The Second Message of Islam

Mahmut Taha, whose life can be summarized with the words Islam and socialism, seems to have been left alone, approximately twenty-five years after his execution, as both an intellectual and a peace-loving man of cause. The non-intellectual approach, which addresses only the official mainstream of Islam and ignores approaches other than this, ignores such differences, no matter how deep they are, and in this way unknowingly escapes one aspect of its own truth.
The theses put forward by Mahmut Taha are shocking in terms of the world from which they come; However, what makes it strong is its political and social propositions as well as the method it uses to develop them.
He is a true utopian, but he is not a futurist who despises the past; Therefore, he is aware that even the newest word has actually been said before. His aim is to shake off the dust on those ancient words and to bring utopia out of the "golden age" of the past and into the light of today.
The path of every intellectual cavalryman carrying the torch of truth inevitably passes among the poor and oppressed. He searches for traces of a dawn when everyone lived equally and achieved "unity". While describing an order for this, coming to socialism as the equivalent of the equality inherent in Islam is not a coincidence or an arbitrary choice.
Islam does not have a specific economic system, it only has some economic rules: Zakat, fitra, alms... These rules continued with little differences in the slave system, feudal system and capitalist system. Any discussion of the essence of these systems was met with discontent among the orthodox traditions, and those who attempted to do so were pushed out of the field of legitimacy. For example, even "interest", which is the biggest economic prohibition, has been treated harshly and today it has become "profit share".
Mahmut Taha's understanding of Islam includes a discussion not about economic rules, but about the essence of the order, the heart of the system. For this reason, he clings to a dream that transcends capitalism and preaches absolute equality, without giving face to the Keynesian understanding of capitalism that has spread to scholars such as Sayyid Qutb. In his language, the fact that social equality and individual freedom are the ultimate goals of humanity causes divisions in the land on which it is located, while radically changing the traditional class preference of religion.
According to him, democracy, along with socialism, is one of the two wings of civilization. Society cannot fly with one wing. He speaks with enough confidence to say, "Unlike dictatorship, democracy is based on the right to make mistakes."


Thin Cover:

Number of Pages: 176

Year of Printing: 2011


eBook:

Number of Pages: 181

Year of Printing: 2011


Language: Turkish
Publisher: Details Publications

First Print Year: 2011

Number of Pages: 176

Language Turkish