Hint Düşüncesinde İslam Algısı

Year 2020, Issue: 43, 214 - 219, 01.01.2020

Abdul Basit Zafar

https://doi.org/10.26570/isad.650338

Abstract

Cemil Kutlutürk,
assistant professor in the Divinity School at Ankara University, who works on
Hindu religious thought, published a book titled The Perception of Islam in Hindu Thought; A Case Study of
Bhakti Movement. The
publication offers an intensive study for Turkish readers. The work covers
medieval India and elaborates on its political arena, historical atmosphere,
and the rigid caste system that was entangled with every part of a Hindu’s
life. In the Hindu worldview he explains, it was of utmost value to be engaged
in the caste system and to live and die in it faithfully. Before the coming of
Islam and its spread throughout the Indian subcontinent, both trade and pagan
practices served as a uniting force between the two geographically different
regions (p. 72). Such encounters between Arabs and Hindus are well documented
in historical fragments, oriental travelogues, and remnants of poetry. One
could say that this clash of religious and cultural identity was the actual
origin of Bhakti movement. In a possible cultural intrusion, there are at least
two possibilities: either embracing foreign thought—which was Islam in this
case—and celebrating its fruits, or opposing the intruding thought through
emphasizing one’s own rigid beliefs. Kutlutürk exhibits both phenomena in his
present work and explains a third possibility: that of amalgamation, which
happened in the form of Bhakti movement in India in the middle ages (11th to
17th century). 

Keywords

Hindu worldview, Islam

References

• Cemil Kutlutürk, Hint Düşüncesinde İslam Algısı, Dergâh Yayınları, İstanbul, 2019.