Not a provocation, it is the Islamic Middle Ages

Muslims do not have any issues with bigotry, violence and gender inequality. Massacre machines such as al-Qaeda, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Taliban and Boko Haram do not belong to Muslims. They are all “provocations” of the West, the U.S., and Zionism…

“Some people” are using Muslims for a “perception operation” to create hostility against Islam. Do you want proof? Well look, Islamophobia is spreading!

No, the reason for the abundance of bloodshed in the Islamic world, and the reason for brutal attacks such as Sept. 11 and the Paris massacre is that a significant portion of Muslims are still living the “Middle Ages.”

There, they find a “fatwa” for any act in Islamic Law (fiqh) books written in the Middle Ages and think that this is religion.

Condemnation not enough

Barbaric acts should absolutely be condemned with a loud voice. I applaud Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu’s joining of the Jan. 11 march in Paris.

However, condemnation is not enough. A diagnosis must also be made. This falls to Professor Davutoğlu more than anybody else. Not because of his position, but because of his academic capacity.

Eleventh President Abdullah Gül had issued diagnoses and warnings on several occasions. Twelve years ago, at the Islamic Conference in Tehran, then-Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül had said, “It is now time for the Islamic world to adopt contemporary norms … While we take strength from our spiritual values, it should be rationalism that guides us.” (May 29, 2003)

Gül later also made the correct diagnosis and warned on Aug. 16, 2012 in Mecca at the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, as well as on Aug. 4, 2013 at Istanbul Forum, that “What Europe went through in the Middle Ages, Islam is going through now.” Last Friday, after Friday prayers, he pointed to the gravity of the situation by saying, “Afghanistan has come to the coasts of the Mediterranean.”

As chaos and clashes increase, whatever was in the Middle Ages in history has risen from the grave with rage: Bloody sectarian wars, beheadings and concubines!

Meanwhile, Parliament Speaker Cemil Çiçek recently asked the following: “The attackers are gathered from all over the world; they depart from country X and opt for death. Can this structure be formed overnight? Can such an organization be made in one month? What is behind this business? Everybody should be asking this.”

No “external force” can do this. The reason is that the “medieval” culture has penetrated to the marrow. The history of colonization, Israeli cruelty in Palestine, occupations, humiliations…

Unfortunately, the justified reactions caused by these things bring to the surface the medieval layers lying deep down, resulting in bloodshed. Colonization and exploitation were also suffered in the Far East, but they responded by doing wonders in science, economy and even in technology. In the Islamic world, however, the response has been an abundance of Talibans, al-Qaedas, ISILs and Boko Harams.

Religious scholar İskender Pala recently said, “If I were in my 20s now, I would not have leaned toward Islam.” Another, Hidayet Şefkati Tuksal, said that many Muslims are currently reflecting that “If the attackers are Muslims, then we are not.”

There is nothing surprising in the spread of Islamophobia in the West. The real enemy of Islam is illiteracy and bigotry; it is the medieval mentality. To name an atrocity “provocation” only fuels insanity.

If you consider the problem to be “the middle ages in the contemporary era,” then you would both diagnose correctly and look for the solution in stepping out of the “Middle Ages.”

As Gül has said, while we take strength from our spiritual values, it should be rationalism that guides us.