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Beyond Epistemic Disobedience: Şehir versus Kent in the Civilizational Thought of Lütfi Bergen
Abstract
The concept of civilization has been widely debated in the Islamic intellectual field in Turkey since the 1950s with the goal of conceptualizing civilization in Islamic terms as an alternative to the singular and Eurocentric conceptualization that has it is roots in Western epistemology and was championed by the modernizing Republican elite. The concept is closely tied to notions of urban and the city, which is evident in the Turkish version of the term medeniyet that is derived from the Arabic word medina, meaning city. In the contemporary Islamic intellectual field, many prominent names joined the debate on the relationship between civilization and city, marking a shift in civilizational thought that can be interpreted as the urban turn. In this paper, I examine how Lütfi Bergen, a prolific and controversial figure known for a heavily traditionalist-Islamic criticism of modernity, and his books such as The Moral Uprising, Underdevelopment is Superiority, or Civilization-The Construction of Muslim Communitarianism, develops his understanding of civilization in relation to the city. Bergen offers a unique contribution to this debate by making a distinction between two concepts şehir, which stands for a place where life is organized in accordance with the social, political, and economic practices of Medina at the time of the Prophet Muhammad, in short, the Sunnah, and kent, which is where Western materialist culture prevails at the expense of Islamic tradition and denotes the failure of modernity in organizing urban life. Bergen establishes an immanent connection between şehir and civilization by defining civilization also in relation to the Sunnah and severs its ties to Western epistemology. The literature on decoloniality describes such efforts of delinking from Western epistemology as epistemic disobedience. Further, Bergen states his aim as to create an Islamic epistemological basis through which Muslims can discuss social, political, and economic matters in their own terms, and develops an urban model for a Muslim community. By doing this, Bergen reclaims civilization as a singular Islamic concept, differentiating himself from many figures in Islamic intellectual field who are for the idea of the multiplicity of civilizations. I argue that, by studying Bergen’s work, it is possible to unravel a part of the complexity arising from clustering together the intellectual accounts criticizing the epistemic dominance of the West. The part presenting how Bergen’s understanding of civilization conflicts with his contemporaries attests to the diversity in the Islamic intellectual field.
Discipline
Political Science
Geographic Area
Turkey
Sub Area
Islamic Thought