Sait Başer and Turkish Muslim

27/10/2021

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by Professor Erol Göka

Apr 26, 2018 | Essay, Newspaper Article | 0 |

Under the title of “Turkish-Islamic Synthesis”, the topics were discussed so much and badly in the smog of September 12 that both obstructed vision and smelled bad! Many opportunities were wasted…

The writings of Sait Başer, who approached the issue with the title of “Turkish Islam” and finally his books “Kök Tengri” (1991), “Turkish Islam in Yahya Kemal” (2005) had a very different view from their previous counterparts. Başer, who started a theoretical cadastral study within the framework of the concepts of “reason”, “belief”, “meaning”, “interpretation”, “recognition and learning”, “language, art, history and mind” in his work “Understanding the Social Mind” (2006) increasingly rested on solid ground. He set out to decipher the codes of the “Turkish mind”, which has permeated the language, the Turkish language, just as Mohammed Abid Al-Jabiri tried to do in “The Formation of the Arab Mind”.

Maturity has revealed her works in the books “On the Turkish Understanding and Belief Model” (2011) “Understanding Crisis” (2017), “Lost Yurdun Inside” (2017), “Selam Say” (2017). Thanks to the Hodja, it is now possible to discuss and discuss the concept of “Turkish Islam” under the context and titles of belief and understanding, history and language, in a way that is more liberated from hostility and oriented towards the truth.

Those who are aware of our “Turkish Group Behavior” and “Psychology of Turks” studies will easily understand that we experience a similar and many times greater feeling in front of Başer Hodja’s work, just as we were excited while reading Sabri Ülgener Hodja, who tries to display our social economic mentality. They will tolerate the haste in our effort to read and learn and convey what he wrote.

In his view, for example, “The classical Turkish-Islamic approach, which sits on the Hanafi-Maturidi-Yesevi trivet, has suffered a great loss in its ability to understand, due to a stumbling block caused by mistaking the socio-cultural basis of Arab understanding as Islam. Thought was replaced by a ‘life of worship whose wisdom is not questioned’. The collective memory of Turkishness has been suspended to a great extent, as understanding is shaped by the subject, and therefore within the context of the society’s own experience, language and culture.

The ‘old man faith’ formulated by al-Ghazali was exalted. While ‘obedience to the great’ command at all costs strengthened the central authority, the alternative individuality of understanding was rendered dysfunctional. While the central authority was strengthened, the obedient community became accepted, not the people who understood and produced. What was wanted was muti teb’a and the people’s name was ‘agniya-i şakirin ve fukara-ı sabirin’ (the grateful rich and the patient poor)” You may have many objections to the statement.

Again, for example, “Unfortunately, the Indian Nakshism, which entered our life in Sufism in addition to the Arab Ash’arism in the theological sense, integrated like an integral part of each other. This integration fed the understanding of religion=worship and obedience mentioned above” (Lost Yurdun Inci, p.19-20) may drive you mad.

I have my own criticisms of this view. But wait, whatever your feelings are, it shouldn’t prevent you from taking your hat off and taking it into your archive, mostly for the first time in our history of thought, between Baser Hodja’s understanding and belief and language.

Language can ultimately be traced back to the first moment of the word, and the importance of origins, etymology, and cross-cultural encounters becomes apparent. Başer Hoca is the master of exactly these works and this kind of thinking. That’s why “our Turkish, oh our beautiful Turkish!” he stops.

According to Sait Başer, the trademark of the Turkish mentality is that reason, emotion and belief, understanding and belief never contradict each other. Başer, who argues that the word “believing” comes from the Sanskrit word ‘inana’ and states that this word means knowledge. He joins Z. Eyüpoğlu.

Likewise, the word “understanding”, derived from the root ANG-, has root meanings such as remembering, memory, and limit. “Understanding means to analyze and limit the problem area that the subject is dealing with by looking at all the conditions and acquis, all the processes and context through which the subject passes” (Understanding the Social Mind, p.59-60).

It is quite natural for Hodja to have different interpretations of meaning according to different situations and historical conditions, and again, its source and proof is language. For this reason, it seems more correct to use the verb ‘to interpret’ in Turkish as a further phase of understanding because of its meanings such as ‘to walk’: explaining an event, idea, dream, meaning, advancing, directing, guiding…. says. Başer argues that what he says about meaning and interpretation is also valid for “creation”, based on the analysis of the syphilis in our language (Understanding the Social Mind, p. 82, 84)… We will continue, insha’Allah.