Hint Düşüncesinde İslam Algısı

Abstract

Cemil Kutlutürk, assistant professor in the Divinity School at Ankara University, who works on Hindu religious thought, published a book titled The Perception of Islam in Hindu Thought; A Case Study of Bhakti Movement. The publication offers an intensive study for Turkish readers. The work covers medieval India and elaborates on its political arena, historical atmosphere, and the rigid caste system that was entangled with every part of a Hindu’s life. In the Hindu worldview he explains, it was of utmost value to be engaged in the caste system and to live and die in it faithfully. Before the coming of Islam and its spread throughout the Indian subcontinent, both trade and pagan practices served as a uniting force between the two geographically different regions (p. 72). Such encounters between Arabs and Hindus are well documented in historical fragments, oriental travelogues, and remnants of poetry. One could say that this clash of religious and cultural identity was the actual origin of Bhakti movement. In a possible cultural intrusion, there are at least two possibilities: either embracing foreign thought—which was Islam in this case—and celebrating its fruits, or opposing the intruding thought through emphasizing one’s own rigid beliefs. Kutlutürk exhibits both phenomena in his present work and explains a third possibility: that of amalgamation, which happened in the form of Bhakti movement in India in the middle ages (11th to 17th century).