Özet:

The understanding of the stages that Islamic education has gone through in history, the formation of madrasas, and the factors that shaped their curriculum will be comprehensible to the extent that they can be analyzed. In general, and specifically in madrasa education, the fundamental goal is to train jurists (fakih). For Muslims, it was essential to have an authority to refer to in all matters related to both worldly and afterlife issues. Throughout all times, circles of knowledge have maintained their existence as the breeding ground for this authority. These circles of knowledge, surrounding scholars (mujtahids/fuqaha), consisted of students who wanted to engage in discussions and issue religious rulings (fatwas). Madrasas, from their inception, preserved their distinctive features and remained centers of Islamic education. Religious education was seen as their primary purpose. Literary and linguistic sciences, natural sciences, and philosophical sciences gained legitimacy in proportion to their contributions to religious education. The curriculum followed by madrasas was largely shaped by the instructor (mudarris). In the Ottoman era, the history of religious education is also the history of madrasas. The primary goal of Ottoman madrasas, like their predecessors, was to provide religious education. Findings from research on madrasa history confirm this. With the expansion of the Ottoman state's borders, the madrasa system also expanded, and it took shape at its highest level with the establishment of the Suleymaniye Madrasas during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. It is known that the madrasa curriculum continued without significant changes until the Constitutional period. In our research, we have evaluated the efforts of the madrasas and scholars that were neglected in the face of schools during the Tanzimat period. In this context, the proposal presented jointly by fifteen scholars from the leading ulema of Istanbul was examined. The regulation attempted at the Fetvahane under the leadership of the ulema assigned to the office of the Sheikh al-Islam is significant in terms of its purpose. It paves the way for central intervention in madrasas, which have autonomous structures. The regulation was stated to aim at ensuring the most efficient teaching without wasting students' time, although it mentioned discipline in terms of time. However, the regulation appears to be limited to the time allotted for completing books. No regulations were made for the educational period. Due to the 6.5-month duration of education in madrasas, it was considered normal that almost half of the year was outside the scope of educational activities. The proposal did not introduce a system for promotion to higher grades but aimed to prevent the completion of books before a certain period. The book lists planned for each year reveal the thinking of the Ottoman ulema about education. In the educational journey planned for a minimum of fourteen years, grammar, logic, and creed sciences dominated the morning lessons, while the afternoon lessons focused on the principles of jurisprudence and rhetoric. It is understood that the sciences related to interpretation (tafsir) and tradition (hadith), which are the main objectives of studying all these sciences, were left to the discretion of the students. The importance given to theology and jurisprudence suggests an attempt to keep society on a certain ethical and practical path (istikamet) in terms of belief and action. The ulema's emphasis on the preservation of tradition is evident in the curriculum. Scholars who had no purpose of deriving judgments from the book and tradition kept the tafsir and hadith lessons at the recommendation level. These two courses may have been required for the moral development of the students and their ability to preach to the community. Considering that the judiciary positions were present in almost every settlement, and the positions of mudarris were only in places with madrasas, the emphasis on jurisprudence and legal sciences becomes more understandable. The ulema's proposal did not introduce a new regulation into the madrasa system. The proposal, which aimed to ensure that books were read within a certain time frame and that this was effectively monitored, also had an impact on the madrasa reform efforts during the Second Constitutional Period.

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