Does Turkestaneness identity have a theoretical foundation? A civilizational claim, no doubt, necessitates conceptions within the framework of the individual, family and society. This perspective and necessity also apply to the civilizational nationalistic framework we refer to as Turkestaneness identity.
At this point, it must be stated that the foundation and roots of this claim by the people of Turkestaneness lie in Turkestaneness itself. Here, the questions arise: Were there ever conceptions of morality, justice and politics concerning the layers of society, state and city in our history? Are they still able to speak to today and tomorrow and do they possess a universal quality, so to speak?
In essence, do the perceptions and conceptions shaped within Turkish culture have the power to speak to and form a commonality with the collective consciousness of humanity? I believe what should be emphasized is the competence and qualification in this context.
If Turks are not aware of this concerning the future, the notion of civilizational nationalism will remain an unfounded claim. Politics and statecraft comprise the morality of a nation.
Custom is morality and wisdom. Faith illuminates the path to wisdom where we find the balance between knowing and doing. Nevzat Kösoğlu indicated the importance and source of the faith-action (iman-amel) balance, asserting, “All human and social values are acquired with faith.
The force that makes a person internalise the awareness of value and elevates it from mere knowledge to a principle of action is faith. It is only the behaviour and actions of a believing person that align with the standards they believe in. A believer arranges all their actions, relationships and surroundings in accordance with the standards bestowed by their faith”.
Muslim thinkers addressed ethics as a matter that should be considered within practical philosophy beyond being merely venerable. Philosophers have evaluated ethics primarily in two main domains: theoretical and practical.
In Ibn Sina’s (Avicenna) view, the culmination of three virtues—chastity, courage and wisdom—and other derivatives or extensions of these virtues lead an individual to ultimately attain the virtue of justice, as addressed in one of my previous writings (“Towards the Consciousness of Wisdom with an Avicennian Perspective on Clove”).
Besides theoretical philosophy, practical philosophy or what is also accepted as wisdom, deals with three main subjects: ethics, household management and civic administration.
The first deals with individual perfection, the second with the perfection of family/society and the last with the administration of cities and countries with justice and wisdom. In summary, Muslims have understood life as a unity, from the individual to the state and the world within the commonality of certain phenomena and established their worldview within this framework.
If a person endowed with chastity and courage can cultivate wisdom and encompass this within their character to create justice, it might be possible for them to establish themselves, their family and their country in justice and virtue, thus being worthy of Kut (blessing).
Do we have an awareness and discourse against the age that brings a so-called global exploitation to our doorstep, a narrow channel where politics and power are wedged today? After converting to Islam, thinkers like Farabi, a luminary Turkish figure, addressed this matter. Ethics is the science that reveals that the goal of moral disposition, behaviour and deliberate deeds is happiness and that true happiness arises from goodness and virtues. Politics, on the other hand, discusses the form and actions of governance that facilitate the realisation of this goodness and virtues within cities and nations. He outlined the core of a civilisation through the individual and politics within the framework of society/nation-state-city.
The civilisational claim of the Turks essentially revolves around wisdom and justice, aiming for the formation of the good. The Kutadgu Bilig allows us to see this framework more clearly and to perceive a mindset of a culture that carries an ostensibly universal claim: “All goodness comes from the benefit of knowledge; even the way to heaven is found through knowledge,” which is significant from the perspective of seeing the fundamental basis we discussed. However, is Farabi’s framework limited only to knowing and theoretical sanctifications, sancties?
Here enters his practical dimension: “In practical philosophy, the aim is not only to know but to realise the perfection of the soul through both knowing and acting. Consequently, the first aims for a belief, whereas the second aims for action.
While the goal of the former is truth, the latter pursues goodness (khair),” posits Farabi, placing emphasis on acting alongside knowing. The faith-action pair in theoretical philosophy denotes belief maturity, while in practical philosophy it denotes action maturity, essentially actualising the cultural content of life and civilisation.
Thus, while in Turkestaneness society evolves from this viewpoint, the state is established within this framework and cities-countries are considered as a whole from this perspective. Possessing certain values does not denote the ambition to impose upon everyone but rather the globalisation awareness of justice and goodness produced by these values. This is also the essence of the Turkish ideal of world sovereignty as expressed in our civilisation, as should be. Prof. Dr. Osman Turan, in his book of the same name, alluded to this by bridging the pre-Islamic and post-Islamic eras.
In summary, Turkestaneness identity does not impose values but aspires to create a civilisation by reminding everything that has become valueless of its own essence based on principles like language and religion.
Turkestaneness identity can be seen beyond an ethnic erudition as a nation’s vision for the future and civilisation. This approach, as can be seen, derives its own theoretical and practical content from its own sources.
These foundations can be discussed as the Turkish proposition to humanity within a framework of future-centred thinking and action structure. Whatever framework political, economic and ideological systems may form within, it’s important to consider what Turks will do/can do within this foundation in shaping and forming the individual, family, society, and state.
When these philosophers are transformed from academic fancies, ideological sanctuaries, or bygone thinkers of consolation into life philosophers, Turks will begin to hope again.
Turkestaneness identity may manifest as a hope for humanity in a polarised world. For this concept, which possesses a practical value beyond being rhetorical solace and carries an origin, process and consciousness of intent, continues to be offered as a modest manifestation of a civilisational claim, as a prayer and hope for the future. The method of history or civilisation-centric history-writing
One of the great Islamic historians, Ibn al-Athir comments, “As for the Eastern histories, they have neglected and abandoned what transpired in the West; similarly, Western historians have not deemed it important to include incidents and stories from the East. If someone curious about history embarks on investigating a chain of events, it’s clear they must research and read many volumes from different historians narrating those events in varying manners.
When I saw this irregularity and feared forgetting significant and genuine incidents, intending to make a comprehensive account of events between Eastern and Western kings and countries, I started preparing this book of mine, explaining all these events collectively.
I only considered and examined the renowned works of historians that I knew to be truthful and foundational for my book. I took many beneficial notes. Otherwise, I have never been one of those who deliver speeches like in dark nights.
I have witnessed such individuals narrate a single event for years, even splitting it into months. Undoubtedly, if an event is interrupted, it yields no conclusion, and without compiling and reviewing the interruptions thoroughly, nothing about the event would be understood. To avoid these pitfalls, I gathered the entire incident together without disrupting the topic.”
In this passage, he outlines his path and offers a critique. What does it mean not to deliver speeches in dark nights? Why is it necessary to thoroughly read and compile in order to try to understand an event? As we read these lines, the content spurred some thoughts concerning our method of writing history and current matters.
What will knowing assembled information, accumulation and experience grant us and from this point, what will we begin to observe?
This question brings us to the concept of the hidden aspect of history, which we see in Ibn Khaldun and describe metaphorically as the mathematics of history.
This refers to a rational state capable of looking beyond the visible, analysing events and phenomena at their essence, reading the structure present within the essence of civilisation that emerges from visible occurrences.
In recent days of experiencing earthquakes, we observe rebar, concrete, cement, and debris. Our hearts ache painfully. The primary pain stems, of course, from the lives we’ve lost. However, what pains us even more is witnessing what has been stolen from our lives for crude and base pursuits while constructing our cities on fault lines within our own civilisation.
Can we indeed speak of a civilisation? Are we truly safe? What we have failed to accomplish is as painful as this current catastrophe we’re witnessing unfold.
How can a nation that has historically established cities across the world and cultivated a civilisation on the foundation of culture condemn its own society to live amidst concrete waste, to lose lives in these concrete swamps when wonders like Safranbolu stand there? The makeshift necessity cities ultimately devoured a portion of us brutally. Is the fault with concrete?
As people, we ponder other matters regarding life and existence when looking at these buildings. It appears that what sustains buildings is not concrete or rebar but the invisible mathematics behind them, or the balance created by the engineering that crafts the concrete and rebar physically sustaining our cities.
What keeps them alive in spirit, though, is competence, ethics and humanity… Just as with people, who are sustained not merely by their visible biological state but by the mathematics—an abstract state—beyond it.
You may call it morality, wisdom or custom, but whatever it is that ultimately sustains a civilisation is indeed that hidden force lodged within the visible. In reality, the dynamism of history is sensed precisely here. Without understanding the structure and process behind visible events and phenomena, without discerning what is referred to as the spirit of the time, without reaching the essence that creates human beings, history becomes an enchantment we circle around without fully penetrating.
All these thoughts led us to consider our understanding of history and historiography: In our country, vast amounts of information are gathered in a monumental construction site-like state. Documents, monographs and pages full of counted and recounted information. Certainly, these are valuable and indispensable for another stage.
However, have we truly reached the point our historiography needs to be, where it should discern its own mathematics? Why is Fuat Köprülü so significant and remains scarcely surpassed? Why can we not entirely comprehend Ibn Khaldun? I suppose we have not yet developed a mindset for historiography that goes beyond collecting information to reach theoretical frameworks, unravelling the background and revealing the structures.
In the West, we attempt to imitate what we see; has our scholarly class, speaking foreign languages fluently like bird language, learned nothing there to begin a tradition or authorship process related to this subject? Why do we lack understanding and explanation?
Evidently, what we mention is not work for novice historians. It requires an accumulation, effort, respect for one’s work, years of accumulated knowledge and more importantly, possessing the methodological and intellectual-philosophical equipment to achieve this.
At this point, unless we—myself included—approach from a profound perspective, attaining an understanding of civilisation and revealing its inherent structures through a historiography centred on civilisation will leave us wandering open and hungry upon the civilisation meadow, and it seems many earthquakes will continue to harm us. I’ve attentively followed seismologists’ discussions referencing ancient historical records. Modern science cooperates with history on this path. In summary, unless we obtain a perspective and practice unravelling what holds events and phenomena together, like concrete and rebar, symbolically termed as mathematics/inner essence, the act of history-writing over centuries and various civilisational experiences we inherit will remain, like tons of material waiting at a construction site, segregated and meaningless.
In the perilous times of the nation, the knowledge that will revitalise the nation can occur through the reinterpretation and reorganisation of past experiences or by producing new knowledge as a single person or group invigorating the nation’s life.
In this manner, newly produced energy will rejuvenate the nation into action, ensuring the preservation of vitality. This new knowledge, new intellect, and in the new era of nation energisation transforming into a collective morality will revitalise the nation, contingent upon transforming thought heat generated by emerging energy into action.
In summary, gathering engineering materials is indeed essential; however, the crucial matter is effectively comprehending the essence and balance that keeps everything standing behind the scenes.
In historiography too, gathering materials is initially necessary; however, if a historiography career concludes only with this, the condition where innumerable materials are compiled without narrating a whole structure, leaving us with nothing but a chronological heap, should be contemplated, as a respectful aside.
Why Civilisational-Centric History Reading?
In our philosophy of history/life, authored as a trilogy encapsulated in ‘Sendeki Ben,’ ‘Bendeki Biz,’ and ‘Bizdeki Can,’ the main theme revolved around the issue known as “Bil” (Knowledge of Self). Also, where we stand between the blue sky and the dark earth… I refer to the philosophy of our history because each view on history to comprehend humanity involves, in essence, reading our selfhood through historical entities, knowledge and morality. What does it mean for a person to know themselves?
This is one of the most formidable questions in history. In fact, all readings about the structure and laws of history seem to pursue the answer to this question. Knowing oneself and attempting to understand the universe and existence through one’s self is manifest as one of the fundamental activities of a thinking human.
Though we aren’t very aware yet, it seems we can observe such civilisational heights even in the Orkhon Inscriptions. Therefore, dismissing civilisation in the context of knowing oneself is an essential domain of inquiry and thought in historical philosophies, especially for those adrift in the modern age, or whose traditions have not adapted reasonably to the tasks of time.
However, is this the situation in our country? Do we have a historiography congruent with our civilisational concerns, a philosophy? Addressing these questions brings us to the approach of civilisational-centred history reading, particularly as it pertains to our self-comprehension and knowing ourselves.
A civilisational-centric history reading, primarily because it does not prioritise an ideological or political viewpoint, will not construct a framework that presents issues in terms of historical methods and research principles.
In other words, it doesn’t prompt behaviour, attitude and perspectives contrary to science and its principles, potentially distorting truth. This approach entails beginning to consider civilisation-centric results in research by reading topics inherently part of civilisation like politics, economics, and military from a civilisational standpoint. This realigns us concerning experience-current situation-conceptions in recognising, knowing, and reorganising ourselves between past-present-future. For this reason, civilisational-centric reading is, before being a content reading, knowing what to read towards knowing ourselves in the name of civilisation: What does this mean?
As outlined in my previous writings, “THE THEORIES OF SOCIETY-STATE-CITY” in the Oghuz Khan epic, Farabi, and Ibn Khaldun, demarcating what we consider contributing to civilisation, analysing and thinking on these allows us as thinking entities within the civilisation we know ourselves from, to contemplate our civilisation.
Efforts to think for oneself concerning civilisation through ideologically, slogan-oriented, sermon-like and excluding approaches either entailed praise or rebuke, but did not strive towards understanding the enchantment known as civilisation.
In this centre, our relation to civilisation not only drew us away from ourselves but left us insufficient and lacking in reaching the true essence produced by humanity. Thus, a civilisational-centred history reading is a call to know oneself in the modern time from Turkey in Turkish. It is a summons to understanding self, knowing and explaining. It is a pursuit not of a cause, but a quest for truth. It is a diligent effort to rediscover what is lost by viewing oneself and the world from one’s centre.
As those of us who have long considered civilisation to be technology, without civilisation-centric history readings, we possess no insight into the past, inability to assess our present state, nor the formation of any foresight about the future. Hence, we are inevitably deprived of humanity’s accumulated knowledge in this area. Therefore, if asked whether this is a new practice for an old village, we would refer to it as an invitation of old customs to a new village.
In this respect, unless Turkish historiography develops a perspective concerning Turks’ civilisational issues, placing history at the essence of these issues, our pursuit of civilisation in the guise of technology will continue accompanied by disappointments. Consequently, a civilisation-centred reading is believed to be crucial to understanding humanity’s identity in terms of understanding the self from history to the future.
While conceptualising society, state and city by providing expansions in political, military, social, and economic history, if a structure where civilisation history is considered an overarching concept upon which these are regarded as infrastructures can be revised within major institutions like the Turkish Historical Society, Literature Faculties and History Departments, it might render a functional purpose in society. The Higher Education Council (YÖK) ought to establish courses like Civilisation History within discussed frameworks within universities.
Thoughts attuned to this framework surely lead society to a more deliberate and actionable perspective in living civilisation, ensuring its existence, and protection by influencing the viewpoint on society, state and city. Perhaps the Ministry of National Education (MEB) could initiate initiatives concerning the dissemination of this topic in Secondary Education.
“Our civilisation,” as referred to after comprehending this perspective, might be approached by examining the mental concepts, value worlds, worldview and lifestyle elements entrenched within civilisation’s essence more consistently and attentively.
Therefore, adjusting ourselves with civilisation knowledge (bilgi) and demonstrating to humanity that as Turks there is a meaningful philosophical ground on civilisation issues will be beneficial. Essentially, this is a proposal for reading civilisation related to the claim of being universally known, in modern parlance, that Turks should pursue in relation to civilisation.
Just as the Annales school developed a chronological perspective through an economic viewpoint within their civilisation’s conceptual framework, a civilisational-centred reading also refers to the authentic historical investigation of the Turkish call for civilisation and justice within the context of their ideal for order and regulation.
A civilisation possessing masters like Mevlana and Yunus Emre, who are authorities in self-contemplation where what is implied by civilisation is the human type cultivated by that society and city should also be able to develop thoughts and actions for self-awareness concerning civilisation.
A civilisation-centric history reading can be viewed as a novelty concerning our historiography. Upon inspection, all existing readings concerning history operate under Western-centric concepts, theories, philosophies and understandings categorised under the modern umbrella.
Naturally, being knowledgeable of humanity’s accumulation of truths is a national duty. However, without articulating one’s word on these matters, it’s evident that one will remain in a satellite thought world and historical understanding.
