THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume X, Issue # 128, May 21, 2008
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
IS TURKEY'S GOVERNMENT STARTING A MUSLIM REFORMATION?
By Dr. Daniel Pipes
THE HADITH PROJECT: THE TURKISH GOVERNMENT'S ATTEMPT TO EFFECT A BOLD RE-INTERPRETATION OF ISLAM
& SEPARATE ITS ORIGINAL THEOLOGY FROM THE ACCRETIONS OF FOURTEEN CENTURIES -- THE DANGER THAT THE
PROJECT MAY, BY LIMITING ITS SUBJECT MATTER & AVOIDING SUCH IMPORTANT ISSUES AS THE HEADSCARF, FEMALE
LEGAL RIGHTS, MUSLIM WOMEN MARRYING NON-MUSLIM MEN, RIBBA, JIHAD, THE RIGHTS OF NON-MUSLIMS & THE
CREATION OF AN ISLAMIC POLITICAL & SOCIAL ORDER, PROMOTE ISLAMISM MORE THAN MODERNIZE ISLAM
FULL STORY:
Accounts from Turkey suggest that the government is attempting a bold re-interpretation of Islam.
Its unusually named ministry of religion, the "Presidency of Religious Affairs and the Religious Charitable Foundation,"
has undertaken a three-year "Hadith Project" systematically to review 162,000 Hadith reports and winnow them
down to some 10,000, with the goal of separating original Islam from the accretions of fourteen centuries.
The Hadith reports contain information about the sayings and actions of Muhammad, the prophet of Islam. They
augment the Koran and have had a major role in shaping the Shari‘a (Islamic law), thereby deeply influencing
Muslim life. Despite their importance, Muslim reformers have devoted little scrutiny to them, due to their vast size,
unwieldy nature, and the challenge of discerning "sound" from "weak" Hadiths.
One of the project's 85 theology professors, Ismail Hakki Unal, of Ankara University, explains its goal:
"The Koran is our basic guide. Anything that conflicts
with that, we are trying to eliminate."
The project website explained that its work is "an important step for carrying the universal message of the Prophet of Islam
to the Twenty-first Century."
Mehmet Görmez, a senior lecturer in Hadith at Ankara University and the Vice-president of Religious Affairs, heads
the "Hadith Project."
Mehmet Görmez states that the purpose of the project is a scholarly one, to understand the Hadith better: "We will
make a new compilation of the Hadith and re-interpret them if necessary." More broadly, Görmez explains:
"The project takes its inspiration from the interpretations of
the modernist vein of Islam. . . . We want to bring out the
positive side of Islam that promotes personal honor, human
rights, justice, morality, women's rights, respect for the other."
This means, for example, reinterpreting Hadiths that "present women as inferior beings," such as those that encourage
female genital mutilation, honor killings, and the prohibition of women traveling without their husbands. One participant,
Hidayet Sevkatli Tuksal, goes so far as to declare some Hadiths as bogus because they intend "to ensure male
domination over women." However, despite the intense current debate in Turkey over the headscarf, the project avoids that
particular issue. Another sensitive topic concerns the right of Muslims to convert out of their faith; the project permits such
conversions.
Some Turks have great hopes for the Hadith Project, which aims to produce a multi-volume book in Turkish, Arabic, and
Russian by year's end. Taha Akyol, a political commentator, sees a revolution taking place.
"In other countries, you have reform of Islam pushed through
by despotic or modernist regimes, but, in Turkey, you are
seeing the reform taking place in the middle classes. And that
is real reform."
Another commentator, Mustafa Akyol, believes that the revised Hadiths "will be a step to change mindsets."
Fadi Hakura, of Chatham House, goes further, calling the project "somewhat akin to the Christian Reformation." He applauds
the project being sponsored by the Justice and Development Party (AKP) of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. AKP
involvement means that "this reform movement is not being implemented by a secular group, but by the ruling [party, which]
is very religious and conservative. So this is an authentic internal process of change."
Other observers are more skeptical. Hashim Hashimi, a former MP, for example, states:
"There are established views on Islam and how it should be
practiced that have been in place for 1400 years. And they
aren't going to change any time soon."
Even the head of the ministry, Ali Bardakoglu, acknowledges that "we are not reforming Islam; we are reforming ourselves."
What to make of this initiative? Serious efforts to modernize Islam, which this appears to be, are most welcome. At the same
time, one has to wonder about agendas, when government intercedes in the subtle and even subversive domain of religious
reform. Specifically, the AKP's Islamist nature arouses mistrust that the Hadith Project will limit itself to the relatively easy
social issues and avoid the tougher political ones in order to fashion an ideologically more defensible Islam, even while
maintaining some of its more problematic aspects. Does the project's avoidance of the headscarf topic also imply its not
taking up female legal rights, women marrying non-Muslim men, ribba (interest on money), jihad, the rights of non-Muslims,
and the creation of an Islamic order?
By limiting its subject matter, the project might forward Islamism more than modernize Islam. True reform awaits true
reformers – not Islamist functionaries, but independent, modern individuals intent on aligning Islam with the best of modern
mores.
© Daniel Pipes 2008
Originally Published in the Jerusalem Post, May 22, 2008
Republished with the Permission of Daniel Pipes
Reprinted from the Daniel Pipes Mailing List, May 21, 2008
Article URL: http://www.danielpipes.org/article/
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
Turkey, the Middle East, & the U.S.A.
American Foreign Policy -- The Middle East
Middle East: Arabs, Arab States,
& Their Middle Eastern Neighbors
Islamism & Jihadism -- The Threat of Radical Islam
Page Three
Page Two
Page One
International Politics & World Disorder:
War & Peace in the Real World
Page Two
Page One
Islamist Terrorist Attacks on the U.S.A.
Osama bin Laden & the Islamist Declaration of War
Against the U.S.A. & Western Civilization
Islamist International Terrorism &
U.S. Intelligence Agencies
U.S. National Security Strategy
Dr. Daniel Pipes, a Ph.D. in Islamic History (Harvard University, 1978), is the Founder and Director of the Middle East Forum,
the Founder of Campus Watch, a signatory of the Project for the New American Century, a former board member of the U.S.
Institute of Peace, a former adjunct scholar at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a Golden Circle supporter of the
U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon, a former member of the U.S. Department of Defense Special Task Force on Terrorism and
Technology, and a former lecturer at the U.S. Naval War College, Harvard University, the University of Chicago, and the
University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Pipes was the Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute from 1986 to 1993.
Author or co-author of eighteen books, Dr. Pipes is a regular columnist for Front Page Magazine, the New York
Sun, and the Jerusalem Post. His analyses of world trends and of forces and developments in the Middle East
have appeared in numerous North American newspapers, including the Washington Post, the New York Times,
and the Wall Street Journal. He frequently appears on American network television, as well as at universities and
think tanks, to discuss the Middle East, Islam, and the Islamist threat to the U.S.A. and the West. He also has appeared on
BBC and Al Jazeera, and has lectured in approximately twenty-five countries.
Dr. Pipes is a Polish-American Jew whose parents fled Poland in 1939, immigrated to the U.S.A., and assimilated well into
American society and culture. His father is Richard Pipes, an American historian specializing in Russian and Soviet history
and serving as Professor of History at Harvard University from 1950 until his retirement in 1996. During the Cold War, the
worldview of Richard Pipes was strongly anti-Soviet and anti-Communist.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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