MEHMET ÂKİF ERSOY AND HIS “RETURN TO THE QURAN” PROJECT

Abstract

The Ottoman Empire, which started to stagnate with the Treaty of Karlowitz in 1639 and started to decline with the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca in 1774, especially in the face of the enlightenment philosophy, industrial revolution and nationalism movements that emerged in the west, could not improve itself in science and industry. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, the six-hundred-year-old empire faced dissolution as it lagged behind these developments in the west. In this period, it is seen that some currents of thought aimed at getting the rest of the society out of this situation, especially against the west, from the bad course of Muslims. One of these movements is Islamism, which is formed by the writers of magazines of that period such as "Sırat-ı Müstakim", "Sebilürreşat", "Mekatip" and "Islam", believing that with the return to the Qur'an, the Islamic society will revive again. One of the most important figures of this movement is Mehmet Âkif Ersoy, who is a veterinarian, a scholar, a thinker and a poet. Mehmet Âkif pointed to the diseases that paved the way for the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and tried to present prescriptions that would enable the Muslim community to get rid of this bad course in the light of the Quran. Mehmet Âkif emphasized the Quran in both his poems and his sermons and advice, questioning the faulty understanding of the society's approach to the Quran and religion, and stated that it would be possible for Muslims to get rid of the bad situation they were in by returning to the Quran. This study aims to focus on the Return to the Quran Project, in which Mehmet Âkif, known as the Poet the Quran, believes that the enlightened future and independence of a society in danger of collapse is possible with it.