By Mahmoud Al Abed
English News Editor
Albawaba.com - Amman
Turkey is trying to diminish the influence of “fundamentalists” on the new generation by introducing teaching the Quran into school curricula, with a new vision of religious education in the secular country.
Directorate of Religious Affairs Mehmet Nuri Yilmaz has said that should lessons on the Quran and its interpretation be included in the 6th 7th and 8th grades there may no longer be a great need felt for Quran courses, the Anatolia news agency reported on Wednesday, cited by Turkish daily news.
Yilmaz was speaking at a conference called, "International Symposium for the Search for New Methods in Religious Education.” He said education meant transferring knowledge and values, inculcating skills, developing them and if necessary refreshing them.
Yilmaz mentioned various definitions of religion in his address and said religion was a divine law by which mankind would live decent, moral lives through their own free will and desire.
"Religion exists in everybody's personal life and consequently at all levels of society. It is not often taught to people as it should be and if these needs are not met through legitimate means, most often this gap is filled illegally and by unqualified people," he said. Yilmaz condemned the use of religion for commercial and political ends and denounced terrorism in the name of religion. He said the need for a sound religious education had become more pronounced in recent years.
Yilmaz stressed the need to determine the priorities in religious education and what would be taught when, where and how. He said religious education should use means that appeal to children like cartoon films, CD games and should be entertaining.
Muslim constitute 99.5 percent of the 65 million Turkey’s population. Sunni Muslim form 85 percent, while Alevi Shiite are 14 percent. Turkey has the smallest percentage of Christians in the world (0.3 percent).
In the early part of the 20th century, religion in Turkey went from an Islamic government under the caliphate to a secular republican government. Islamic teaching re-entered the schools and eventually imam-training schools were formed and funded by the government.
But Islamists have set up their own schools to teach Quran and Islamic tradition. In the early 1990s, a debate flared when the government instructed scholars and theologians to review of the commentaries that explain and interpret Islam's holy book.
The review was ordered by Yilmaz who wanted "to adapt the Holy Book to the current conditions of life."
"The ancient commentaries (tafseer) on Quran’s verses are far from reflecting current developments. We need scholarly commentaries," he said. "This is not a reformation of Islamic principles."
An Islamist, Mehmet Sevket Eygi of Milli Gazette, a spokesperson for fundamentalist Islam, sharply criticized the project. "The ruling powers, faced with a formidable rise of Islam, are planning to strip Islam of its canonical content, the Shariat, and turn it into a kind of humanism," he said.
According to Turkish sources, an estimated 20 percent of the population of Turkey are considered fundamentalists. Approximately 40 percent of the population attends a mosque on Fridays.
According to a research published in MERIA Journal in 1999, the author said that the Islamist movement emerged in Turkey soon after the founding of the secular republic in 1923. It was led by tarikat (religious order) sheikhs and professional men of religion after Ataturk abolished religious institutions. Trying to stage revolts against the secular state in the 1920s and 1930s, it was crushed by the authorities. Islamist groups stayed underground during the era of one-party rule, between 1923 and 1946, according to the report.
“With the transition to a multi-party system in 1946, Islamist groups formed covert and overt alliances with the ruling center-right Democratic Party (1950-1960). After the Democratic Party won the 1959 elections, it softened secularist policies. With the provision of civil liberties by the 1961 constitution, Islamist groups began to operate legally (though their activities were still technically banned).
“Until Necmettin Erbakan established the National Order Party (NOP), the predecessor of the three succeeding Islamist parties, in January 1970, Islamists had either formed conservative factions in a center-right party or had remained underground. With the NOP, however, the Islamists for the first time had an autonomous party organization through which they could campaign for their agenda. Since the NOP's founding, the same Islamist party has endured, albeit under different names: NOP (1970-1971), NSP (1972-1981), Welfare (1983-1998), Virtue (1997-),” said MERIA.
The latter is the main opposition party, but it is being also the subject of a move by the constitutional court to ban it.
The Fazilet – Virtue- party has 102 deputies in the 550-member house. If it is banned and its deputies removed from office, this would mean by-elections in all those seats or even lead to a general election, political analysts were quoted in reports as saying.
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