The BBC Has it Right
Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs argues that its project to re-evaluate hadiths is not a “radical revision of Islamic texts” as the BBC put it (see my previous blog post) or a “reformation” or “radical modernization” of Islam. The Directorate’s deputy director says he was misunderstood and misquoted by the BBC. (For the article, click here)
Over the past few years, I have spoken with some of the theologians at Ankara University at length. The term “Ankara School” of theology is not new and refers to some rather radical rethinking and modernist reinterpretation of Islam, using Western critical techniques, historical contextualization, and so on, much as described in the BBC article. The term Islamic Reformation also is widely used to refer to this current of reinterpretation in the wider Muslim world. The Ankara theologians posited a specifically Turkish (as opposed to culturally Arab) version of Islam.
In other words, the BBC had it right. Why all the denial from the Directorate? Two possible reasons. One: Fear that the pious population would turn against the project if they thought it was too radical. Two: Competition between the Kemalist secularist faction (aligned with state interests and probably the Directorate) and the pious reformist faction of the Ankara University School of Divinity who are publishing their ideas in journals like Islamiyat.
I’ve attached a copy of an article I wrote that includes a description of these theologians and their ideas: whitehefner.pdf
That thought had crossed my mind, that perhaps after publication of the article by the BBC, that the Deputy Director may have felt embarrassed enough to publicly backpedal on the research. Both of your motives sound plausible and, in fact, I’d bet more on #1 than #2. The fact that a Jesuit priest is an adviser to this project is another negative. Personally, I think the media hype about this project is way overdone to begin with. Even if this project is credible, it won’t displace the six sahih collections of ahadith that Muslims use the world over.