The man who raised roses, or an Elmalılı "a stranger in his own homeland"

Elmalılı M. Hamdi Yazır’s magnificent work Hak Dini Kur’an Dili is a commentary written in light of the decision, taken by the Grand National Assembly in the early years of the Republic, to produce a Turkish translation and commentary of the Qur’an and to have sermons read in Turkish. For this reason it is not only a Qur’an commentary but can also be read as the most vivid witness of an instructive history lived in this period on religion and secularism.

That the CHP these days has hoped for an inheritance share for itself from the greatness of this magnificent work and its author undoubtedly deserves separate and more in-depth consideration. What it hopes from him, of course, depends on how it interprets him and what kind of historical and political position it seats him in. Yet the fact that Elmalılı’s commentary was written in the Republican period and by decision of the Grand National Assembly constitutes only one detail of his story. The real larger story was a religious policy based on the Turkification of the sources and acts of worship of religion and on the expectation that this would lead society to move away from the influence of religion in an absolute sense.

A meaningful summary of the story also lies in the radical difference that emerged between what was intended in this policy and the result reached. The official justification for the Turkification of worship was openly stated. The children of the Turkish nation would perform their worship in the language they understand, in their own mother tongue, and would also read the religious books they read with understanding. Wishes that began with “A country from whose minarets the call to prayer is recited in Turkish” had now found a ground on which they could be implemented, and a power of government to support this ground by force. Very persuasive arguments and justifications can always be put forward, and discourses can be operated, and were operated, on people performing their worship in the language they understand.

But the real intention behind the Turkification of worship was also not concealed, perhaps not officially but to the extent that it surfaced in the de facto language of the policies. In the end, to the extent that the Qur’an and hadiths were read in Turkish, Turkish children would themselves see how this religion rested on invented superstitions and absurdities, people would thus cool toward religion, and the targeted positivist-secular bronze generations, of every age, would be raised.

Behind the project of Turkifying the books and worship of Islam there is such a self-assured positivist-secularist confidence. There is a mind that no longer has any doubt that the source of Islam, or of all religions, is mythology and superstition, a mind badly gripped by the delusion of enlightenment. The effort to legitimize the project itself in the eyes of those who still believe in this religion would of course rest on an innocent justification, “understanding religion and the Qur’an,” to which the Islamists too did not object in any way and could not object.

Indeed, when this policy proposed concrete steps through 4 great projects, it is significant enough that none of those who agreed to take part in these projects was among the names who had any objection to these concrete justifications but who, of course, had nothing whatsoever to do with the intention behind that demand. The preaching part of the sermons would be read in Turkish; Mehmet Akif Ersoy would do a Qur’an translation (meal), Elmalılı M. Hamdi Yazır a Qur’an commentary, and Babanzade Ahmed Naim would accept the proposal to make the translation and commentary of Sahih al-Bukhari.

All these names had distinguished themselves by their Islamism and, quite clearly, were persons who had nothing whatsoever to do with the intention behind this project. But in these names there is, in the exactly opposite direction, a self-confidence far greater than that secularist self-confidence lying behind the project of Turkifying religion and worship and based on the expectation that through this Turkification people would see the reality behind religion and cool toward it. These names, on the contrary, possess a firm belief that the more people understand the Qur’an, the better they will see the grandeur, the subtlety, the miraculous coherence and the depth of Islam. An interesting meeting of two different intentions in the same practical project made such a project possible. Indeed, the duty of carrying out this project would belong, on behalf of the President of Religious Affairs, to Ahmed Hamdi Akseki, again known for his Islamic stance. He evidently hoped for a wisdom from the meeting of these two intentions and turned it, in his own way, into a policy.

Indeed, in the face of the attacks coming against religion like a veritable hurricane, everything to be obtained with this project would turn into a gain, and in the end the generations able to read the translation of the Qur’an would, contrary to the intention of those who put forward this project, be more affected by the message of the Qur’an, be more attached to it, believe more.

Mehmet Akif Ersoy, when he saw that the translation (meal) he had agreed to do would be used for different purposes, withdrew from the project and also returned the money he had received as an advance. Truly, since he would not have felt comfortable in the new political environment, he had gone to Egypt, and while he was there withdrawing from such a request had been relatively easier. As for the others, setting aside their confidence that, whatever the intention of those who entrusted them with this duty, their own intentions would prevail, withdrawing from such a duty would in any case not have been so easy for them. A short time before accepting this duty, Elmalılı had been tried for execution at the Independence Tribunal, and because the madrasa where he served had been closed, he had been left jobless. After being acquitted in this trial, Elmalılı withdrew into seclusion in his house in Istanbul and never went outside again for the rest of his life. Thus he was in fact carrying out his commentary work in his own seclusion, isolated from the order being established and applied outside. This seclusion of his constituted one of the most concrete and most typical examples of Rasim Özdenören’s famous type of “the man who grows roses.”

The life the CHP deemed fit for men like Elmalılı while it was in power was precisely this deep contradiction between the life they lived and the Qur’an in which they believed and whose commentary they tried to write.

The alternative to trying, even a little, to overcome this contradiction was being executed like İskilipli Atıf or leaving this land like Mehmet Akif.

What remained for the rest was to live the experience of “a stranger in one’s own homeland, a pariah in one’s own country.”