Establishing the Necessity of Prophethood in Islamic Theology

Abstract

Prophecy, one of the pillars of religion, is one of the main areas of interest in Islamic theology. The delivery of the elements of religion and civilization to the societies was realized with the doctrine of prophethood. The prophets sent to almost every society guided the need for belief in human nature to be met healthily with the religious phenomenon shaped within the framework of the principle of tawhid and belief in the hereafter. Almost unanimously accepted in the Kalam literature that all prophets preached the religious doctrine, the essence of which was the belief of oneness and which did not change until the last prophet. The encounter of Muslims with different religions and ideas is the primary reason Muslim scholars put prophecy on their schedule. The internal and external factors faced by the Islamic thought also provided the opportunity to ground the prophethood in terms of mental and transmission and to develop a defense reflex against objections to it. Theologians tried to prove the institutional necessity of prophethood against the criticism and disapproval of other religions and thoughts identified with Sümeniyye/Berâhime and that human experience in the world cannot render the accumulation of prophethood meaningless and unnecessary. On the other hand, it has been discussed whether it is permissible or obligatory for Allah to send a prophet within the framework of the essential qualities of Allah within the scope of prophecy and theological schools. It is known that these discussions are handled on the axis of salah/aslah. While Mu'tazila founded the institution of prophethood with authority, The Maturidis, within the framework of the understanding of wisdom, emphasized the institutional necessity of prophethood for human beings and refused to be obligatory to Allah. One of the periods in which criticism and objections to the phenomenon of prophecy intensified in almost every period of history is the recent period of new scientific theology. It is seen that the threatening activities of the positivist and materialist thought of the West toward spirituality intensify, especially with suspicions and accusations against prophethood. The experimental studies of 19th-century Western scientists and philosophers on the soul and similar subjects, scientific explanations on issues such as hypnosis, magnetism, genius, communication between living things and instinct, and Muslim thinkers attempted to prove the revelation scientifically. The effort to respond rationally and scientifically to objections to prophethood with a defensive reflex draws attention as a different grounding attempt. The aim of this paper, which deals with the grounding of prophecy in the theological literature, is to determine how prophecy was grounded within the scope of the new scientific theology from the first period of Islamic thought. In the study, the information obtained from the literature related to the documentary source compilation, which is a data scanning technique, was evaluated by descriptive method by making classification and grouping. In the study, it was concluded that the prophecy issues brought up by social facts were tried to be justified by the theologians with a defensive approach, and the objections to prophecy were tried to be answered and proved more rationally than justifying the transmission. In addition, due to being the focus of criticism, theologians almost in every period, Hz. It is noteworthy that they made the defense of prophecy in the particular of the prophet.