The topic of our article is the term “religion vs religion” which represents the bipolar understanding of religion by modern Muslim thinker and sociologist Ali Shariati (d. 1977). The aim of the study is to present what Shariati means by the expression and to establish whether the naming of monotheism (tawhid) and politheism (shirk) in two opposite ends is limited to Islam or extendable to all Abrahamic and even all religions in the world. We observe that Shariati does not study the religions regarding their beliefs, worship, rituals, corporate identity, founders, prophets, symbols, and temples; but include their social, political, and cultural functions they play in a society in a given time perios as well as their historical evolutions. According to Shairati, religion is a dynamic institution that impacts human life profoundly, but also is vulnerable to instrumentalization. As we explore in our study, the author argues that historically there have been two poles not between religion and irreligion in all societies, but between monotheism (tawhid) and multitheism (shirk). Different versions of multitheism ruled the world except for very limited time periods where monotheism dominated. Multithesim functioned as a legitimazing tool for an unjust class system and exploitation. Shariati considered the influential philosophical, ideological and political movements of the 20th century while studying religion with its social, economic, and political functions.
Primary Language | Turkish |
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Subjects | Religious Studies |
Journal Section | Peer-reviewed Research Articles |
Authors | |
Publication Date | December 15, 2020 |
Published in Issue | Year 2020 Volume: 4 Issue: 2 |
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· Adress: Ankara Yıldırım Beyazıt Üniversity, Faculty of Islamic Sciences, Esenboga Campus, Cubuk/Ankara