Islam's Reformers .pdf

pure Arab mind and the brilliant Islamic intellect,” he says. Seethe terms which Sayyid Qutb uses against Islamic scholars andthe Salaf as-Sâlihin! Could you imagine a Muslim whose heartwould not feel sharp pain from these insults and impertinenceswhich he does against the scholars of tafsîr and kalâm? Bysaying, “They should have known,” he attempts to give lessonsto these exalted scholars. By saying, “It should not beforgotten,” he imputes ignorance to the most prominent peopleof the auspicious century praised by Rasûlullah (’alaihi ’ssalâm).This passage shows that he has not heard about thesubtle knowledge in the books Islamic scholars wrote abouttime and space. If he had read and understood the books ofIslamic scholars, he would not have spoken ill about Islam’smost beloved personalities, and he would have known his placeand behave himself. It is true that, like in his novels TheThorns, A Child from the Village and The Magic City, hegives the impression of being a scholar to the youth in hisQur’ân commentary which he wrote with a fluent style anddeceptive words, thus attaching young minds to himself; butthose who have woken up from unawareness by reading theblessed writings of Islamic scholars notice at once hispoisonous ideas and aberrant attitude which he interspersedamong these attractive writings of his.5) Like in his statment, “To me, this experiment was made inorder to train the person who would become the caliph of theworld,” he sees himself in a magnifying mirror by saying “to me”at many places of his tafsîr book. It is understood here that he isnot ignorant, but vulgarly ignorant. If he had learned the zâhirîknowledge of the Qur’ân by reading al-Baidâwî’s tafsîr and itsannotation and at-Tafsîr al-kabîr and understood somethingfrom the mysteries in the Qur’ân by reading Ni’matullah’s Tafsîrand the tafsîr book Rûh al-bayân by Hadrat İsmâil Hakkı ofBursa, he would have known his place and perhaps behavehimself.6) When interpreting the 117th âyat of the sûrat al-Baqara,he says, “The Creator does not have any match. And here thephilosophy of Wahdat al-wujûd remains completely outsideIslamic conception, and Islam refuses the concept of Wahdat alwujûdof non-Muslims,” thus showing that he knows nothing oftasawwuf. He supposes that the inspirations and kashfs of thegreat men of tasawwuf were only philosophy. He goes to an- 242 -