Lifelong Learners

In this article, the approaches of Indian religions that exhibit a polytheistic structure will be discussed. By naming Indian religions, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism, which are born in the Indian Peninsula and show similarities in terms of certain features, are meant. Having a polytheistic understanding, Hinduism hosted many different god conceptions during the formation process. Hinduism reveals to its believers a circular view of the realm. According to this, the universe consists of four successive periods. Each period gets worse in the context of moral principles than the previous one. The world can only be reborn by preparing the ground for extinction at the end of the fourth period. The cyclical realm view thus continues forever. Time fiction includes the belief of “samsara and karma”. Expressing spiritual migration, samsara states that the spirits continue to exist in this cycle until they reach ultimate salvation, namely "moksha". How people wil

                                                                                   Photo By: Met Museum                                            Before going into the details of the subject, it is very important to focus on the concept of "civilization" to better understand the subject. The word civilization is derived from the Arabic root "m-d-n", which means "settling and residing somewhere" and means "urbanism, sedentary life, living well and prosperous". This concept, which started to be used in the last periods of the Ottoman Empire, corresponds to the term "civilization" in Western thought. To express the concept of civilization in Turkish, the word “civilization” was derived from the Uyghur, which was the first Turkish community to come to life, and was used instead of the concept of civilization. In Arabic, the concepts of “umran-hadaret-prosperity”, which corresponds to the concept of civilization, appear. Although ma

Photo by: Jean-Léon Gérôme  Understanding and interpreting Islam has been varied according to regions, societies, and historical context. The biggest common point among different Muslim communities is Islam. However, the biggest difference is that they have wide various Islamic understandings. Because different places have an impact on how to believe. On one hand, religious beliefs influence and shape every society it enters without exception but more importantly, it is shaped by society/civilization. In this context, religion is both a perpetrator and an object. On the other hand, the differences in understanding and interpretation stem from human nature. These differences stemming from the nature of man have been examined by the anthropologist Clifford Geertz on two Muslim countries, Morocco and Indonesia. The author, who examines the relations of the peoples of Morocco and Indonesia with the sacred, presents a detailed and profound comparison of the interpretation of the same

In the last centuries, the Muslim world has been witnessing one of the biggest destruction in its history. Islamic countries have been occupied by western ideas both spiritually and materially. By the way, these countries lost their powers politically, economically, and socially. Unfortunately, at this time there is not an Islamic country -or rather countries that have the Muslim public- who has the right to speak in the global world nearly in all areas. The current structure of Islamic countries reveals us demanding a new solution which is explained in the book; titled Islamization of Knowledge. This book emphasizes the recent main problems of Ummah from several angels and explains possible solutions as a structure that is shaped in the authors' mentality. The author says there are some stages to deal with this problem and there are three main steps to save the Ummah from the present situation. Firstly, after recognizing the problem as said above, all Muslim students must be

Throughout history, human communities have been named as "society,” “nation,” “race,” “people,” and “tribe”. The whole denotations express the unity of blood, race, land, and ownership. In Islamic terminology, the concept of "ummah" replaces all of them. The concept of ummah involves much deeper meanings than racial, regional associations. The word Ummah is an Arabic word that refers to a certain society. Furthermore, it also includes meanings such as path and intention. Islam aimed at social unity by ignoring the discriminatory elements with choosing the concept of the ummah. According to Ali Shariati, the ideal Islamic society is called the Ummah. In this context, the ummah is formed by a common faith and the people who share the purpose. Moreover, this social structure defies today's societies based on racial foundations. The Islamic religion targets "universal brotherhood". The holy book of Islam, the Quran, is a book that aims at removing the ba

As we know, all sciences are good for everybody and it must be objective to create a common knowledge legacy of humanity. Therewith, objectivity is one of the most important principles of science. ' Scientific objectivity expresses the idea that the claims, methods, and results of science are not, or should not be influenced by particular perspectives, value commitments, community bias or personal interests, to name a few relevant factors' [1] . But now or before, can we say this statement is valid for anthropology or all of the social sciences which are based on western ideology? Anthropology with its other name -the study of men- as a general definition helps us to understand ourselves through understanding other cultures.   In western ideology, it is claimed that societies follow the social development stages in which western people are at the top of it. It means the western people are an example of human perfection. Undoubtedly, this theory was inspired by Darw