Mizanu'l-Haqq: Journal of Islamic Studies

Abstract

Mehmet Görmez worked as the chair of Religious Affairs between the years 2010-2017, conducted his academic studies on the field of hadith, and is nowadays one of the hadith researchers who continues his studies on methodology in the Institute of Islamic Thought he established. For the reason that Görmez has been busy with the science of hadith for many years, he noticed that one of the most important reasons for the discussions on hadith and sunna was “the lack of usul and method on the issue of understanding and interpreting”, and he studied this topic in his doctoral dissertation. He expressed in his dissertation titled The Problem of Methodology in Understanding and Interpreting Sunna and Hadith that “the need for a new methodology was inevitable”, and he embarked upon an enterprise to a new usul consisting of forty-two principles in order to contribute to the discussions on hadith and sunna to be held on a right ground in Guideline of Understanding the Sunna and Hadith that he published in 2020. The reason for writing this article is that the studies for evaluating the principles offered by Görmez in his work are insufficient with regard to quantity and quality. This article investigates his sense of hadith and sunna, his attitude towards the People of the hadith and the People of the Koran, his approach to hadith and sunna discussions in Türkiye, and his contribution to the efforts for understanding and interpreting hadith and sunna correctly and evaluates some of the criticisms raised against the principles that he proposed. The study discussed Görmez’s views related only to hadith and sunna rather than his views each of which has been a separate topic for research. The purpose of the article is to detect the hadith and sunna sense of a hadith teacher who also worked as the chair of Religious Affairs, analyse his contributions to understanding hadith and sunna correctly, and evaluate some of the criticisms raised against the usul attempt that he presented.