Diyanet İlmi Dergi

Abstract

This study is confined
to delin- eating some
religious reasons behind Muslims transforming from being the subject of deter- mining
and building the world history into an object as of the 20th century, with reference to the works of our Poet of
Indepen- dence, Mehmet Akif Ersoy, who
had the intellectual accumulation of his time and witnessed the
disappearance of the Ottoman Empire from the stage of history at the beginning
of the 20th century. Accordingly,
a number of religious reasons, from Akif’s point
of view, are identified that caused Muslims, who had actively played
the leading-role in forming the world history for centuries, to turn into an
object that is subject to plans made on them from all around the world, in
particular the Middle East. As a
result of this research, ac- cording to Safahat that is Akif’s work where he has compiled his poems, it
is seen that Muslims were accustomed to laziness, hopelessness,
emotionlessness, corruption, ignorance, discord, and nationalism, and that he com- plained about those as the cause of loss
of power. In addition, it is also seen that Muslims remained behind due
to a misconception of qadar, a
conception of tawakkul distanced from
its true purpose, a narration of religion-teaching full of
superstitions, presentation of fabricated stories as hadiths without putting
them through a scientific methodology, leading to laziness
by constantly impos- ing that this world is temporary, thereby falling far behind reach-
ing the true goal of the religion. One of the primary goals of this
study is to offer a number of solutions, in accordance with the national
poet’s thoughts, to the problems that Muslims face to- day. In this study, the poet’s own works are scrutinized as primary
references, and the sources that quote his thoughts as secondary references.