The ABC of Islamism

Once upon a time, of two people who applied for the vacant imam post of a village, one was to be chosen by the villagers themselves. The villagers, facing this procedure for the first time, tried to determine a method for it. After consultations they decided to examine the candidates. For this a jury was first determined. The jury first subjected the candidates to a literacy exam. It did, but the jury itself could not read or write. Still, following a method that worked by ear, they asked the candidates to write the word "ox" on a board. One of the candidates, with a very knowing, scornful air, immediately wrote "ox." What do you expect? The illiterate villager could not liken it to anything, of course. They asked the other to write. He, perhaps because he did not know how, or perhaps because he immediately noticed the villagers' weakness, instead of writing the word on the board quickly and perfunctorily drew a picture of an ox. The moment the villager saw the picture he said, "There, that's it!"

As I followed the debate on Islamism between Mumtazer Turkone and Ali Bulac, which took a new turn over an article by Necdet Subasi, this proverb came and settled in a corner of my mind. For it seemed to me that Turkone does not see anything that has actually taken place as Islamism before him, but as he sees the picture of Islamism that Ali Bulac draws for him, he says, "That's it!"

We cannot say, of course, that Turkone is not literate, but we have to say that his definition of Islamism persistently misses Islamism. Now it might be considered somewhat improper to say that Turkone, who made an important contribution to the literature on Islamism with his doctoral thesis on the history of Islamism, does not know the alphabet (elif-ba) of Islamism. Relying on Turkone's tolerance, I want to enter the debate he opened from this harsh point. Yes, Turkone's definition and analyses of Islamism may be valid for a very narrow manifestation of Islamism, but even in this form they function to limit Islamism, to miss, and to make others miss, its total reality.

Interestingly, in the definition of Islamism adopted by Turkone as a political scientist, the definition of politics is also very problematic. In fact, one reason he misses the truth of Islamism is that his definition of politics is problematic or very narrow. Or perhaps, going by the picture that Ali Bulac, who tries to answer him, draws to describe Islamism, he inevitably arrives there. Perhaps Ali Bulac prefers to address Turkone, whom he thinks illiterate, in a way he will understand. But truly, it falls to Turkone to perform the funeral prayer for the Islamism that Ali Bulac describes and, in this form, inevitably begins to mourn.

Well, can we say that Ali Bulac, who has spent years doing the science of Islamism and waging its struggle, does not have a more comprehensive definition of Islamism either? Here, at the risk of complicating the matter a bit more, seeing that the Islamism described or struggled for by Bulac has also had, in his own life, incomprehensible ups and downs from time to time, we accept this by the nature of the matter. Because real Islamism by definition is a human interpretation, and there is nothing surprising in the interpretations of people holding this interpretation undergoing changes in light of their knowledge, historical horizons and experiences. But when Islamism is expressed in Bulac's discourse in the language of an almost revealed absolute authority, opposing it is perceived as opposing a divine authority and the subject is closed to debate once Bulac puts a full stop.

In this form, Bulac's definition of Islamism approaches the claim of absoluteness of the direct meaning conveyed by the picture. But the strange part is that the picture he conveyed to Turkone makes it even easier for Turkone to declare the end of Islamism.

Well, the Islamism in the picture Bulac drew has truly died, because it is not real; how long can an Islamism that has no connection with life, people, history, and moreover with fiqh in its broadest sense, as defined by Abu Hanifa, a metaphysical Islamism, live? May God have mercy on it, but meanwhile we also take note of how well Bulac and Turkone are able to understand each other in this dialogue. May God increase their dialogues and make them even more fruitful?

For some reason this dialogue tells me that we need an elif-ba that will not need pictures to explain Islamism but will bring writing and the advantages of writing into play.

Since we are going to proceed from the elif-ba, at first we can start from a debate between Turkone and Bulac that is at the level of the elif.

There is a proposition of Bulac's that I also agree with, but I am not sure what it later turned into in Bulac's mind. The proposition that "every Muslim is necessarily an Islamist" is correct in my view too, but in response to this proposition Turkone asks why two separate attributes are needed, why the attribute Muslim is not enough for the Islamist.

Evidently this question is a basic and quite simple question that Turkone is stuck on, and the answer to it is also extremely simple, even an alphabet-level answer. The answer is again a simple question: Where do you get the ruling that a Muslim cannot have any name or attribute other than Muslim? In the Qur'an the Muslim (Muslim) is described at the same time as believer, at the same time as sincere (mukhlis), at the same time as doer of good (muhsin), and with a great many other attributes. The word Muslim contains all of these in a way, but each of these names points to other features, attributes of the one who is Muslim. If the word Muslim described every aspect of the Muslim, why would all these attributes be needed? If the Qur'an itself has multiplied the attributes of the Muslim, what falls to us servants? So long as this characterization is not outside the line of the Qur'an.

So which attribute of the Muslim does Islamist point to, and how temporary, how essential, how modern, how political is this attribute? Does the political have to be modern at the same time? Is Islamism only a discourse of opposition? If it were, Abdulhamid's Islamism, or Mehmed Akif's Islamism aimed at the Ottoman survival problematic and the ideal of ittihad-i Islam, against which power is it a discourse of opposition?

These are very simple questions with follow-ups, and in fact questions with simple answers. But since we are proceeding from the elif-ba, we will also risk this simplicity. Murat Guzel and Ibrahim Kiras from Star and Omer Lekesiz and Yusuf Kaplan from Yeni Safak made very valuable contributions to this fruitful debate begun by Ali Bulac and Mumtazer Turkone. But I will continue the debate trying a somewhat different lane.

For now, let us continue our exercises on the Elif.