e-Makalat Mezhep Araştırmaları Dergisi

Abstract

Hasan Onat gave lectures on the history of Islamic sects and contemporary Islamic movements. He also wrote books, articles and presented papers on these subjects. As a public intellectual his activities ranged from making TV shows and radio talks and writing columns in newspapers. Hasan Onat deals with the history of current religious understanding in Turkey by linking it with the last period of the Ottoman Empire. According to him, in the first period of the Republic, intellectuals disassociated themselves from religion. The gap raised from that in the field of religion has been filled by Sufi orders and religious communities. Consequently, the tradition was per-ceived as the religion itself. Books written in colonial countries were translated and the language of religious stu-dies in Turkey became politicized. For instance, the Salafi-Shiite polarization raises from the political rivalry of Shiite Iran and Wahhabi Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, after the Iranian revolution, the books of the Shiite ideologues of the revolution were translated into Turkish, and the dissolution of the traditional Sunni understanding in Turkey accelerated. Salafism is not a sect but a mentality. Onat emphasized the importance of the reason. He promoted a Qur'an-centered and research-based understanding of religion. According to him, the enormous baggage of tradi-tion should be evaluated by subjecting it to a vigorous criticism.