Özet:

Classical discourses on prophethood and other fields of religion in Muslim thought began to be expressed in new forms in the 19th and 20th centuries due to the pressure of Western philosophical ideas. Recent scholars have tried to prove the necessity of prophethood and the need for it from a rational perspective against the criticism and attacks of the West and its positivistic point of view on Islam and precisely the issues related to prophethood. Even though the existence of God and the fact that He created the universe and beings have been tried to be proven with much scientific evidence in addition to rational proofs in Islamic thought, attempts to prove prophethood and revelation with scientific evidence are relatively rare. Scientific justification, especially on faith issues, has also been seen as an essential and courageous initiative that is not on the agenda of eastern culture. The experimental studies of 19th-century Western scientists and philosophers on the soul and similar subjects and their scientific explanations on issues such as hypnosis, magnetism, genius, and communication between living things and instinct strengthened the hand of Muslim scholars and led them to attempt to prove the revelation scientifically. In this study, the possibility of scientific justification of revelation has been examined. It is seen that many scientific activities were produced during the period of the New Discipline of Kalām as a defense reflex against the threatening actions of the West's positivistic and materialistic thoughts toward spirituality, especially against the suspicions and accusations against Islam. The different interpretations of the revelation by Muslim thinkers within the scope of solving the belief problems of the period against Western culture and science can be considered an original contribution to Islamic thought. In this respect, the scope of the study is limited to the period of the New Discipline of Kalām. Within this research, different approaches to revelation and claims of scientific proof of revelation are discussed and evaluated in the framework of Farīd Vajdī (d. 1954) and some of his contemporaries. In this period, different interpretations were made on the phenomenon of revelation by Muslim scholars. In this study, the effect of Western-oriented pressures on Muslim thinkers has been evaluated. Therefore, we would like to state that this study does not claim that the revelation was handled only within this framework in the relevant period. In addition, the study aims to exhibit the diversity of the intellectual structure of the New Discipline of Kalām period, in which a new vitality was observed after the discontinuance and regression period in the history of Kalām and the context of the different initiatives in question. As a result of the research, it is seen that the method of Western thinkers is used in the answers given to the claims made by materialist scholars. The theses on subjects like prophethood and revelation were tried to be refuted with the evidence of those theses. In this period, it is understood that the concept of revelation was discussed as a phenomenon rather than a special revelation sent down to the prophets, and an effort was made to establish a scientific basis. It has been seen that thinkers like Vajdī adopted views that do not go beyond the generally accepted and currently defended theory for the scientific justification of revelation-type subjects. Also, it has been seen that they perceive Western knowledge as science and sometimes make extreme comments. Such initiatives can be considered as original contributions to Islamic thought in terms of dealing with prophethood and revelation from a scientific point of view, exhibiting a sociological approach to the relationship between prophethood and civilization, reinterpreting Islamic teachings against the developing Western culture and science, and producing solutions to contemporary problems.

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