The books that fall to our lot

I have mentioned before a principle of mine regarding book recommendations. I never recommend the same book to everyone. It is not easy to predict what kind of effect a book will leave on whom. It is not inevitable that a book that moved me deeply will affect everyone in the same way. You cannot know what incurable adventure a book that has had wonderful effects on me will send some people on.

Of course one must read, but who reads which book should largely suit one's own situation. I do not think that recommending a book as a remedy for everyone from a newspaper column is a healthy way. However, sharing what we read, and thinking and debating about what we read, is unavoidable for the development, deepening and enrichment of thought.

I do not think there is an adequate environment of debate and sharing about books in Turkey. Yet, contrary to what is supposed, there is very good production. In my view, the academics and researchers, whose numbers are growing rapidly in our universities, which have steadily increased in number, produce many good works.

It seems that we have a speed of writing, translating and publishing books that is not commensurate with our speed of reading them. You can get this impression when you stop by the book fairs. Of course, we do not know what numerical equivalent this has at the international comparative level, but when I looked at it at one point, I saw that Turkey is in a not at all bad position, especially in terms of the diversity of works.

If I am to speak of the books that have fallen to my lot this Ramadan, first in line comes the sequel to the masterpiece narrative The Road to Mecca by its author Muhammad Asad. Asad's book The Road to Mecca was based on a narrative that, in a period in which the Muslim political presence was in the process of disintegration, the caliphate had been abolished and the Islamic world was shattered, saw and assessed the details very well from among the tribes in Arabia. He had started the journey as a Jew, and as a result of his journey, with the cumulative effect of what he lived through, had become a Muslim. This adventure alone placed this work among the most important names of contemporary Islamic literature. Asad's book Kalbin Yuvaya Dönüşü is presented as the 2nd Book of The Road to Mecca. The first part of the book consists of Asad's interesting assessments of the travels he made to various countries of the Islamic world from 1932 onward, that is, after his return from Saudi Arabia. Its 2nd part consists of the notes kept by his wife Pola Hamida Asad about what they experienced in places such as Pakistan, the Fertile Crescent, Switzerland and Portugal, where Asad again paid long-term visits. The book was translated from English by Sinan Yapıcı.

Another book by Asad that complements these works, who after becoming a Muslim devoted himself to thinking about the condition of Muslims and to producing solutions to their problems, has been published again by İşaret Yayınları under the title Hukukumuz ve Ahvalimiz, again in Sinan Yapıcı's translation from English. Whereas Islamic law has been made eternal, turned into closed packages of fiqh for all times from answers produced to the historical problems of past periods, Asad proposes approaching it as a mode of reasoning that seeks answers by making the basic principles of Islam speak anew to the new conditions of our day, and tries to put forward a practice of legal science in line with this proposal on certain subjects. İşaret Yayınları publishes all of Asad's works with meticulous translation and a good presentation.

Kuramer Yayınları, which has recently put forward a distinctive line in Qur'anic studies, turns the successful symposia it organizes into books in such a way that they will become reference texts. One of the latest books it has published in this framework is titled Makâsıdî Tefsir: Kur'an-ı Kerîm'i Amaç ve Hikmet Eksenli Anlamak. The subject of maqasid is an important subject in itself. Can it be known exactly? When we say we know, are we attributing our own purposes to God, to His Messenger, or to the owner of the word and the ruling? Knowing purposes is the most fundamental subject of hermeneutics. The need to know the author's intention and purpose in order to understand a text, the need to know the wisdom in the issuing of a ruling, is, as a quest, a motive that guides all of our efforts at understanding. But it is often the place where we botch things.

Why and how do we botch? This too is a subject directly related to the science of the human being. That is, one must know the human being who reads and understands. The book (symposium) begins with the opening paper of Prof. Mehmet Görmez, former President of Religious Affairs, who stands out these days with his efforts to institutionalize his work in this field, and is discussed thoroughly by many expert academics. It is not a discussion that has ended or will end all discussions, but it is a work that will certainly constitute a new reference for the discussions in this field.

From Kuramer there is also a Siyer Kronolojisi study, of remarkable volume and quality, and prepared with equal command of sources and details. The life of our Prophet, his struggle, and meanwhile the revelation of the Holy Qur'an, his wars, his meetings, all the events to which verses and hadiths point have been determined chronologically and tabulated. There is certainly a serious gap in this field. One must congratulate Mehmet Apaydın for producing a work of this meticulousness and this detail. I can say that it sets a new bar at the academic level in the field of theology in our country.

İbrahim Kalın's earlier book Ben, Öteki ve Ötesi has not yet been discussed, even though it has gone through many printings and sold well and, moreover, quite a lot has been written about it. That even such a book, which could in fact start very good discussions, has been unable to trigger sufficient debate is a disgrace to all of us. Yet thought advances by debate and even by clashing. For this, perhaps the process begins with good-provocative texts. Yet among us provocative texts only set lynching waves in motion, not debate.

Before this book of Kalın's was adequately discussed, his other book came out: titled Barbar, Modern, Medeni, it endeavors to present a perspective of a real civilization, an alternative based on human and Islamic values, yet one that has found a chance of application in history, against Western Civilization, which tries to present itself as a civilization by covering up the barbarism at its core with its hegemonic modernism. Like his previous book, it is again a book capable of triggering discussions in its field, and both have been published by İnsan Yayınları.

These are not all that has fallen to our lot in books these days; thank God there is quite a lot; but this column too has a limit. Perhaps we will continue later.