Not takfir but tazkir (reminding)

History repeats itself.

"If any lesson had ever been drawn, would it ever repeat?" says our national poet Mehmet Akif Ersoy. But he too knows that one of humankind's afflictions is in drawing lessons. A mistake made thousands, millions of times, the next person can make as if it had never been made before.

Evidently what man lacks is not knowledge. However much you know, on some very fundamental matters, and moreover in the field you know best, or in the field you think and suppose you know best, you are tested with that knowledge and fail that test. Of course here a situation in which knowledge is reduced to mere information produces, again, for all people, a state of heedlessness that keeps repeating. Knowledge is not enough, awareness is needed too; that is not enough either, vigilance is needed too; that is not enough either, intention and will are of course needed for perseverance on the right course.

The science of history was not an objective, neutral, chronicler-style record of past events, but a science of lessons. Ibn Khaldun's famous Muqaddimah is an introductory book offering a methodology, a general perspective, for the lessons to be drawn from history. Introduction to the Book of Lessons (Kitab al-Ibar). Events that happened in the past can be lived again today. Let us draw lessons so that they are not lived again, but ah, this humanity: however much it knows, it forgets, falls into heedlessness and misguidance, and repeats the same mistakes again. That is why in the Surah al-Fatiha that we read dozens of times every day, we pray that the Straight Path be shown to us, the path of those who did not fall into heedlessness and misguidance, and that we be guided toward that path.

Guidance is not only showing the way; preparing us for that path, accustoming us to it, warming us to it, giving us the strength to endure the hardships of that path, and the provision of all the external and internal measures and supplies that can set the traveler straight against the diverting, tempting factors on that path, are also within the scope of guidance.

Reminding us of those who fell into heedlessness and misguidance before us is a tremendous warning so that we do not swerve into the same channels as they did. We have no privilege. Muslims have no privilege whatsoever compared with the people who went astray before them. If the Qur'an speaks of some of the errors of the Jews or the Christians, it is not done to describe how bad they are and to create a privilege of boasting against them. On the contrary, it is done as a warning, because the possibility that the error they made may be repeated by Muslims too is foreseen. If they turn the trust given to them into a means of superiority over all people, Muslims too will fall into the situation of the Jews.

There is a trust that has been given to Muslims, and this trust has not been given to them so that it creates superiority in them, but as a duty to establish God's mercy and justice for other people. If Muslims, like the Children of Israel, turn this duty into a means of racist or communitarian superiority, they will have imitated them and strayed onto the path of those who fell into heedlessness and misguidance. There is nothing to protect Muslims from this course other than their own vigilance and measures.

In recent days we compared the embargo that Saudi Arabia launched against Turkish products to the embargo that the Quraysh applied to the Banu Hashim. We also criticized separately the arrogance of those who carry out this practice in putting themselves in the place of the Provider (Razzaq). The Provider is God, and thank God Turkey is not in a position to be affected by such practices.

On this column of mine, an intense propaganda was launched in the Saudi Arabian (SA) media to the effect that I had declared today's Saudi officials takfir. I think there is no need for me to say that I never had such an expression directly. Takfir is not our business. Indeed, even if everything in Islam is clear, the takfir of someone who calls himself a Muslim requires an independent court decision. It is not something that just anyone who thinks of it can do. But comparing a historical event with a current event is always possible, and even if we say that an act done by unbelievers is being repeated today, this does not mean takfir.

Quickly drawing a takfir conclusion from my statements out of such touchiness must probably be the habit of a culture that feeds Madkhali takfiri groups and drives, in Syria and Libya, a struggle that declares Muslims takfir and presents their blood, property and honor as lawful.

Yet we have no such culture of takfir. But this does not mean that we cannot criticize the acts being done and, when the occasion arises, compare them with what the polytheists, Jews, Christians or criminals did in the past. So we say it: unfortunately, the captivity, torture and deaths that are being inflicted today in the dungeons of SA, the UAE and Egypt on scholars, intellectuals and innocent Muslims are far worse than what Israel does. That those who do this call themselves Muslims does not make them more innocent than the Jews.

Scholars are the heirs of the prophets, and the oppression being inflicted on scholars today in the dungeons of these Muslim countries is as if it were being inflicted on prophets. We make this comparison so that perhaps they may take advice from it and come to themselves. If they have such a sensitivity against being declared takfir, that is still good; at least let them look from here and take a lesson, and come to themselves. Our business is not takfir, it is tadhkir and tafkir.