Islam's Reformers .pdf

eligion, who, while teaching that the intended couple had to beof the same social class, held the madrasa student and theSultan’s daughter in the same category and regarded helpers ofthe cruel baser than everybody, have been replaced by thosewho are much baser in piousness than they are in knowledgetoday.In the following, the news reported in the daily Vakt datedJune 20, 1928, is given:The professors of the Faculty of Theology in Istanbul haveannounced the program of the improvements that will be donein our religion suitably with the modern life and progress. Thisannouncement is signed by Köprülü Fuâd, Ismâil Hakkı of İzmir,Sherâfeddin Yaltkaya, Mehmed Alî Aynî and their friends andsays: “Like other institutions, the religion also should follow thecurrent of life. The religion cannot remain dependent upon itsold forms. In the Turkish democracy, the religion also has toundergo its development. Our mosques should be madeinhabitable; desks and coat-racks should be put in them, oneshould be allowed to go in them with shoes. Language ofworshipping should be Turkish, and the Qur’ân and the khutbashould be read in Turkish. Musical instruments should beplaced in mosques. The khutba should be delivered not byimâms but by religious philosophers. The Qur’ân should bestudied not with the view-point of kalâm or tasawwuf but ofphilosophy. We request that this program, which concerns theultimate policy of Turkey and will have a creative effect on allMuslim countries, be accepted.”36 - The reformer says:“Children, after learning religious knowledge and believing inmany things at home, study mathematics, biology and scientificsubjects when they go to school. The things in which they havebelieved before without seeing and the knowledge which theylearn by seeing and thinking about in high school conflict witheach other in the children’s brains. The belief and morals whichthey have learned before deteriorate. And they cannot establisha new belief or morals with their fresh information. I have notseen a youngster who has formed a new belief and morals firmand based on knowledge.”The religion reformer means that the youngsters who havegraduated from high schools have neither religious knowledgeor religious morals nor morals that is independent of the religion- 80 -