33 - The Reformer says:

"While the Christian world was moaning under the cruel, burning torture of Catholics, they were very behind. Christians would kneel in front of priests who seemed to have concealed all the mysteries of religion in their beings, which were like the obscure squares of churches, and who hummed the words of an unintelligible language in a magic manner. They would kiss the pavements of churches and supplicate to these idols whom they regarded messengers between Hadrat 'Isa (Jesus) and themselves. Likewise, as the hodjas read the Qur'an, Muslims of every race listen to this thing without understanding as if they were bewitched. A reformer among Christians came forth and translated the Bible. When the Bible was understood, priests, who had been looked at as God's representatives, began losing their value. The Luther of Islam has now come forth in Asia: Musa Baykiyev of Kazan translates the Qur'an into Turkish. This good news means that the thoughts and consciences of Muslims will escape slavery. The rules of the religion, which had been put forward by the four madhhab leaders and been mixed with politics even as early as in the time of the fourth caliph, are uncertain.

"How could right and truth be broken into pieces? The four madhhab leaders tell differently how a rite is to be performed. How could all the four be right? Reason does not accept that the intellect of the four leaders surpassed the intellect of all people who have come after them. To say, 'Only the rules they derived are right; it is not right to derive other rules,' means to put the human mind into chains.

"People's needs change as the time elapses. As it is declared in the Qur'an, 'Every day is different.' To consider the fixed rules derived by the four leaders in the old times as a measure for the everyday needs means not to follow the Qur'an. The founder of Islam knew that these would happen, so he said that the rules would change in the course of time. It is not compatible with Islam to measure the changing, improving needs with unsuitable rules. The ijtihad of the four leaders does not mean the religion. As these learned and superior men derived religious rules from the Qur'an and Hadith, so every Muslim who has reached the grade of a mujtahid may very well derive new rules from these two sources."

The reformer takes up translation of the Qur'an al-karim first. Today, majority of those who say they are Muslims complain that the Qur'an has not been translated up to now and that the religious knowledge has remained secret. They blame Islamic scholars as if these scholars have prohibited translating the Qur'an. This complaint is quite wrong. Islamic scholars have not attempted to translate the Qur'an into another language, for they have thought of themselves as incapable of translating Allahu ta'ala's Word without spoiling the expression, eloquence and perfection in its own language. However successful the translation might be, it has been concluded that it is impossible to reach the deep meanings of Allahu ta'ala's Word. The Qur'an has deep meanings that do not exist in other holy books. It descended at a time when contests of eloquence took place in Arabia, and it left all of them behind. Translation of such a book must have the same quality, which is impossible. Accomplishing a translation worth the Qur'an, which has an eloquence above man's ability, necessitates having ability above the human ability. This is a problem of ability, that is, it is a matter of protecting the superiority of the Qur'an. Those who want to taste the flavor of eloquence and deep meanings in the Qur'an have to learn Arabic literature and many a branch of Islamic knowledge such as tafsir, usul al-fiqh, and then they can enter the holy presence of the Qur'an. They must not expect the Qur'an to come to them.

Writing a Turkish commentary (tafsir) of the Qur'an and translating it into Turkish are different. Its translation is more difficult than commenting. It is not true that it has not been translated into or commented in Turkish. It has been, but it has not been liked by expert scholars. Religion reformers are wrong in that this is attempted for the first time by the Russian reformer. If the conscience of Muslims are supposed to escape slavery with a single translation as they say, they should have escaped it with former translations. Moreover, those who accomplished the Turkish commentaries such as Mawakib and Tibyan were not utterly ignorant in ethics and religious knowledge like those who attempt to translate today are. They were authorized, prominent scholars having a say in each of the twenty main branches of knowledge and in the numerous helping branches of knowledge. Muslims have been reading and utilizing them. Do religion reformers, who do not like those Turkish commentaries want a different translation suitable for their own points of view? A translation done by the ignorant who do not know even the Arabic grammar will be forced to be accepted as the Qur'an by all Muslims, and religion reformers will call a haphazard Turkish translation of the Qur'an "the Qur'an" and have the Turks perform salat reciting such a Turkish "Qur'an". The real danger endangering one's being Muslim, probably, is to attempt to recite any translation instead of the Qur'an in salat, rather than translating the Qur'an. The Divine Word in the Qur'an is in its own Arabic words and sentences that are on the peak of eloquence and deep meaning. These words and sentences are not man-made. All of them have been arranged by Allahu ta'ala. Each of them bears various meanings. It cannot be decided in which of these meanings is the Divine Purpose. None of the different translations done according to different meanings can ever be called the Qur'an.

The ayats of the Qur'an were given different meanings in different ijtihads by the religious leaders, and a rule was derived from each of them by each leader, and madhhabs formed by these rules, yet the compact unity of the Qur'an was maintained. If the Qur'an were translated according to the rules of each madhhab, what the Hanafis, for instance would recite in salat would be different from what the Shafi'is would recite, thus, each school of Muslims, each madhhab, would have a different religious book. Islam, like Christianity, would be in utter disorder. Do religion reformers want the Qur'an to be translated so Islam would fall into such a state? In order to protect the unity of the Holy Book of Muslims and to keep Allahu ta'ala's Book away from the smallest doubt, Muslim scholars have declared to preserve the Qur'an as it came from Rasulullah (sall-Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam). Moreover, because few ayats recited by some of the prominent Sahabis, such as Abdullah ibn 'Abbas, Abdullah ibn Masud and Hadrat 'Ali (radi-Allahu 'anhum) were very slightly different from the Qur'an which we possess today and which was authorized unanimously by the majority of the Prophet's companions, they were called qira'at shadhdha (exceptional pronouncing) and, though they have been documents for the scholars of fiqh and used in commentaries of the Qur'an, they have never been permitted to recite in salat. How could it ever be permissible to recite Turkish or even Arabic translations, which have been done by this person or that and which are liked today and probably will not be liked and will take different shapes tomorrow, instead of the Qur'an in salat? No Muslim scholar has permitted it. Al-Imam al-azam Abu Hanifa was reported to have said once that the Qur'an could be read in Persian in salat, yet Nuh ibn Mariam said that the Imam had changed this ijtihad of his and the scholars of usul opposed reciting it even in Persian.

Reading the Qur'an even without understanding its meaning will be given thawab. This is for protecting the Qur'an, which stands for Islam's constitution, from being altered. Turkish commentary or translation of the Qur'an can be and has been written, and Islamic scholars have not forbidden this, yet it can neither bear the eloquence of the Qur'an nor convey the Divine Purpose. Muslims who want to understand the Qur'an and the subtleties in it and to taste the flavor of its eloquence should read it in its own language and they should not be reluctant to learn the knowledge necessary to enjoy its pleasure. As it is necessary to learn English, French and Arabic languages and literatures in order to understand and enjoy the delicacies in the poems of Shakespeare, Victor Hugo and Mahmud Baqi, so it is very wrong to attempt to understand the eloquence and subtleties of Allah's Word without laboring to learn the necessary knowledge to understand it. Reading anything, even if in Arabic, other than those words which Archangel Jabrail ('alaihi 's-salam) brought to our Prophet (sall-Allahu 'alaihi wa sallam) does never mean reading the Qur'an. Reading the Qur'an when one is junub, for example, is haram, though reading others is not haram.

Religion reformers say that one should understand what one recites and what one asks from Allahu ta'ala in salat. Such words indicate that they have not comprehended what 'ibada means; the one who has prescribed salat for man is not the man himself but Allahu ta'ala who has declared to His Prophet ('alaihi 's-salam) how salat and the other kinds of 'ibadat are to be performed and what is to be recited during performance. Hadrat Prophet ('alaihi 's-salam) himself performed them and told them to his companions just as he had been taught. Even Hadrat Prophet ('alaihi 's-salam) might not and did not change the fard, wajib and haram. Our religious leaders have understood all of these by seeing and hearing them from the Prophet's companions (radi-Allahu 'anhum), and they have written them in their books. These profoundly learned scholars have reported that the Qur'an al-karim to be recited in salat has to be in Allahu ta'ala's Word. The duty will have been done only in this way. Those who want to understand the meanings of what they recite in salat can learn their meanings beforehand easily by studying a little. Why should not they study for this while they study for many years, learn many a branch of knowledge and many a foreign language for worldly advantages. Outside salat, a Muslim can pray to Allahu ta'ala in his own language. He can learn the meaning of the ayats he recites in salat from the books of the Ahl as-Sunnat scholars. Those who attempt to learn from books of the enemies of Islam and of the religion reformers will learn wrong, false, loathsome things and their toil will be in vain.

In order to learn and teach the meanings in the Qur'an and the religious knowledge correctly and to perform salat easily and enjoyably, Muslims all over the world use Arabic as the religious language. Muslim men have to perform the five times of salat in a day in congregation of mosque. If everybody performed it with his own language, Muslims who are of various nationalities and speak different languages would not be able to perform salat together. The same danger arises if the khutba is translated. If it is read in various languages, Muslims will part into separate mosques for salat on Fridays and festivals, which will result in the danger of the breaking the unity of Muslims.

Reformers try to rebut the ijtihads of our madhhab leaders in order to distort Islam. It is right neither for a reasonable friend nor for even an ignorant, slanderous enemy to say, or even to think, that Islam had been spoilt in the time of the Prophet's companions. How would it ever be possible today to find the real shape of a religion if it were spoilt one thousand three hundred years ago? If it had been spoilt, these reformers' efforts to correct the religion, to make "true" ijtihads, would have been in vain. If the basic knowledge of Islam had not been correctly available for the madhhab leaders, not even the name or sign of that knowledge would have remained for today's religion reformers. They pretend to make ijtihad under their masks not by depending on the Qur'an and Hadith but by making up false ideas with their own defective mind and short sight as they please. They say that the right and truth cannot be broken but try to belittle the four madhhabs by saying, "How could all the four be right?" Further, their idea that ijtihad should be free, that progressives, too, may make ijtihad, is an attempt to break the truth into pieces. While each of them likes what he himself understands or thinks and blames the conclusion of others, and while they try to open the gate of ijtihad, they do not even noticed that they close it. Contrary to their nonsense, Islam has not limited the right and authority of making ijtihad to four people. Each of the Prophet's companions made ijtihad, yet, because we do not possess today their collections of their ijtihads, their madhhabs have been forgotten. Only the books of four madhhabs survived. Ijtihad, like commentating or translating the Qur'an, is a subject of specialization and ability. It is obvious that these reformers, who are unable even to distinguish things that cause disbelief and polytheism, do not possess this specialization and ability.