Critiques of atheism in Islamic thought

The Faculty of Theology of Siirt University hosted an important meeting toward the end of last week. On the occasion of this meeting I personally learned that the Departments of Kalam (Islamic theology) of the Faculties of Theology regularly hold a coordination meeting every year, and that together with this meeting they organize a symposium each year on a topic they determine.

In fact, I hear that many kalam scholar friends I know attend such meetings every year, but I did not know that this was such an institutionalized activity among all the Kalam departments.

Truly, for a field of science to turn into a discipline, meetings of this kind, which have gained continuity and institutionality, serve a very important function in allowing those working in the field to determine problematics together, to discuss their problems, and to settle on a methodology in the way they approach subjects. Fields of science need discipline. Even though that discipline carries the danger of detaching the human being from his object or of objectifying the relationship with the subject of knowledge, within the university tradition this discipline is needed. Indeed, within that discipline a firmer ground also forms for an emancipatory reflection that will overcome these dangers as well.

Truly, Kalam, that is, theology as it is known in Western literature, has always been an important field whose place within the hierarchy of the sciences has been the subject of great debate. In the history of Islamic thought, it is a discipline that focuses on ithbat al-wajib, that is, the existence and attributes of God, and one shaped by its dialogue with religions and climates of thought outside Islam. By nature, this dialogue does not come about without entering into interaction. That is why the subjects and problematics on the agenda of the kalam sciences have often been regarded with suspicion and caution by specialists of other Islamic sciences as foreign influences trying to seep into the Muslim mind. As this suspicion and caution at times created tensions, it became one of the ways in which political rivalries expressed and manifested themselves.

The Mihna episode that was experienced together with the famous debate on whether the Qur'an was created or not revealed the most important historical manifestations of the relationship between Kalam debates and politics. The question of how the Kalam of God, who is eternal and everlasting, could have appeared in a certain interval of time never came onto the agenda of the early Muslims. This question was rather one that confronted Muslims in their contacts with Christian and Greek thought together with their conquests. With this and similar questions, of course, entirely different tracks were entered into, in the way of perceiving life and the word of God, from the mode of thought that was current during the first emergence of Islam.

The interaction was not one-sided, of course. Names such as the famous Jewish philosopher Maimondies played an important role in the establishment of Jewish theology by being influenced by the Muslim climate of thought. Of course we are not even getting into the extent to which Renaissance and Enlightenment thinkers were influenced by Muslim thought.

The topic chosen for this year for the symposium part of the 23rd Kalam coordination meeting held in Siirt was "Critiques of Atheism in Islamic Thought." Rather than a meeting that directly criticizes atheism, taking as its subject the answers and criticisms put forward by Muslim scholars or kalam scholars against atheism, which has always existed in some form in history, is truly a very appropriate approach. Because such a study, which will lay out the knowledge discipline's first getting to know itself, its confronting its own past, its past experiences, its memory, its accumulated heritage, also has a self-critical dimension.

Reflecting on oneself, getting to know oneself, as an individual or as a knowledge discipline… Are the theses, arguments, rhetoric or reactions put forward against atheism in the past sufficient to meet the questions posed by today's atheism? For this it is necessary to know, listen to and try to understand not only oneself but both yesterday's atheism and today's atheism. If there is no difference between them, is it possible to meet the new with the old arguments? Or has whatever there was of yesterday remained in yesterday, and is it necessary now to say new things?

In fact, one reason the topic was chosen as atheism for this year is that atheism has lately been very much emphasized as a problem affecting Muslim youth. Young people are facing a serious problem of belief. The stories of Muslim children who say that they are deists on the one hand and atheists on the other arouse serious worry in their parents.

Truly, in the face of these worries, I have not seen or heard any objective statistic at hand comparing past and present with regard to atheism having reached a wider prevalence than before. My conviction is rather that such a narrative is being put forward from the sum of individual cases. But even so, it is an obligation (fard) that Islamic kalam arguments on atheism be updated and presented in both scholarly and popular discourses.

Let us fulfill this obligation, but my humble opinion about the spread of atheism is that it has never been a matter of its presenting its arguments in all their consistency or rhetoric and being persuasive in this way.

Atheism has been the spontaneous result of the organization of everyday life, which leaves no place for religion within urban life brought about particularly with industrialization. In this urban-global environment, a popular music idol, a worry over making a living, is far more persuasive in drawing people away from the idea of God than the philosophical books of Marx or Darwin.

Atheism has at the same time been able to be a consolation, against institutionalized religiosity, for circles that those institutions do not embrace and exclude. Just as for Marx religion was a consolation in which the masses took refuge, atheism too can similarly develop as a reaction of the masses against a religiosity identified with those in power, that is, with the same dynamics as a religion.

If Muslims are going to think of a precaution against atheism, they need to know that this cannot be done merely by developing extremely consistent and powerful arguments, and that putting forward practices that bear witness to truth with justice in the eyes of the masses will be far more effective.

Most importantly, it is that Muslims try to avoid becoming a fitna (trial, temptation) for people through their practices. It is very likely that people, because of Muslims who with their practices deviated from justice and are in fact immensely far from God, who is compassionate and merciful, will take offense at God or at everything relating to Him and turn away from Him.

The symposium, held under the excellent hosting of the very esteemed dean of the Siirt University Faculty of Theology, Prof. Dr. İhsan Süreyya Sırma, and the Head of the Department of Kalam, Prof. Dr. Cemalettin Erdemci, with nearly one hundred participants, was a true feast of ideas. I congratulate everyone who contributed.