindset of the time, the same fear would have been realized. Even the wealthy tradesmen of Anatolia entrusted their children to informal teachers and madrasas outside of compulsory education.

The state-run Imam Hatip High Schools were not as satisfying as the madrasas; theology faculties were viewed with caution due to their perceived "theological" nature. Urban communities steered their youth away from philosophy and the social sciences, instead focusing on fields like law, economics, and engineering. These choices, made to avoid becoming infidels, eventually facilitated the communities' influence over the state. They became wealthy and gained political clout, but their perspectives remained firmly rooted in the madrassa mentality.

After the 1980 coup, religious communities took on a new meaning. In addition to opening up political opportunities, they also expanded socially. People exhausted by the conflict between left and right, escaping individualism, sought peace in religious orders. This inclination was based not only on political or economic grounds but also on a spiritual quest. However, most religious orders lacked an urban aesthetic and etiquette. They operated with a nomadic mentality. Despite the influx of qualified human resources, they failed to transform.

The growing interest shook the community elite; most of them lacked both manners and intellectual backgrounds. Had they been able to utilize the comfort offered by the last 20 years of governance as a moral and virtuous stimulus, they would have been exalted; unfortunately, they exploited this for personal gain. Members, however, viewed the community's leadership as insurance against their afterlife, standing by their choices, whether right or wrong, and didn't risk it.

Communities in the Catholic and Protestant worlds are not as "peasant" or "nomadic" as they are in our country. Medieval monasteries, Jesuit and Dominican orders, have always been closely intertwined with the educational and intellectual world. In the West, communities have played a role in the production of culture and knowledge over time, and they were unable to hinder the processes of enlightenment and secularization.

The problem with us is that the political and intellectual will to transform peasantry and nomadism has not emerged.

The religious orders of the 2020s reflect the problems highlighted by Cündioğlu. The fundamental problem is the failure to renew madrasas. These institutions must urgently open their doors to philosophy, social communication, sports, criticism, and the positive sciences. Of course, their expertise in fundamental religious sciences, decency, and morality should not be overlooked.

Theological radicalism in Christianity and Judaism is, in some respects, more rigid than in Islam; however, it did not hinder the enlightenment and secularization that took place in several stages. Our fundamental problem is the lack of a declaration of intent and the production of knowledge that would transcend peasantry and nomadism.

Today, communities and orders need a new Ibn Arabi, Ibn Hazm, or Esat Erbili; political leaders need broad-minded leaders like the Muslim Sicilian Friedrich II or Ulugh Beg, who can combine reason and intuition. Only then can an Islamic thought capable of establishing relationships with others and producing universal values ​​be reborn.

As we have stated, for members of religious communities and orders to offer a universal message, they must first break out of their closed structures and establish genuine contact with others. This contact should occur not merely through the logic of proselytizing, but through the intention of mutual learning and coexistence. Three fundamental conditions stand out for this: intellectual renewal, moral depth, and social responsibility. Intellectual renewal requires that madrasas be nourished by philosophy, science, art, and critical thinking; moral depth requires that communities prioritize virtue over self-interest; and social responsibility requires that they demonstrate solidarity with others on shared human problems. When these conditions are met, the mystical intuitions and social solidarity practices of religious orders and orders can transform into a "universal value language" that can build bridges between them and others.