ianmcdonald ([info]ianmcdonald) wrote,
@ 2008-02-26 16:34:00
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Current music:British Sea Power: Waving Flags.

Turkey watch part 94
Interesting link in the BBC to major reinterpretation of the hadith by academics in Ankara. Probably too much to argue it as an Islamic Reformation, but it does seem to sit easily with Tariq Ramadan, Western Muslims and the Future of Islam. Much of their research on the oigins of hadith passages sounds exciting, but, as it says in the Beeb article, I suspect it has a lot to do with resisting conservative, and specifically Saudi, influences, particularly as Turkey is flexing its muscles as the big regional economic player.


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[info]al_zorra
2008-02-26 08:58 pm UTC (link)
This "Turkey in radical revision of Islamic texts" bbc story you referred to seems from over here to be enormous news. It's doing exactly what so many, at least, in the U.S., have accused Islam of not doing.

Presumably the desire of so many contemorary young Turkish women in Turkey and living in other nations, to wear headscarves and / or other sartorial indications of Islamic adherance is a different impulse all together?

Love, C.

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[info]ianmcdonald
2008-02-26 10:35 pm UTC (link)
well, the Saudi style full hijab is still forbidden. A lot of women wear a headscarf --and it is a headscarf-- because it's the culture and the tradition, rather than for politically religious reasons. I think a lot of Westerners hear 'Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic government' and go into religious knee-jerk, when what it is is more similar to European Christian Democrat parties than anything yould find in Iran. Turks are no fans of Saudi-style Islamism -it's as much cultural as religious. Ironically, The AKP is one of the most pro-EU Turkish parties --then again, English-language newspapers close to it like Today's Zaman takes a strongky anti nationalist/secularist line. I must saym since starting the book, Turkish has risen spectacularly in global political visibility.

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[info]al_zorra
2008-02-26 11:05 pm UTC (link)
Well, wanting to invade and kill Kurds and asking U.S. help in doing so and continuing to deny the Armenian genocide, has helped with that global profile rise, doubtless.

In the meantime most U.S. citizens, if they've bothered to notice, have found the parties of European politics beyond any comprehension, so brainwashed we have been that ONLY two parties, and two parties ONLY, is the ONLY way to have true democracy and honest elections.

Love, C.

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[info]ianmcdonald
2008-02-27 12:24 am UTC (link)
absolutely. In the EU, the French are the great opponents on Turkish membership on account of the Armenian genocide (the degree of denial in Turkey is incredible --I saw books in Istanbul airport in English arguing that the whole thing was an evil ploy by the devious Armenians) --the Turks counterargue, with some justification, yes, and what about Algeria?

Re invading Iraq, well, we can cast the first stone, can't we?

Of course, this is what makes it a fascinating place to try to write about.

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[info]orbzine
2008-02-27 01:34 am UTC (link)
Hey, you missed "The Battle for Algiers" at QFT last year!
:(

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[info]lenno_cornish
2008-03-12 11:58 am UTC (link)
What do you think abut sufism?

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[info]ianmcdonald
2008-03-13 05:20 pm UTC (link)
well, I'm naturally more attracted to the mystical traditions in most religions (not Kaballah, it's a trend-thing, I think), and certainly sufism, to me, is the most appealing aspect of Islam. I find much of value in most of the schools --when we were in Turkey, most of the fuss of course is made about the Mevlevi order, and we went to see the Mevlana's tomb in Konya, which was very special, but I found the most spiritual place was the Bektasi order tekke at Hacibektas --a major pilgrimage site for the Alevi community. It had a magical atmosphere and sense of simple austerity. I like the way sufism uses union with God in a counter-intuitive, almost Zen-like way, to challenge both religious and irrereligious alike.

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[info]lenno_cornish
2008-03-14 06:52 am UTC (link)
I guess that sufism is one of the most adequate Moslem traditions in case of inter-religious relations.
Also I've read a book of their great teacher Hazrat Inajat Khan.

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[info]jonathannil
2008-03-14 01:46 pm UTC (link)
LJ user Slit had an interesting analysis of the media attention to this 'news' vs. what it really does or doesn't mean.

http://slit.livejournal.com/374292.html

I don't know how LJ linking works, sorry.

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[info]ianmcdonald
2008-03-14 02:08 pm UTC (link)
link works mighty fine. Good post,that one. The core assertion, and it's right, is that the hadith is by its very nature unreliable and subject to interpretation and re-interpretation: I'd suggest that most of the arguments within Islam are nothing to do with the Koran, but interpretations of the hadith. Slit perhaps should have made the point that the Ottoman empire did claim the caliphate until the Sultanate's abolition in the 1920s, which might shed a historical light over the new interpretation.

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