Aysel Tan

Moral Understanding of Al-Ghazali In order to evaluate the moral understanding of Ghazali correctly, we should pay attention to how he handles the basic concepts and how he views the life of the hereafter. Ghazali sees moral descriptions such as good, bad and absurd as “knowledge pre-existing in the mind” and believes that it is inherent to do good and avoid evil. Reason naturally encourages people to avoid harm. Reason has the universal knowledge of good and evil. The concepts of moral good and bad are necessary in the mind, and it cannot be known with the mind that individual verbs are good and bad (particular). Particulars, for example, if lying is bad, it is known by 'experience'. In this respect, he has been influenced by philosophers in his statements pointing to the rational aspect of morality. The second important factor that determines Ghazali's view of morality is Sufism. He adopts a morality that advises to stay away from the world in accordance with the mystical understanding of life, and is shaped by compassion and consent. In Ghazali, morality has assumed an individual character with this aspect and the social ethics understanding has been pushed to the second plan. In such an individual understanding of morality, activities and activities aimed at achieving the hereafter and the hereafter are considered important. For this purpose, worship takes on a moral character and points out our responsibilities towards Allah. Those who worship are moral and deserve salvation. Thus, worship becomes a "goal", not a "tool" in the acquisition of morality. Those who fulfill their responsibilities to God behave morally. As a result, the two main pillars that make up the Ghazali understanding of morality are philosophical reason and mystical world view. Since reason is an innate feature of human beings, man knows the good and the bad as a fundamental and can behave morally with this knowledge. Again, knowing that this world is a temporary place, people will work with the focus on the hereafter and live morally by worshiping Allah.

Mehmet Akif criticized the way Muslim societies understand religion in his poems and articles. He constantly criticized Muslims' inertia, understanding of trust, false beliefs and imitation. The ideas of Cemaleddin Afganî and his student Muhammed Abduh, Said Halim Pasha on Islamism, and Fahrettin Razi, who struggled for Muslims to gain their independence, set an example for Mehmet Akif in this sense. He believed in the idea of 'Islamic unity' and saw it as a prescription for salvation. It is important how Mehmet Akif looks and evaluates the Quran in his understanding of religion and, consequently, in his understanding of religious experience. He looks at the Quran as a dynamic book. For this reason, he thinks that the Quran is in direct relation with current events and tries to relate the Qur'an to current events by seeing it as if it was being revealed again. According to him, the Quran is not a book to be "read in a cemetery", but a book "addressing the living". Koran; It is a book that needs to be read, understood, interpreted and re-experienced. In this context, understanding the Quran means 'experiencing' it. The Quran is a book that will bring people to the highest level if it is obeyed. It is understood correctly when people establish a direct relationship with the Quran and its orders are fulfilled. However, inertia, indolence and superstitions in society prevented the Quran from being understood correctly and applied to life. The primary way to correct this is to make new studies in the field of religious sciences and to give up the "tradition of annotation" and to bring new-updated interpretations to religion. Thus, the reflections and effects of religion on life will be corrected and a new civilization will be established around a religion that is far from superstitions.

The first serious scientific studies on the brain date back to the 1800s. Two events led the studies on the brain. The first incident is an accident involving Phineas Gage, a railway worker. The two-meter-long piece of iron that entered Gage's left eye and broke up the anterior frontal lobe of the brain prompted scientists to rethink the brain. Having lived a moral life before the accident, Gage became immoral and evil after the accident. This incident revealed that the brain has a relationship with evil. The second event affecting the brain studies is the split brain syndrome that occurs when the corpuscallosum of patients with epilepsy is cut. The separation of the right and left brains has caused some problems in individuals. For example, while the left brain smokes, the right brain tries to block it, while the left brain drives a car, the right brain wants to get out of the way. The right brain behaves in a childish and impulsive manner and cannot be controlled. After all, any disease, accident or surgery that occurs in the brain can negatively affect people's behavior and make them worse. Then, the neuroscientific origins of the evil issue should be investigated and evaluated according to neuro-philosophy. In this paper, the limits of human freedom, scientific determinism and human responsibility will be set forth. Thus, in the issue of evil, it will be shown that the biological (and psychological) structure of the human being, together with external factors such as the environment, society, education, and culture, and the changes that occur in it, are determined in the human will and choosing evil.

The issue of emotion is discussed in three stages in this article. Thus, emotion is built on a realistic and explanatory basis. In the first stage, the relationship between the physiological structure of the human brain and emotion is emphasized. The connection between the lower/primitive brain (the region/emotion center where emotions arise) and the upper/developed brain (mind-logic center, prefrontal lobe) is mentioned. Secondly, the emotional and mental development of human according to Jean Piaget's Mental Development Theory is explained. In the emotional / intuitive period of 4-7 years (Emotional Intuition), while the person is completely under the influence of emotions, at the age of 7-11, he becomes aware of a concrete world accompanying emotions and passes to the Concrete Operations Period. It experiences the universe by "experiment" in the concrete operational period. And at the age of 11-17, the human reaches the Abstract Operations Period with the addition of reason and logic to his mental structure, which he built by putting a concrete universe on the core of emotions. Emotion is one of the most important functions of the human brain, and the reasoning system has evolved as an extension of the emotional system. Emotion plays different roles in the reasoning process. Emotion can increase the weight of a proposition, affecting the result in favor of that proposition. Emotion also helps in the process of remembering the many facts that need to be taken into account in order to make a decision. It has been explained through examples that emotion has a very important function in reasoning and that the mind is also important in controlling emotions. Again, emotion can help the mind / logic process scientific knowledge correctly and make good decisions.

John Locke (1632 – 1704) is one of the thinkers of Enlightenment philosophy. His moral views are a reflection of the natural understanding of religion formed by the Enlightenment philosophy. The purpose of natural religion is to build a religion that is separate from the traditional view and historical religious understanding. Advocates of this view necessarily base the existence of God and adopt a deist view. Locke advocated a similar idea, and because he was an empiricist thinker, he wanted to base his understanding of morality and God, which he emphasized in nature. He thinks there is a law in nature. This law of nature can be discovered with the light of nature, man can live ethically by reaching this law and reach the existence of God. But Locke cannot explain and obscure what he means here with the light of nature in his Essays on the Law of Nature. This natural light is sometimes an innate ability, sometimes mind, and sometimes sensory data. Sometimes he thinks of these three as complementary elements. After all, the combination of these three is known as the law of nature, and people have to comply with the moral principles that are necessarily caused by the knowledge of the law of nature. In this sense, Locke, who also restricts human liberty, reaches a deterministic understanding of morality, human and existence depending on nature. Emile Boutroux (d. 1921) criticized this determinist view.

Jean Piaget's theory of human mental development mirrors many issues related to human. According to this theory, one's view of himself, nature/universe and God is changing. According to this theory, which is basically divided into four main periods and subtitles, the thinking skill of man changes according to age, physical development, education and society. These differences affect the way individuals obtain information. Individuals who acquire knowledge with an emotional intuition before the age of seven acquire information through an inductive way, in other words, through concrete intuition, through concrete processes, experimentation and observation, in parallel with the development of the brain and senses. At the age of eleven and after which intellectual reasoning develops, information becomes abstract and information is obtained through abstract intuition based on theories, hypotheses and assumptions. In the love experience of Rumi, a mystical thinker, knowledge is obtained only with emotional intuition, and it is claimed that the only way to obtain information is love-based emotional intuition. In this love-based emotional intuition, the ways of obtaining concrete/experimental and abstract/rational knowledge requiring high level mental skills are rejected and these methods are said to be 'devil’s work'. In this study, Rumi's approach to human, universe and God in this one-sided and emotional way is criticized and its inconsistency is revealed.

Felsefe Optiğinden Aşkın Renkleri kitabı Senail Özkan’ın bir takdim yazısı, giriş ve yedi bölümden oluşmaktadır. Kitapta kaynakçaya yer verilmemiştir. Halilov, kitabın giriş kısmında ‘aşk’ın ne olduğunu ve hangi ilim dalı tarafından ele alınması gerektiğini açıklamıştır. Ona göre aşk insanın manevi âleminin en derin katmanlarında ortaya çıktığı için temel itibariyle bilinçdışı alana aittir. İlim onu irdeleyemez, aşk, ilim için muğlak bir alandır ve mantıki düzlemde değerlendirilmesi oldukça zordur. İlim açısından incelenemediği için bu işi felsefe ve şiir üstlenmektedir.(s.16, s. 55) Şiir ve aşk ilişkisine değinen Halilov, şiirin aşk ile büyük bir ilgisi olduğunu Doğu’da ve Batı’da aşk konusunun şiir sanatının kapsamı içinde değerlendirildiğini söyler. Doğu’da Nizami, İbn Arabi, Mevlana, Fuzuli, İkbal ve Cavid’e kadar Doğu şairlerinin aşk konusunu ele aldığı ve bununla ilgili eserler verdiğini ekler. Halilov’a göre Doğu’da aşk, ‘ilahi nitelikte’ ele alınmaktadır. Bütün kitap boyunca ‘ilahi aşk’ meselesi üzerinde duran Halilov bazen bu görüşü savunmuş bazen de tutarsız ve gerçek hayattan uzak olduğunu anlatmaya çalışmıştır. Ona göre aşk, ilahi olmaktan ziyade ferdi, bireysel veya insanidir. Aşk, ‘yerle gök arasında’ olması gerekmektedir. Bu açıdan Halilov aşkı, rasyonel bir düzlemde alan Batı öğretisini tercih ettiğini söylemektedir.(s.18) Fakat kitabına baktığımızda aslında Halilov’un bazı gerekçeler nedeniyle bu konuda biraz tereddütte kaldığını göreceğiz. (s.25)

Her din ve mistik kültürde ortaya çıkan dinî tecrübelerin felsefe, kelam ve fıkıh gibi bilim alanlarında farklı açıklamaları yapılmış, akli olup olmadığı sorgulanmıştır. Vahiy, keramet, vecd, hulul, tecelli gibi kavramlara açıklamalar getirilmiştir. Fakat bu tür tecrübelerin insanın fizyolojik ve psikolojik mekanizmalarıyla ne tür bir bağlantısı olduğu İslam düşünce geleneğinde pek tartışılmamıştır. Bu tür tecrübe yaşayan kişilerin sorunlu olup olmadığı tıbbi açıdan değerlendirilmemiştir. Dini tecrübeleri tıbbî bir sorun olarak ele alıp bu tecrübeleri ‘deney’ konusu yaparak inceleyen ilk düşünür William James’tir (ö.1910). O, The Varieties of Religious Experience adlı kitabında her türlü ‘dini’ olarak ifade edilen tecrübeleri ele alıp açıkladığı gibi, dini olmayan ama dini tecrübelere benzer mistik tecrübeleri de araştırıp, incelemiştir. Fakat James, araştırmasında dini ve mistik tecrübe ayırımı yapmamıştır. İkili bir ayırma tabi tutulmadan bütün tecrübelerin tek bir başlık altında incelenip ‘psikolojik durum’ olarak kabul edilmesi bu bildirinin ele aldığı ana sorundur. Bütün tecrübeler tek bir başlık altında ele alınırsa peygamberlerin tecrübeleri (vahiy) ile bunun dışında yer alan mistik tecrübelerin (vecd, keramet) bir farkı kalmayacaktır. Bu ikisini ayırmak için akli kriterleri ve tecrübelerinin ana iddialarını değerlendirip ele almak gerekir. Vahiy tecrübelerinin temel iddialarıyla mistik tecrübelerin iddialarını karşılaştırdığımızda vahiy tecrübelerinin akli kriterlere uygun olduğu ve tıbbi açıdan hastalıklı bir insanın tecrübesi olmadığı görülecektir. Mistik tecrübeler de ise durum bunun tersi görünmektedir. Mistik tecrübeler geçirenlerin çoğu zaman depresyon, manik ve çoğu zaman da uyuşturucu ile ortaya çıktığı, bunalımlı ve savaş dönemlerinde bu tür tecrübelerin arttığı görülür. Bu şekilde vahiy tecrübesinin doğruluğu ortaya konduğunda toplumu etkileyen dini inançların doğru kaynağına yönelmek mümkün olur. Mistik tecrübelerin ise hastalıklı zihnin ürünü olması nedeniyle insanları saptırıcı, dinden çıkarıcı ve akıl dışı olduğu ortaya çıkar. Bu şekilde dini inançların istikameti doğru bir şekilde çizilmiş olur.

Geçmişte Tanrı’nın varlığı, ispatı ve yorumu çerçevesinde bazı düşünürler kutsal kitapları, bir kısmı felsefi argümanları, diğer düşünürler ise mistik tecrübeyi merkeze alarak meseleyi tartışmışlardır. Tanrı’nın varlığı ile ilgili meseleyi ‘mistik tecrübe’ etrafında tartışan düşünürlerden biri Mevlana’dır (ö.1273). Onun mistik tecrübesi yani aşk tecrübesi Tanrı’nın varlığına ulaşmadaki tek yoldur. O aşk tecrübesini, gençliğinde babasından ve çevresinden aldığı tasavvufi bilgi anlayışı bağlamında yorumlar. Bu tasavvufi bilgi ve dünya görüşü, duyuların ve aklın yetersizliğine vurgu yapan ve keşf/ilham gibi duygusal sezgiyi ön plana çıkaran bir geleneğin devamı olarak öne sürülmüştür. Tanrı’nın varlığı ona göre rasyonel bir ispat veya bilimsel bir deney konusu olamaz. Tanrı, içsel bir tecrübe ile insanın benliğinde hissettiği bir şeydir. Bu içsel tecrübe yaşantısı yani aşk, beş şekilde insanın hayatında ortaya çıkar. Aşk/nur delili şeklinde, yani bizzat aşk duygusunun bir insanda var olması Tanrı’nın varlığını ispatlar. İkincisi, kendisinde aşk olan bir aşık, tabiata bakınca (temaşa) tabiatta da Aşk’ı (Tanrı) görür. Aşk, bir çiçeğin güzelliğinde, kuşların ötüşünde ortaya çıkar. Üçüncüsü, insanın kendisi ve kendi benliği de Tanrı’nın varlığına delildir (Kendini bilen Rabbini bilir). Dördüncüsü bazı yönleriyle peygambervari niteliklere sahipmiş gibi anlattığı veriler de Tanrı’nın varlığını delillendiren somut örneklerdir. Son olarak ise Mevlana, Aşk ve aşk tecrübesinin varlığına delil olarak Kur’an’da geçen mucizeleri gösterir. Peygamberin vahyini Kur’an’daki mucizeler doğruluyorsa, kendi aşk/gönül vahyini doğrulayan şey de kerametleridir. Mevlana delilleri tamamen mistik düzlemde açıklasa bile zaman zaman rasyonel delilleri kullanmaktan çekinmemiştir. O rasyonel delilin içeriğini kabul eder ve delilin ana temasını beyitlerinde kısa kısa anlatır. Bu yolu kullanmasının nedeni daha işlevsel olması ve hitabını genelde halka yapmasındadır. Fakat rasyonel delilleri ikincil deliller olarak ele alır ve hudus, imkan, ilk hareket, ekmel varlık ve gaye-nizam delillerini aşk tecrübesine göre yeniden yorumlar. Bunu nasıl yaptığı, eserlerinden yola çıkarak gösterilecektir. Mevlana mistik bir düşünür olarak Tanrı’nın varlığı meselesine duyguyla yaklaşmış, O’nun varlığını duygusal bir tecrübe konusu olarak görmüştür. Böyle bir duygusal yoğunluk (aşk) ve duygusal tecrübe insanın Tanrı’nın varlığını ispat etmesine yetmektedir. Rasyonel deliler, aşkı duygusu ve mistik tecrübe yanında önemini yitirmektedir.

Ghazali’s The Beginning of Guidance (Bidayetü'l Hidaye) is a book that represents the beginning for people's salvation. According to Ghazali, in order for the human to be guided, he must first follow the orders of this book and then read the book The Revival of Religious Sciences, which he says contains useful science. According to him, the book of Beginning of Guidance can offer the key to salvation. In this book he made major changes in the understanding of worship of Islam and expanded both the content and the scope of worship. In this book, where the understanding of worship of Islam has become mystical; in addition to the prayers that the Qur'an declares as obligatory, the prophet Mohammed’s worship, the prayers of his companions, the remembrances of the Sufis, the wars made in the life of the ascetics are described in the form of orders that must be made in the way of liberation. Thus, he made the prayer not a part of life, but the whole life, saying that three times as much prayer as the God made obligatory, four times as much as Ramadan fasting, fifty-seven times a day prayer and chant every time of the day. There has been no previous study regarding the issue of Ghazali turning worship into ascetism with the book of Beginning of Guidance. In this paper, in addition to this work of Ghazali, the narrations in his other works will be taken into consideration. Thus, his project of Islam religion and mysticization will be introduced in more detail. There are two important factors that direct Gazali, who presents a way of life based on ascetism and seclusion, as an "ideal life". The first is the Sufi culture that he has been in since his childhood and has never broken. According to Ghazali, the life style of Sufi culture that takes the person away from the world is a prescription for salvation of Muslims who are under the threat of "secularization". The second is the distinction between the community and the upper class in the society with the effect of this Sufi culture. It is not possible to say the same thing for the common people belonging to the religion of 'imitation', while the upper class is liberated with the life of the feast and the deity. The only way of the salvation of the common people is to turn the prayers of the imitation religion to ascertism and to open the way of the seclusion. They can do it with the book Beginning of Guidance. Thus the common people can reach salvation just like the upper class by leaving this world behind.

Nurettin Topçu (1909-1975) built religious philosophy on the philosophy of willpower and motion. For him, willpower is the existence of a conscious balance between driving and braking forces that are innate and flowing from the inside out of us. Willpower is constantly rising towards God and infinity with a historical motion. The aim of willpower is to help human reach eternity. This historical motion occurs in accordance with certain steps. Willpower is affected not only by individual habits and passions but also by the social structure. The function of willpower for humans, who are longing for eternity, is to make them recognize the consciousness and anguish of God. With this awareness, the human moves on to the motion. The willpower, which realizes the direction and aim of the motion, emerges in social structures such as State and nation, and takes up the role of establishing and sustaining these structures. Willpower lastly shows itself in art. The artist, who longs for eternity and can’t find a way to reach it, feels the lack in his willpower, acts to complete the lack and gets engaged in an existence or a thing. This engagement is a savior illusion and love that means sheltering someone other than himself with his total willpower is born. Upon the completion of this lacking, faith (love) emerges. The spirit falls in love with motion. Faith has two dimensions. When the artist turns to ‘the only” and “the internal”, this is called religious faith. If he leans to/relies on/believes in plurality and the external, this is called aesthetical faith. When, in time, the body that leans to the external and the spirit that turns to the internal surrenders to the eternity, the transcendent, God as a whole, mystic faith occurs. ‘Truth’ rises from this mystic union and surrender to love and thereby renaissance initiates. Because the driving power that starts renaissance is art. The understanding of religious experience of Topçu is nested with art. As art generates religious experience, renaissance emerges as a result of religious experience and the human reaches salvation in every sense.

Religious experiences in folk culture are generally handled outside the rational field. Individual qualities are emphasized, and emotion-oriented aspects are highlighted. Therefore, religious experiences can display very different features. Experiencing religion at a cultural level leads to the mystification of religious experiences. Even if there are many studies on tomb visits in the fields of folk literature, history of religions etc., tomb visits, which can be included in mystical experiences, have not been handled as a matter of religious philosophy according to the possibility of providing people with “evidence of the existence of God”. In this report, it will be tried to reveal how the tomb visits in Baskil affected people's belief in Allah, how they feel and turn towards God. For this purpose, the effect of visiting the tombs on individuals was determined through interviews with people who visited or had visited the tombs in Baskil, and the issue of being an evidence for the existence of God was explained. With the questions asked to twenty-four people living in Baskil, the importance of the tomb visits was revealed in terms of religious experience. And the effects of visits on individuals have been determined. There are those who say that these effects are sometimes of a religious nature and cause the visit to feel God, and sometimes there are those who say they visited the tomb for completely different purposes. People who think of the tomb visit as a "place of prayer and help" with a mystical experience instead of thinking of the existence of God as evidence; He is visiting the tomb for healing from illnesses, finding jobs, getting rid of family incompatibilities, being successful in exams, seeking fortune, raining, healing of animal diseases, etc.. Very few people visit the tomb to search for 'evidence of God's existence' and think it as a religious experience.

Dinî tecrübe Friedrich Schleiermacher (ö.1768) ile önem kazanan ve William James’in (ö.1842) eserleriyle din felsefesinde teistik delillerin içine dahil olan bir delildir. Dini tecrübelerin birçok şekilde meydana geldiği iddia edilmektedir. Bunlardan biri de sezgidir. Bu bildirinin amacı sezgisel bilginin Tanrı’nın varlığına delil olup olmadığını ortaya koymaktır. Sezgisel yetenek, insanın fiziksel gelişimine (yani beyin) paralel olarak gelişen bir yetidir ve zihnin gelişmesiyle birlikte kapasitesi artmaktadır. Önce çocukta duygusal bir sezgi hakim iken (4-7 yaş), daha sonra çocuğun somut işlemlere geçmesiyle sezgisel yetenek somutla ilişkili hale gelir. (7-11 yaş) Ve somut nesne ve durumlar (deney ve pratikler) çocuğun sezgisel yeteneğinin gelişmesine yol açar. En son aşamada yani soyut işlemler döneminde (11-17 yaş) çocuğun beyninde prefrontal lobun gelişmesine bağlı olarak akli muhakeme gelişir ve bunun etkisiyle sezgisel yetenek, akli verileri kullanarak soyut sezgiye yönelir. Sezgisel yetenek böylece üç dönemin özelliklerini gösterebilir; çocukluktan aldığı duygusal sezgi ve somut/nesnenin çağrıştırdığı somut sezgi ve aklın dış dünyadan aldığı bilgileri zihinsel süreçlerden geçirerek işlemesi sonucu gelişen akılcı sezgi. O nedenle insanlarda tek bir sezgiden bahsetmek yanlıştır. Sezginin üç türü birbiriyle eş güdümlü olarak bilgiyi elde etmek için çalışır. Bu üç sezgi türünden akılcı sezgiye önem veren İbn Sina, sezgi bilgisini rasyonel, epistemolojik alana dahil eder. Yaptığı ilim sınıflamasında sezgi bilgisini deneye dayalı bilgi türü olarak görür ve akla/deneye dayalı bir sezgi anlayışı geliştirir. Bu sezgi anlayışı, peygamberliği rasyonel bir temele oturtmak ve irrasyonel olmadığın açıklamak için de kullanır. Kudsi akla sahip peygamberler üstün zekalarının etkisiyle güçlü sezgiye sahip olurlar ve vahiy alırlar. Vahiy alan sezgisel yetenek diğer insanlarda ortaya çıkıp dini tecrübeleri şekillendirebilir mi? Peygamberlerin vahiy tecrübesini taklit ederek kendilerinde yüksek sezgisel yeti olduğunu savunan bazı kişiler (veli) ilham yoluyla bilgi elde ettiklerini iddia etmişlerdir. Dini tecrübe delilinde bu tür tecrübeler dini delil olarak sayılmaktadır. Fakat bu sezgisel bilginin kaynağı duygu mudur, somut bir gösterge (deney) midir yoksa akıl mıdır? İlham ürünü olan eserlerde her zaman duygu vardır ve bu tür ifadeler insanı duygunun hakim olduğu zihinsel bir duruma götürür. Fakat vahiy tecrübesinde duygunun yanında, somut dünyanın varlığı ve akla dayalı bir sezginin olduğu da vurgulanmaktadır. O nedenle sezgisel bilgi ürünü vahiy üç tür sezgi bilgisine dayalı iken, ilham ürünü olan sezgisel bilgi sadece duyguya dayalıdır. O nedenle ‘dini’ bir delil olarak değil ‘mistik’ bir delil olarak değerlendirmeyi hak eder.

After the death of Mevlana Celaleddin-i Rumi (d.1273), the cult of Mevlevi continued its structuring. Rumi's son Sultan Veled (d.1312) and his grandson Ulu Arif Çelebi (d.1320) contributed greatly to this structuring. Sultan Veled tried to turn the lodge he took over from his father into a systematic sect around Rumi's mystical thought and Mevlevi disciples. Ulu Arif Çelebi, on the other hand, is a very effective name in organizing Mevleviism as a cult. With his systematic studies and travels, he made Mevlevi's spread in lodges and madrasahs, and he made efforts to teach Masnavi, the work of his grandfather Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi, in madrasahs. In addition, Ulu Arif Çelebi asked Ahmet Eflakî to write a book called Ariflerin Menkıbeleri about Rumi’s life, in order to keep his grandfather's memory alive. The entry of Mevlevi into the Ottoman State was through marriage. Mutahhare Hatun, daughter of Sultan Veled, was married to Süleyman Şah, the Germiyanoğulları leader. Süleyman Şah married the daughter of this marriage, Devlet Hatun, to Yıldırım Beyazıt, and left as a dowry Kütahya, Tavsanlı, Simav and Eğrigöz to Ottoman Empire. Yıldırım Bayezıd was appointed as the governor of Kütahya. Mehmet Çelebi was born from this marriage. The title of Çelebi is a title given to the descendants of Rumi, and Mehmet Çelebi, one of the sultans of the Fetret Period (A period of great depression), was one of the grandchildren of Rumi. The children of Mehmet Çelebi are remembered with the title of 'Çelebi'. Through this marriage, Mevlevi began to spread to the Ottoman Empire. Thus, Mevleviism would prevail in the Ottoman Empire, where Ahilik organization and Ahi culture prevailed, and Mevlevihane and Asitane would be established in many parts of the country with the support of the Ottoman State. Mevlana Celaleddin-i Rumi’nin (ö.1273) ölümünden sonra Mevlevilik bir tarikat olarak yapılanmasını sürdürmüştür. Mevlana’nın oğlu Sultan Veled’in (ö.1312) ve torunu Ulu Arif Çelebi’nin (ö.1320) bu yapılanmada katkısı oldukça büyüktür. Sultan Veled babasından devraldığı dergâhı, Mevlana’nın mistik düşüncesi çerçevesinde ve Mevlevi müritler etrafında sistemli bir tarikat haline getirmeye çalışmıştır. Ulu Arif Çelebi ise Mevleviliği bir tarikat olarak örgütlemede oldukça etkili bir isimdir. O sistematik olarak yaptığı çalışmalar ve seyahatlerle Mevleviliğin tekke, zaviye ve medreselerde yayılmasını sağladığı gibi dedesi Mevlana Celaleddin ’in eseri Mesnevi’nin medreselerde okutulması için de çaba sarf etmiştir. Ayrıca Ulu Arif Çelebi, dedesinin hatırasını canlı tutabilmek Ahmet Eflaki adındaki bir yazıcıya Mevlana’nın hayatını yazdırmıştır. (Ariflerin Menkıbeleri kitabı) Mevleviliğin Osmanlı Devleti’ne girişi evlilik yoluyla olmuştur. Sultan Veled’in kızı Mutahhare Hatun, Germiyanoğulları Beyi Süleyman Şah ile evlidir. Süleyman Şah bu evlilikten olan kızı Devlet Hatun’u Osmanlı Devleti’nin o dönem şehzadesi olan Yıldırım Beyazıt ile evlendirmiş ve çeyiz olarak Kütahya, Tavşanlı, Simav ve Eğrigöz dolaylarını Osmanlılara bırakmıştır. Yıldırım Bayezıd ise Kütahya valiliğine getirilmiştir. Bu evlilikten Mehmet Çelebi dünyaya gelmiştir. Çelebi unvanı Mevlana’nın soyundan gelenlere verilen bir unvandır ve Fetret Dönemi padişahlarından olan Mehmet Çelebi, Mevlana’nın torunlarındandır. Mehmet Çelebi’nin çocukları ‘çelebi’ unvanıyla anılmaktadır. Bu evlilik yoluyla Mevlevilik Osmanlı’da yayılmaya başlamıştır. Böylece daha önce Ahilik teşkilatı ve Ahi kültürünün hâkim olduğu Osmanlı Devleti’ne Mevlevilik hâkim olacak ve Osmanlı Devleti’nin desteğiyle ülkenin birçok yerinde Mevlevihane ve Asitane kurulacaktır.

12th century scholar al-Ghazali wrote about a variety of topics and his distinctive points of view of them allowed him to make his marks on a civilization. The first topics that come to mind with regards to al-Ghazali are suspicion, knowledge and experience. He went through an era of crisis of suspicion at one point of his life and he managed to make it out of that crisis of depression thanks to ‘a divine light Allah put in his heart”. This paper aims to study and clarify his view about knowledge in the context of suspicion and the point he arrived at as a result. It also aims to emphasize the parts for which he was influenced by previous philosophers while constructing his views, Avicenna and Farabi in particular, and makes comparisons on some occasions. This method applies particularly to the part where his view of the inadequacy of reason in the field of metaphysics is discussed. This Study is composed of the topics of how aGhazali approaches reason, what he means by reason, how knowledge could be obtained and finally, the breakthrough he brought about in the classification of sciences. Sourcing from his understanding of knowledge.

The claims regarding to the existence of God has been encountered in every period and part in the history of mankind. These claims sometimes have only religious or philosophical, or mystical features. However, we can see these three perceptions interlocked, in harmony with each other, or that a religious claim can be nurtured with philosophical sources or a mystic claim can be nurtured by religious and philosophical arguments. Certainly, we can not make a specific differentiation among these three sides but we will be able to see the differences if we define the factors that build the base of them. The most important point that shows the difference among religious, philosophical and mystic claims is the oneness of God in religion (tevhid=la ilahe illallah), ‘the first commentator’ in philosophy (the infinite power, efficient cause), ‘the communion with God’ in mysticism (initiation, joining= La mevcude illa hu). The issue of the existence and characteristics of God offers various features and these differences in the understanding of God create divergent perceptions of universe, world, existence and human. The more the perception of God changes, the more changes happen in all the systems like dominoes. The issue of the oneness and existence of God is a mental process of humans as it is an understanding, interpreting making implications. If we learn the physical development of human (brain and its functions) and Mental Development Phases presented by Jean Piaget, it will be possible explain the various understanding and interpretation of God. The objective and subjective sides of cognizing the God will come out and the way to make a ‘rational’ explanation will be opened. This paper aims to prove that an individual who has reached the formal operational period can have access to a true understanding of God with ‘rational intuition’.

The criticism of the theist arguments for the existence of God by philosophers like Spinoza, Hume and Kant has led religious thinkers to new searches. One of these is the argument of religious experience. Religious experience is classified according to its ways of occurrence. It needs be criticised whether mystic experience, which is included under this classification, should be taken as ‘religious’ or not. This is because many claims of mystic thought, which can be found in any religious tradition in different disguises, do not comply with theistic religions’ understanding of religion, morals and God. Whereas the mystic thought argues for union with the God, this is out of question in the theistic understanding of religion. The duality, that is; the separateness of God and man, that they cannot unite, the impossibility of man to become a God are oft-repeated in the sacred texts and the oneness of God is the main theme being taught to mankind. For this reason, the teachings of mystic thought should not be included in ‘religious experience’.