FROM MEHMET AKIF’S PERSPECTIVE: RELIGIOUS REASONS AS TO WHY MUSLIMS REMAIN BEHIND

This study is confined to delin- eating some religious reasons behind Muslims transforming from being the subject of deter- mining and building the world history into an object as of the 20th century, with reference to the works of our Poet of Indepen- dence, Mehmet Akif Ersoy, who had the intellectual accumulation of his time and witnessed the disappearance of the Ottoman Empire from the stage of history at the beginning of the 20th century. Accordingly, a number of religious reasons, from Akif’s point of view, are identified that caused Muslims, who had actively played the leading-role in forming the world history for centuries, to turn into an object that is subject to plans made on them from all around the world, in particular the Middle East. As a result of this research, ac- cording to Safahat that is Akif’s work where he has compiled his poems, it is seen that Muslims were accustomed to laziness, hopelessness, emotionlessness, corruption, ignorance, discord, and nationalism, and that he com- plained about those as the cause of loss of power. In addition, it is also seen that Muslims remained behind due to a misconception of qadar, a conception of tawakkul distanced from its true purpose, a narration of religion-teaching full of superstitions, presentation of fabricated stories as hadiths without putting them through a scientific methodology, leading to laziness by constantly impos- ing that this world is temporary, thereby falling far behind reach- ing the true goal of the religion. One of the primary goals of this study is to offer a number of solutions, in accordance with the national poet’s thoughts, to the problems that Muslims face to- day. In this study, the poet’s own works are scrutinized as primary references, and the sources that quote his thoughts as secondary references