Marife Turkish Journal of Religious Studies

Abstract

With respect to human history in general, and history of religions in particular,
one may recognize two main historical lines: (a) cult-centric constructions
that cover the emotive, cognitive and practical modes of suspending (of the same
culture-civilisational milieux) and othering (of the different culture-civilisational basin)
or construct identity criteria based on ethnic, religious, physical, biological, geographical,
etc. variables; (b) wahy /”revelation”-centric constructions that comprise
of “word”/kalimah, praxes and ethos, positing all alterities as unfolding the
wisdom of creation, negating all types of ontological upper-lower stratification and
hierarchy, designing all humanity equal in relation to rights and freedoms and seeing
all as creational fraternities. Furthermore, a historical and theological situation
that may be named "metamorphose of the Ahl al-Kitâb" is an ethos as if a moral
pendulum swinging from the domain of wahy to that of cult pertaining especially to
power and authority relations. The Last Revelation, i.e. the Qur'ân, situates those
who impede to unfold the possibilities and potentialities of humanity in history, or
those who used to otherize human beings as "attributive others", namely, kuffâr
(“coverers” of truth, right, freedom), munâfıqs (“double-faced/character in faith”),
zâlims (“oppressors”), and the like in real history; but it never wishes to turn this
situation and its established quality into "ontological others/ings". That is to say,
the Last Revelation does not envision to transform its attributive others into ontological
others; revealingly, the divine plan of transferring the infidels of Tâif into
the helpers (ansâr) of Madinah is ever extent within divine economy. Today, humanity
hastily flowing towards the apocalyptical doomsday, Armageddon, needs a
world in which there are no "ontological others". And the theology of such a world
would be the Theology of Ta'âruf (mutual communication and wisdomizing).
Through this theology, to view and protect all alterities and differences among
humankind as colorful, stained glasses; and to realize an indispensable paradigm
that envisages not to oppress, nor get oppressed, nor make someone oppress
somebody by supporting those who are suspended and oppressed such as group,
class, culture, civilization, or religion via cultic praxes, ethos, and discourses, can
become possible.