The key to a paradigm of knowledge and education: Silat al-rahim

Can we take the concept of Sıla-ı rahim, which we know in common parlance as "kinship ties," beyond this and think of it as the key concept of a paradigm of knowledge and education that "establishes the bond among beings and people"? In his last four articles in the Star newspaper, Vahdettin İnce makes a very interesting attempt in exactly this direction. In my view, he tries, as modestly as possible, to work out an approach that cannot be lightly dismissed and that is groundbreaking regarding the relations among knowledge, education, the academy and scholars, and the world and the people.

When we delve into the subtleties of this approach, we read "in our own way" how today's understanding of science, as Martin Heidegger expressed it in his own language, not only severs human beings from their essence but also from the world and from reality. While it explains how scientific disciplines are cut off from other fields or from the whole within the areas of specialization they have allotted to themselves, this rupture also lets us see better what it costs. Yet "everything in the universe is connected to everything else," and the real power and cause of this bond is compassion. That is why "sıla-ı rahim," which describes the relationship between bond (sıla) and compassion (rahim), means reuniting beings that are bound and connected to one another on the basis of "compassion." Cutting apart those that are connected to one another by their very nature and disposition is described as a perversion that floods the earth with corruption (Baqara, 27).

The natural course of life already makes people feel these bonds as a need. Within the perception of causality, human beings constantly see these bonds in their own experience and fulfill what they require. Breaking this bond is therefore actually doing the difficult thing, but human perversion is able to do this difficult thing. For example, "a farmer knows that there is a bond between his crops greening, his trees bearing fruit, his animals being fed, and the rainwater, the streams, the sun, and the field that becomes ready to yield produce through their effect; he behaves accordingly and watches for the time of each for the steps he will take. The farmer's care for this bond is also reflected on his surroundings as compassion."

İnce says that the modern education system, instead of "disciplining" (terbiye) people, tears them from the bonds in keeping with their nature by "bending and twisting" them into the molds it forces them into. In this respect, the comparison between the compassion implied and contained in the concept of terbiye and the soullessness of the concept of "education," which sees the human being as an object to be bent and twisted, is noteworthy.

Who can say that there is no relationship between this education system and the outlooks that today, step by step, fuel competition among people, make human beings wolves to one another, and render them indifferent and irresponsible toward the sufferings, griefs, and troubles of other people? A rupture has arisen among people who should nurture compassion toward one another, and whatever creates this rupture is precisely an assault on "sıla-i rahim."

Explaining that true scholars are those who watch over this bond, who watch over this whole and protect the human being's bond with all other beings or restore the broken bond, İnce proceeds from here to draw conclusions, perhaps somewhat generalizing ones, about the "education" system that some theologians who have recently come forward and speak in the name of religion have gone through.

İnce has an observation that those who graduate from the faculties of theology, as a modern educational institution, especially those who advance in the academy, gradually become detached from the people in parallel with the titles they acquire. This level of detachment is of course put forward in comparison with the madrasa teachers in the East. In the faculties of theology many theses are written in the field of Islamic sciences, many theses are advanced, but it is hardly possible for these theses to meet the people or say anything to the people. Either theologians make no effort to bring the results of their theses to the people, or even those who care about it prefer quite sensational ways of saying something to the people, so that this time an emotional break from the people they came from becomes inevitable.

A significant portion of the names that have become popular on behalf of theologians prefer, instead of making religion beloved to people, making the book better understood and answering the expectations of the people, to clash with the beliefs and values that the Muslim people have traditionally embraced. Saying dissenting things, severing long-accepted connections, demolishing or deconstructing certain beliefs and understandings has become the habitus of the theologian in pursuit of popularity. Can we say that this situation distances the theologian somewhat from the religious public? What sociology and psychology correspond to this? Does the religious public make an identification between these names who have "broken away" from it emotionally, culturally, and spiritually, and theology as a profession?

Vahdettin İnce is putting forward connections these days that give rise to a great many questions requiring us to think a good deal. He underlines a difference that is reflected directly in the behavior and the relations with the people of the madrasa folk, whom he says establish connections well thanks to the discipline of knowledge they have received. The life they live, much more intertwined with the people, without taking shelter behind any office, title, or distance, is also an indication that they are within an unbroken sıla. However, so as not to generalize this difference to the detriment of the whole theology community, we still have many examples. After all, the faculties of theology, setting aside the fact that they are not all the same, do not only train academics. Mosque preachers, teachers, muftis, muezzins, vaizes (preachers), Qur'an course teachers, who have relations with the people and with different segments of society at every level, or the many people who mix into life by joining other professions after their education, can also set other kinds of examples. The problem of theology as academics is not only about the theology profession but generally the problem of the academy and of science. It is a problem that requires a sociology of science and the academy.

Still, the concept İnce draws attention to is very important for seeing the places where the bonds of compassion weaken and for understanding what this costs.

After all, "Islamic civilization is a civilization that binds those who use their reason to one another through sıla-ı rahim, to the Prophet through «salavat», which comes from the same root as sıla, and to God's compassion through «salat» (prayer), again from the same root as sıla."