Volkan Yolcu wrote: Say “Quran”!

Av bı bêjingê nayê cıvandın ( Water cannot be collected with a sieve )

When we asked my late father to mediate for a request that my mother did not allow, he would say, “ No, it is beyond me, do not involve me in that matter, ” and he would laughingly refer to a Council of State decision. Although he was quite an authority in family management, these words were enough to indicate that the scope and limits of this authority were clear and he would not even attempt to exceed them:

“The examination of the memorandums of judicial courts is outside the scope of the Council of State.”

In 1938, a citizen filed a lawsuit regarding his land in the village. The lawsuit was rejected, in other words, he lost. Then there was no appeal (Regional Court of Justice) stage, he went directly to the Supreme Court, “appeal”. There too, he was found wrong. The case was closed, the decision was final, and there was no right to file another lawsuit on the same issue.

From somewhere he hears something called the Council of State (then known as the Council of State). He wonders, “ What is the use of this Council of State?” They say, “ It investigates the illegalities in the actions and works of state institutions .” He says, “ Well, isn’t the Supreme Court of Appeals also a state institution? ” This approach is legally unacceptable and even funny, but it is correct in terms of plain logic. The Supreme Court of Appeals is also a state institution. Based on this, he applies to the Council of State to have his file reviewed once more.

The Council of State rejects the request for review of this Court of Cassation decision in concise Turkish. The essence of the decision is the part that says “the review of the records of judicial courts is outside the duty of the Council of State”. The meaning is that “the review of final decisions given in legal proceedings is not among the duties of the Council of State” .

For days, discussions had been ongoing regarding an article in the omnibus bill, and despite all objections, it was accepted in the Turkish Grand National Assembly. According to the regulation, a board from the Directorate of Religious Affairs will inspect translations of the Quran that are deemed objectionable in terms of the fundamental characteristics of Islam, and if deemed necessary, will decide on their collection and destruction.

The Directorate of Religious Affairs should be the first to oppose such a regulation, and say, “ This is not our duty, we are (at least on paper) only an institution that organizes some services so that citizens can worship comfortably .” It should say, “ The responsibility is also great, are we the all-world experts to take on such a decision, burden, and responsibility .” ( How nice it would be, how proud it would be in the history of the Directorate of Religious Affairs to voice such an objection, wouldn’t it? But a consciousness that will notice this aesthetic and a minimum level of goodwill are needed for a future projection of this magnitude, otherwise it wouldn’t even occur to them that this is an opportunity.)

If it is not so, if you say, “This is the Sheikh-ul-Islam’s Office, we are both the all-world scholars and the vilest of God,” then come out and say it openly, at least be that honest, be courageous, be brave .

“ There is no clergy in Islam ”. Those who have been saying this for a hundred years, on the other hand, do whatever is expected from the clergy and the inquisition. The man at least determined the ranks, said ecumenical, said Pope, said cardinal, said inquisition, said consul, institutionalized, honestly declared and protected the clergy. What have you done? You have done the same things covertly, without institutionalizing them.

The new Pope's visit to Iznik is on the agenda these days. This council should at least meet in Iznik (the Directorate of Religious Affairs certainly has a building there) and criticize the Quran translation, just like the famous "Iznik Council" that met in Iznik 1700 years ago and criticized the Bible. This worthless initiative should at least gain some symbolic value (even if it is negative) .

Let me make a claim: There is not a single Quranic translation that someone has not said is “problematic in terms of the basic characteristics of Islam” . You can find someone who says this for Ali Bulaç, Edip Yüksel, Elmalılı, Tayyar Altıkulaç, Muhammed Esed, Süleyman Ateş. Just look and see who has said what about the Taberi Commentary, or listen to Mustafa Öztürk, who will talk about this subject for hours by referencing and quoting without looking at the book, and how the things you consider “the basic characteristics of Islam” today were once considered blasphemy and were the subject of fatwas that “killing is obligatory” . For example, learn what happened to those who said “Allah is not in the sky, he is everywhere” and how they were declared apostates. Well, it seems that they were the “basic characteristics of Islam” in that era. Who are the “Mullah Kasım” of this era, do I need to write ?

In fact, let me narrow down my objection even further and raise my claim even higher: There is no movement or faction in the same “branch” that does not say this about each other’s meanings.

Let me narrow down my claim a little more, and make it more assertive: Leave aside vague words like “ the basic characteristics of Islam, the dangers ”, a Salafi who has published a translation of the Quran (for example) is considered “takfir” by other Salafis based on his translation, those who know know this.

Experts on the subject list these translation writers who excommunicate each other one by one. What will you do now? Every translation, apart from the words “basic characteristics, drawbacks” , is contrary to “Islamic belief” according to at least one other translation writer . That is also his opinion, since translations contrary to Islamic belief will be collected, is it the sin of that citizen not to be a member of the board? How will representation be ensured on this board? Will the fact that everyone can apply to CİMER provide equality in representation? Have questions of this caliber ever occurred to them? I don’t think so.

Let me tell you the funny thing, the translation that is most agreed upon as "objectionable in terms of the basic characteristics of Islam" is the translation of the Religious Foundation . I wonder what they will do, will they destroy it too?

This nation has seen publishing houses that put a cross out a human figure when putting a picture in their magazines (they were also criticizing those who did not do so), they have seen those who call radio an invention of the devil, and those who call clerics who buy a television for their homes “horned sheikhs”. I am not talking about ignorant citizens, the fatwas given by various “eğğlimm”s in this direction are still there. Of course, they all turned into garbage, they have no value.

I will relate this “foresightedness” topic to the following: For years, you wrote refutations to those who said that the word “dhikr” (book) in the verse “ We sent down the dhikr and We will preserve it ” meant the entire text of the Quran, not the mushaf (printed pages), and you said, “ No, what is meant there is those pages .” You responded to those who said, “ Well, look, this is a USB memory stick, there are 150 different translations of the Quran on it and they are not pages .” What happened that made you suddenly become convinced that those 1 and 0’s on USB memory sticks, YouTube, and the “cloud” are translations ? Has the verse above ever tickled your mind with this meaning (like Edip Yüksel spontaneously mentioning it while discussing digital and “digit”)?

Time has once again put everything in its place, once again you were proven wrong, you were wrong, but you were not ashamed at all, were you? Personally, I am not surprised at all.

Another dimension of this discussion, which will also and particularly embarrass you, is that in some of the translations you will burn, part of the page is the Arabic text, the other part is the translation. Well, the Arabic text parts will also burn when you burn them, where was the protected mushaf? There is a lot of hateful activity going on in Denmark and Sweden lately, they are burning Qurans. What will you say to those guys from now on (I am leaving you aside, you don't really care, I swear, but what will the Islamic community say) if they say "Thousands of Qurans are being burned in Türkiye by a committee decision, and I don't agree with the ideas in this copy of the Quran that I burned, that's why I burned it"?

These are the intellectual, sociological and religious aspects of the matter. As for the legal aspect:

A poor, shabby text in terms of law-making technique. What does “ the basic characteristics of the Islamic religion ” mean, who determines it, what does “objection” mean, where does it differ from “different opinion” and “ijtihad”? Do you have a “objection meter” in your hand, you are holding it up and it is beeping like a radiation meter? Can such a law text exist? Have you ever heard of a “legal security principle”?

“Translations”. I looked again and again to see if there were “interpretations” and “translations of interpretations”, but there weren’t any. What would you say to someone who said “my book is not an interpretation, it is an interpretation”? Are you going to wait for it to be interpreted with the Supreme Court’s precedents?

There are also Christian citizens in this country. Since this practice is a valid practice, ban “Bible translations that are problematic in terms of the basic characteristics of the Christian religion”. I said that, now some smart guy will come along and add the phrase “Bibles that are problematic in terms of the basic characteristics of the Islamic religion” . No way. This is what is expected from those who “created” such a vulgar text (the law is a whole with its spirit and letter) that is devoid of both spirit and letter.

Rights and freedoms, freedom to believe and spread one's faith, etc., these are already violated so clearly that they cannot be discussed, but before we get to that, there are other oddities. There is a foundation belonging to the Board that decides on the translations to be destroyed. The Religious Affairs Foundation. This foundation prints translations of the Quran. The board that manages the foundation that prints one translation can ban other translations whenever it wishes.

Let's leave that aside, there are or will be those who are themselves translation writers in this board. People who write translations themselves, who gain income or spiritual satisfaction from this, will ban translations they do not like. The legal system will not accept this in the first place. If it were used in a legal article or a petition, it would not be appropriate to call this a "violation of the non-competition clause", it is a much more technical concept, but in its everyday meaning, this is clearly a violation of the non-competition clause . It is also problematic in terms of administrative law, for example, the disciplinary board that will try an officer for disrespecting a superior officer (even if it is a member or president) cannot include that superior officer. Examples can be multiplied, these are the simplest universal legal rules.

It is impossible for the Constitutional Court not to annul such a regulation, and for the ECHR not to award compensation for this practice. In other words, why would you make a regulation that will be remembered as a comedy in 2 years, and that will be said "you wouldn't believe it, but those guys collected and destroyed the translations" in 20 years , what is your logic, your expectations?

The most important symbol of this book burning business is the Nazi Propaganda Minister Dr. Goebbels. The Nazis used the name “Tausendjähriges Reich” (thousand-year, thousand-year empire) that he invented for the Third Reich, and it lasted only 12 years. Is there a single person among those who made this arrangement who said “you are wrong, this ban will last 1000 years (Tausendjähriges Verbot), it will be accepted by the people and the law”? I will kiss his hand, not metaphorically, I will kiss it for real, not because he is right, but because he has enough self-confidence to come up with such an improbable claim (and then of course be disgraced). ( Verboten means “forbidden, prohibited” in German, and it also means an action that is so ridiculous that it is reprehensible to do, and therefore forbidden, and for those who understand it, a message can be derived from this.)

Hasn't this nation, this ummah wasted enough time on absurd reasons? We remember those who said " There is no such thing as a Kurd, they are just wolves " with hatred and laughter, now you will be remembered like them. There are those we remember saying "They banned people from entering schools with headscarves", you will be remembered like them, can't you see that too?

They are already behind the spirit of the age, but they are also behind the technology of the age. Let's say you have a translation collected, the author will say the same thing on YouTube, what are you going to do? Let's appreciate that the authors of this text, who are not aware of the law-making technique and minimum requirements, did not miss this, in such cases, an access ban decision would be made.

All of the names targeted with this article are publishing their translations as PDFs free of charge ( Have you ever considered looking at the debate on "Should the 'price' or 'gift' be written on the back of the translations?" instead of saying "Quran translations should not be charged. While we are making a profit from Umrah and Hajj with such a large budget and buying ultra-luxury official cars, let's at least distribute Quran translations for free and at least be as good as missionary churches?" )

It is clear in advance whose translations they made this regulation to ban, let's list names, we won't be missing a single one, there will definitely be more. All of them are available on kuranmeali.com, just by searching for a word, what are you going to do with that? One click, free.

Access blocking, right? Where has it ever been seen that access blocking works ? Especially if all you want to access is a single PDF file. Are you going to completely shut down the internet?

Some sensible people, people who agree with me on what I have been saying so far, say that there is another calculation behind this, an “scratching”, an effort to create an agenda. With all my respect to these professors, I say: No. It is not like that. This arrangement is not at that scale, that caliber, that has a subtext, that has the purpose, ability and content to scratch something .

What they are not aware of is that they think they can drain the water that has been waiting and accumulated for centuries from this dam with buckets. It cannot be drained with buckets anymore, those times are over, it is not possible for them to stand against that water or drain it even with millions of buckets, but on top of that, what they have in their hands is not a bucket, but a sieve. In fact, it is not a sturdy sieve, it is a “wire sieve” that has rusted from the moisture it has absorbed while being used to drain water for 30 years, and then became full of holes. In other words, this attempt will not be of any use either, we are sorry.

Apart from all that I have explained , there are two risky aspects of the issue for those who make the arrangements .

First of all , you will be ridiculed , as in everything you do with the formula “I did it, it happened”, devoid of any sociological background, philosophical, historical and even religious references and all similar requirements. That disproportionate intelligence that shows itself against your disproportionate authority will disgrace the person, you are quite experienced at this point but I will still warn you. That “disproportionate intelligence” has slowly started to show itself, Gürkan Engin said on live broadcast yesterday, “ It seems we will say to our grandchildren ‘we used to read the Quran in secret’ in the future .” Mustafa Öztürk is already beating you with words, as he has been for years. Young people have already started opening the hashtag “#once_diyanet_meali” on social media .

But in the end, this (first) risk is a worldly thing. You will be disgraced, which is no small thing, but that's all.

As for the second risk, it is much more serious.

Those whose native language is Kurdish make someone who says something unbelievable take an oath that starts with "say" instead of "de" because they think in Kurdish and speak Turkish: " Say, Qur'an! " The ritual is completed when the other person says " To my Qur'an ", it is a very big oath, there is no need to even touch the mushaf.

What you are dealing with is the Quran, the Mushaf, the Word of Allah and its translation. Even its name is a great oath.

I am telling you that it is not worth playing games with it, preventing even a single different interpretation of a single verse from spreading, or collecting and burning it.

I swear to God, it hits people hard.

Amine.