Iranian tourists
There is rejoicing in our Antalya and Van provinces, where one Iranian plane lands after the other. Tourists are pouring in like rain. As the ones who arrive are from wealthy segments, they do a lot of shopping.
This does not compensate the lack of Western tourists, but this of course is good.
We should immediately stop the quarrel we have been conducting with the West and move the disputes into diplomatic channels and negotiation rooms. Fighting through the media not only escalates the crisis, it also negatively affects Turkey’s image in the eyes of the Western public and harms tourism.
Iranian tourists, instead of Central Asian and Middle Eastern countries, primarily chose to come to Turkey.
They are most welcome. First of all, Turkey is a more modern society compared with other Muslim countries and countries in the region. Women feel freer here. Many Iranians speak Turkish.
Iran is a great and old civilization. We, as we proceeded from Central Asia, have adopted certain rooted institutions and concepts from Iran and brought them to Anatolia. We have amalgamated the Seljuk civilization. Anybody who has not seen Tabriz, Esfahan and Shiraz lacks vision of history and civilization. I want to move on to the “Islamic civilization” concept from here.
Kemal Öztürk, a distinguished writer from the daily Yeni Şafak, said what was needed was not the making of technical or material values, but new human values. He explained the situation of today’s Islamic societies and said a civilization cannot be formed from this material.
He has emphasized that Islam could be an alternative for our age but for this, “Islam has to be reinterpreted with contemporary issues taken into consideration.”
Unfortunately, political Islamism is wasting the energy of Muslim societies in political power struggles.
Well, since there is no existing state and law philosophy that “takes into account the issues of contemporary times,” the states formed as “Islamic republics” are far from being good examples.
As a matter of fact, as Pakistani scholar Fazlur Rahman has wisely stated, “When we mention an Islamic state, it does not mean that God will come and rule the state, it will be again be the faulty human beings, who are us, ruling.”
A high quality in the human is not solely adequate. Even among the people with the highest quality of traits, there could be passions such as ambition, rage and domination. Thus, “law and institutions” are extremely important.
The contemporary “separation of powers” principle that has emerged in the West is also an urgent need for Muslims.
At the times when the world was unaware of the separation of powers, with the Islamic jurisprudence tradition, where all the powers belonged to the caliph; a state that would meet the issues of the age in the 21st century and one that would also create freedom and legal assurance cannot be formed.
As you can see, either secular dictatorships or Islamic dictatorships in the Islamic world can do it.
In the huge interest vested in Iranian and Arab tourists in Turkey, as well as geographic and cultural factors, the fact that Turkey is ahead of all of them in modernization has a lion’s share.