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Muhammed’den Önce ve Sonra: Birinci Binyıla Yeni Bir Bakış
Batılı bilginler uzun bir süre boyunca İslam’ı ve İslam dünyasını daha ziyade Batının ve Avrupa kültürünün şekillendiği, Batılı kimliğinin inşa edildiği süreçte ve farklı dönemlerde temas kurulan, Avrasya’nın köklü uygarlıkları kadar geçmişe ve birikime sahip olmayan bir rakip, bir yabancı, bir “öteki” olarak görmeye meyilli olmuşlardır. Bu nedenle İslam, Hıristiyan ve Yahudi kültürlerinin serpildiği bir dönemde ve coğrafyada ortaya çıkmasına ve bu kültürlerle sürekli etkileşim içinde olmasına rağmen, İlk Çağ ve Orta Çağ tarihçilerinin çoğu tarafından ihmal edilmiştir. Yirminci yüzyılın ikinci yarısından itibaren bu tavır eleştirilmeye başlandıysa da İlk Çağ hakkında yapılan en esnek ve cömert çalışmalar bile en fazla sekizinci yüzyıla kadar uzanmaktadırlar. Oysa tarihçiler İslam’ın Hıristiyan kültürü ve Rabbinik Yahudilik ile kıyaslanabilecek düşünsel olgunluğa ve nüfuza ancak onuncu yüzyıl civarında ulaştığına dikkat çekmektedirler. MS 1000 civarında bütün özellikleriyle ayrıksı hale gelmiş bu yeni dinin doğası neydi? İslam uygarlığının, çağdaşı diğer uygarlıklarla ve İlk Çağın uygarlıklarıyla bağlantıları neydi?
Muhammed’den Önce ve Sonra, bu gibi sorulara bir yanıt veriyor. Garth Fowden, İslam’ın miras aldığı karmaşık ve yüklü dinsel ve düşünsel gelenekleri, getirdiği yenilikleri, geleceğini, başarılarını, başarısızlıklarını, diğer dinler ve kültürlerle bağlantılarını anlamanın yolunun, dünya tarihini oluşturan ilişkiler ağı içinde İslam uygarlığının hangi düğüm noktasını teşkil ettiğini görmemize izin verecek kavramsal ve kuramsal araçlar oluşturmaktan geçtiğini ileri sürüyor ve bu doğrultuda mevcut tarihsel dönemselleştirmeleri sorunlaştırıyor: İslam’ı ve diğer tektanrıcı gelenekleri, Birinci Binyılın çerçevesi içinde, Aristoteles ve Augustus’tan İsa’ya, Zerdüştçülerden Mazdacılara ve Manicilere, Süryani ve Nesturi keşişlerden İslam’ın peygamberi Muhammed’e ve ayrıksı bir İslami felsefe ile dünya görüşünün ortaya çıktığı İbn Sina’nın dönemine kadar uzanan süreçte, İran’ı da kapsayacak şekilde genişletilmiş bir coğrafyada yeniden değerlendirmeyi öneriyor.
Muhammed’den Önce ve Sonra, bu gibi sorulara bir yanıt veriyor. Garth Fowden, İslam’ın miras aldığı karmaşık ve yüklü dinsel ve düşünsel gelenekleri, getirdiği yenilikleri, geleceğini, başarılarını, başarısızlıklarını, diğer dinler ve kültürlerle bağlantılarını anlamanın yolunun, dünya tarihini oluşturan ilişkiler ağı içinde İslam uygarlığının hangi düğüm noktasını teşkil ettiğini görmemize izin verecek kavramsal ve kuramsal araçlar oluşturmaktan geçtiğini ileri sürüyor ve bu doğrultuda mevcut tarihsel dönemselleştirmeleri sorunlaştırıyor: İslam’ı ve diğer tektanrıcı gelenekleri, Birinci Binyılın çerçevesi içinde, Aristoteles ve Augustus’tan İsa’ya, Zerdüştçülerden Mazdacılara ve Manicilere, Süryani ve Nesturi keşişlerden İslam’ın peygamberi Muhammed’e ve ayrıksı bir İslami felsefe ile dünya görüşünün ortaya çıktığı İbn Sina’nın dönemine kadar uzanan süreçte, İran’ı da kapsayacak şekilde genişletilmiş bir coğrafyada yeniden değerlendirmeyi öneriyor.
376 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2013
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About the author
Garth Fowden
9 books5 followersGarth Lowther Fowden(1953) , is British historian. Since 2013, he has been Sultan Qaboos Professor of Abrahamic Faiths at the University of Cambridge.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 3, 2017
As the author points out, historians telling the story of the ancient Mediterranean and Near East tend to cut off around 500 or 600 AD, convieniently just before the rise of Islam. Meanwhile, Islamic historians telling their own story tend to start with the life of the Prophet and ignore everything that went before, so they begin around 600 AD. The result is that both sides tell a story of rupture, as if there was a clean break between the ancient world and the new Islamic civilization, with no common ground between the two. The author aims to reframe the story by looking at the period 0-1000 CE as a whole, which reveals far more continuity than rupture, since the ideas of ancient Greece and ancient Iran continued to inform the newer Islamic civilization, and many other common threads remained as well, particularly in the way Christians and Jews living under Islam served as a bridge between the ancient world and the new.
The story this book tells begins with the emergence of Christianity under the Roman emperor Augustus, and ends with the synthesis of Greek philosophy with Islamic theology and science by Ibn Sina around 1000 CE. In the process, it follows the development of several parallel and often intersecting threads: Aristotelian logic, Roman law, rabbinical Judaism, Christianity, Iranian classical religion, and Islam. In particular, it shows how Jewish, Christian, and Islamic thinkers each engaged with Greek philosophy to sharpen and enrich the arguments of their own traditions, as well as to interact with each other through the mediating force of philosophy. This all came together in the debating salons of Baghdad around 900 CE, at a time when both Christians and Jews were playing an active role in bringing the philosophy of ancient Greece into the Islamic domain, whether as translators of ancient Greek texts or as practitioners of Aristotelian logic.
The theme of this book could be summed up in three words: "continuity not rupture." The author shows decisively how Islam emerged, not from a vacuum, but from a rich stew of competing beliefs that were the mark of the Near East in the late classical era. Indeed, these beliefs continued to operate on and inform the evolving Islamic thought-world in the centuries to come. Thus, the author persuasively argues that any historian hoping to understand the revolutionary changes of that time must bridge the gap between East and West, between ancient and modern, between Islam and its older cousins, Judaism and Christianity.
In the past, I've been frustrated at how completely Islam disappears from Eurocentric tellings of history, skipping from the ancient world to the Renaissance as if Islam never happened or was completely irrelevant to the story, which couldn't be further from the truth. The author goes a long way toward "filling the hole where Islam should be" and he brings an amazing range of erudition to the task, moving easily from philosophy to theology to law to medeival science, with source materials in ancient Greek, Latin, Persian, Hebrew and Arabic. I already know Garth Fowden's work from his earlier book The Egyptian Hermes, already a classic in its field, so I'm delighted to find that he is the one to tackle this far more ambitious and pressing task and light the way for future researchers. His writing is aimed mainly at specialists (or at least serious amateurs like myself) but it is intelligble, extremely well documented and persuasively argued. You can't go wrong with this author so if the subject interests you as a student of comparative religion, the Near East, or ancient and medieval history, by all means invest your time in this book because it's sure to pay off.
The story this book tells begins with the emergence of Christianity under the Roman emperor Augustus, and ends with the synthesis of Greek philosophy with Islamic theology and science by Ibn Sina around 1000 CE. In the process, it follows the development of several parallel and often intersecting threads: Aristotelian logic, Roman law, rabbinical Judaism, Christianity, Iranian classical religion, and Islam. In particular, it shows how Jewish, Christian, and Islamic thinkers each engaged with Greek philosophy to sharpen and enrich the arguments of their own traditions, as well as to interact with each other through the mediating force of philosophy. This all came together in the debating salons of Baghdad around 900 CE, at a time when both Christians and Jews were playing an active role in bringing the philosophy of ancient Greece into the Islamic domain, whether as translators of ancient Greek texts or as practitioners of Aristotelian logic.
The theme of this book could be summed up in three words: "continuity not rupture." The author shows decisively how Islam emerged, not from a vacuum, but from a rich stew of competing beliefs that were the mark of the Near East in the late classical era. Indeed, these beliefs continued to operate on and inform the evolving Islamic thought-world in the centuries to come. Thus, the author persuasively argues that any historian hoping to understand the revolutionary changes of that time must bridge the gap between East and West, between ancient and modern, between Islam and its older cousins, Judaism and Christianity.
In the past, I've been frustrated at how completely Islam disappears from Eurocentric tellings of history, skipping from the ancient world to the Renaissance as if Islam never happened or was completely irrelevant to the story, which couldn't be further from the truth. The author goes a long way toward "filling the hole where Islam should be" and he brings an amazing range of erudition to the task, moving easily from philosophy to theology to law to medeival science, with source materials in ancient Greek, Latin, Persian, Hebrew and Arabic. I already know Garth Fowden's work from his earlier book The Egyptian Hermes, already a classic in its field, so I'm delighted to find that he is the one to tackle this far more ambitious and pressing task and light the way for future researchers. His writing is aimed mainly at specialists (or at least serious amateurs like myself) but it is intelligble, extremely well documented and persuasively argued. You can't go wrong with this author so if the subject interests you as a student of comparative religion, the Near East, or ancient and medieval history, by all means invest your time in this book because it's sure to pay off.
March 18, 2021
Incredibly interesting but very dense. I do not recommend this to non-historians and I probably wouldn't recommend it to non-ancient/medieval historians unless they have a particular interest in periodization
August 25, 2014
I have no idea what this book is about. Seriously. First, it's more historiography than history and not knowing all of the historians, ancient and modern, well, I was lost. Second, so many names of people and places were thrown at me out of context that I got more lost. Very specialized. Don't recommend for anyone but historiographers of ancient history.
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August 29, 2014909.09767 F784 2014
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews