İlahiyat Akademi

Abstract

Atheism, the opposite of theism, refuses belief in God and struggles against it. It’s possible to track the history of absolute atheism back to the first humans. Since it originated in the West, atheism in its early days focused on western beliefs and directed various criticisms at them. Therefore, Christianity faced atheists’ criticism before Islam. In the West, with the industrial revolution, Renaissance, Reformation and Enlightenment movements, the idea of taking the human mind as the basis in all matters began to take hold. This new situation also affected people’s beliefs. Using this situation to its advantage, atheism, after reaching the peak of its power, then losing its influence and becaming regionally influential, began to enter many Islamic countries, including Turkey. A significant part of criticisms and claims of atheism against Islam in Turkey is about the life of Hz. Muḥammed mad and the remaining periods of Islamic history. They easily express their criticisms and claims through many websites, social media accounts and various publications. As a result, various claims of atheists about the life of Hz. Muḥammed and the Islamic history have reached a significant volume. The fact that there has been no independent study in Turkish in the field of Islamic history regarding these claims until now has led to the conduct of this research. In this research, considering the volume of the study, only claims about the Prophet’s life in Medina were discussed. Considering the limitations of the study, these claims were determined from the work titled “Din Bu-2 Hz. Muhammed” by Turan Dursun, one of the important figures of atheists in Turkey and whose works are frequently cited by atheists. The fact that Dursun devoted this work only to the life of the Prophet Muḥammed, as a result of which many important claims were made about the sîra and the recognition of the work were effective in its preference in research. In the work, the claims about Medina period were classified according to their subjects, examined in terms of sîra science, and various evaluations were made about them. Generally, Dursun's effort to refer to early Islamic literature while grounding the claims in his work draws attention. In addition, it seems that his claims are shaped around the Prophet's private life and some of the wars of his time. The first of the two statements that stand out in his claims is that the Prophet was fond of lust. He expresses this especially when discussing Hz. Muḥammed's marriages with ʿĀʾisha, Juwayriya bint Hāris and Zaynab bint Jahsh. His second statement is the claim that Hz. Muḥammed was unfair in many execution sentences and that he was prone to violence. The execution of the Uraynes, Kaʿb b. Ashraf and Kināna are among the subjects he deals with in this way. Based on the issues examined, it is understood that Dursun makes his claims based on some details related to the events, not on the whole of the events. It is observed that while doing this, he often takes the details in question out of their context and attributes different meanings to them, as in the execution of the Uraynas, and sometimes resorts to imaginary fictions, such as the claim that there may have been a high level of closeness between ʿĀʾisha and Ṣafwān b. Mu‘attal before the Ifk incident. He made serious claims about some issues without doing thorough research, such as the claim that Juwayriya bint Hāris was 13 years old when she married the Prophet. It is also noteworthy that although he knew the reasons for the execution carried out in the Banū Qurayẓa Campaign, he ignored them and tried to divert the issue. In general, it has been concluded that there are serious scientific deficiencies in Dursun’s grounding of his claims and that he does not respect the religious values of the society while expressing his claims.