Islam's Reformers .pdf

talk behind anybody’s back. He does not run after hispleasures. He does not say anything harmful and even useless.He never treats anybody harshly. He is generous. He wishesproperty and rank in order that he may do favours to everybodyby means of it. He does not behave hypocritically. He is notarrogant. Thinking that Allâhu ta’âlâ sees and knows everymoment, he never commits evil. He is firm to His commandsand runs away from His prohibitions. In short, those who fearAllâhu ta’âlâ are useful to their country and countrymen.35 - The reformer says:“Because the Ottoman state was based on the principles ofthe religion it started everything with madrasa education. Inmadrasas today, Arabic, sarf, nahw, logic, fiqh, badî’, bayân,ma’ânî are taught. They teach them in order to correctlyunderstand the religious books which are in Arabic. They saythat the gate of ijtihâd has been closed. The majority of thosewho got education in the madrasa have remained on the firststeps of these branches of knowledge. Not [even] one out of ahundred hodjas knows how to read and write correctly. Many ofthe hodjas, whose lives elapse in the madrasa, cannot passbeyond reading and writing as if it were a sea without shores,and the meaning remains unknown to them like the poles. Theyare lazy, ignorant and fanatical. I wish their fanaticism were forsomething which they knew. They are fanatical in defendingsomething which they do not know. And their purpose is toexploit Muslims and live comfortably. Though these hodjas areideally and morally ignorant, they are in the disguise of religiousscholars. There are real scholars among them. It is a debt for usto respect them. Today, there is nothing left of Islam inmadrasas. Pulpits, made in order to teach the religion, decencyand the Qur’ân, are used for nothing but deceiving Muslims.”When the excessive reformer Baykiyev of Kazan, Russia,said these words, Islam, whatever was left of it on the earth,existed only in the madrasas which he disliked, and today incommunist Russia, whose programs begin with the statementthat it is necessary to eradicate religions, none of thosemadrasas and mosques, which offend the eyes of thisexcessive reformer, remains. Religion reformers should knowalso that religious hodjas who, to them, are reactionaries inevery respect are also behind in robbing the people whencompared with them. Since their lives elapse in contentment,- 78 -