Abstract:

The search for practical wisdom, which continued throughout the Ottoman modernisation, began to be transferred to the field of theoretical wisdom in the second half of the nineteenth century. Hodja Kerim Efendi, who went to Europe to study and continued his studies in the field of Islamic philosophy, especially logic, wrote a work titled Risala-i Qada and Qadar, which is one of the first products in this field. The issues of will, accident and fate stand in an important place in the context of the relations between religion and modernisation. In this treatise, although Hodja Kerim Efendi looks at the issue from the perspective of classical Islamic philosophy, he often refers to the understandings of Islamic sects. This work, which explores human freedom and responsibility from the perspective of practical wisdom, on the other hand, explores the possibilities of theoretical wisdom in the context of the relationship between God and the world and God and man, bears traces of its time. It also reflects the tension between change and preserving the status quo while adhering to classical tradition. Hodja Kerim Efendi was deprived of the opportunity to become an influential and well-known name in the later period by not carrying the issue to the actual discussion areas of his time. In this work, he seems to have attempted some innovations by articulating with the tradition of classical Islamic philosophy and remaining within it.

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