The Concept of Sunna in Progressive Muslim Thought

Year 2024, Issue: 6, 73 - 82, 30.06.2024

Adis Duderija Translator: Musa Eşit

https://doi.org/10.61216/darulhadisdergisi.1477027

Abstract

In this paper I describe the nature and scope of the concept ‘sunna’ in progressive Muslim thought. I argue that, unlike the hadith-based concept of sunna found in classical Islam, the concept of sunna in progressive Islam has strong affinities with how that concept was understood during the formative period of Islamic thought. In this respect, I show that the concept of sunna in progressive Islam operates within a broad contextualist and rationalist approach to Islamic theology and ethics, that it is a general ethico-behavioural embodied concept. It is not viewed as a source of Islamic belief, nor is it considered a form of unrecited revelation - although, for hermeneutical purposes, it exists in an organic and symbiotic relationship with the Qur’an. In the last section, I discuss several concrete implications this approach to the concept of sunna has in progressive Islam, doing away with many norms, values, and practices that have been associated with the concept in classical Islamic law/ethics, such as those pertaining to family and criminal law. With respect to this, I highlight how a progressive Muslim approach to normative sunna enables the Islamic interpretive tradition to shed ethically and epistemologically outdated norms, values, and practices that have often been defended on the basis of a concept of sunna that operates within the hermeneutical confines of classical Islamic theology and Islamic legal theory.

Keywords

sunna, hadith, progressive Islam, progressive Muslim thought, Islamic legal theory, Islamic theology, Qur’an, ‘urf, Qur’anic hermeneutics.

İlerlemeci İslam Düşüncesinde Sünnet Kavramı

Abstract

Bu makalede, ilerlemeci İslam düşüncesinde ‘sünnet’ kavramının doğasını ve kapsamını açıklıyorum. İslam’ın klasik dönemindeki hadis-temelli sünnet kavramının aksine, ilerlemeci İslam’daki sünnet kavramının, bu kavramın İslam düşüncesinin oluşum döneminde nasıl algılandığıyla güçlü benzerlikleri olduğunu iddia ediyorum. Bu bağlamda, ilerlemeci İslam’daki sünnet kavramının İslam teolojisi ve ahlakına yönelik geniş bir bağlamsalcı ve rasyonalist yaklaşım içerisinde işlediğini, genel bir ahlaki-davranışsal somutlaşmış kavram olduğunu gösteriyorum. İslam itikadının bir kaynağı olarak görülmediği gibi, hermenötik amaçlar doğrultusunda Kur’an ile organik ve simbiyotik bir ilişki içinde bulunmasına rağmen, gayri metluv bir vahiy biçimi olarak da değerlendirilmemektedir. Son bölümde, sünnet kavramına yönelik bu yaklaşımın, aile ve ceza hukukuna ilişkin olanlar gibi klasik İslam hukuku/ahlakında bu kavramla ilişkilendirilen birçok norm, değer ve uygulamayı ortadan kaldırarak, ilerlemeci İslam’da sahip olduğu bazı somut sonuçları tartışıyorum. Bu bağlamda, normatif sünnete yönelik ilerlemeci İslam yaklaşımının, İslam yorum geleneğinin, klasik İslam kelamı ve İslam hukuk usulünün hermenötik sınırları içinde işleyen bir sünnet kavramı temelinde savunulan ahlaki ve epistemolojik açıdan geçerliliğini yitirmiş norm, değer ve uygulamalardan kurtulmasını nasıl sağladığını vurguluyorum.

Keywords

sünnet, hadis, ilerlemeci İslam, ilerlemeci İslam düşüncesi, İslam hukuk usulü, İslam kelamı, Kur’an, örf, Kur’an hermenötiği

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