Wednesday, 22 September 2021 12:23

A Sociological Study On The Restructuring Of Afghanistan

Rate this item
(0 votes)

ABSTRACT:

In an environment that the whole world is scrutinizing, the powers that want to make Afghanistan a bad example for Islam are carrying out all kinds of manipulations to prevent an accurate representation of Islam that will be a reference for both the Islamic world and all humanity. Afghanistan, with its culture, population and geography, is almost like a summary and laboratory of the Islamic world. For this reason, the representation of Islam in Afghanistan will not be limited to Afghanistan only. An accurate representation of Islam is essential to cope with the strategic mind that conducts its intervention through the diversification of identity in Afghanistan and thus in the Islamic world. At this point, Turkey's support and contributions will be vital and determiner.

Bigger Picture

A sociological study on Afghanistan cannot be made realistically without seeing the big picture of the sociological processes in the historical background.

There is a mutually reinforcing interaction between culture, population and geography. Geopolitics can be defined as the political activity provided by this interaction between culture, population and geography. “Geography is the basis of population, cultural identity and belonging. Political discourse rises on this ground.” (1)

If we think of the big picture as a basin of civilization, the geopolitical power of a civilization is a reflection of the culture it represents on population and geography. Sociological processes proceed in the direction of dissolution if the interaction between culture, population and geography is negative, and in the direction of integration if it is positive.

The most strategic sociological goal in establishing dominance over a society is the solidarity of that society and therefore the culture of solidarity. Because solidarity is the most basic element that gives individuals and societies the capacity to cope with threats against them. The small population in solidarity dominates the large crowds that are not in solidarity and conflict within themselves. Unless the solidarity of a society is destroyed, the will of that society cannot be overcome and political, economic and military domination cannot be established over it.

Societies are in solidarity in ethnic, sectarian and religious contexts. For example, if we choose religion as a criterion from these solidarity contexts, “Africa can be divided into two as Muslims and non-Muslims in its simplest form.” (2) If we examine ethnic identities, the African geography will turn into a complete ethnic mosaic, a multi-part map. We can understand the effect of the solidarity context with these examples. Interaction of culture, population and geography; therefore geopolitics is closely related to this phenomenon of solidarity.

The context of solidarity is malignant, as it can transform different societies into a single-centered political power and unite them under a single will; that is, divisive solidarity contexts can also lead to political divisions by neutralizing the common denominators between different masses.

The context of integrative solidarity is an upper identity that will provide the framework of legitimacy in the integration of different sub-identities. Such a framework identity, which can build solidarity between different identities, is the cornerstone of the sociological architecture, integration, peace and security of every society. Because the upper (inclusive) identity context, which includes ethnic and sectarian identities, produces solidarity between all ethnic and sectarian identities. In other words, the sociological basis of large-scale solidarities and therefore the geopolitics produced by this solidarity is the perception of large size upper/roof/catalyst identity.

However, the coin also has a reverse side. A sub-identity characterized as a solidarity context leads to a disintegration/conflict-producing effect. For example, the solidarity of societies on ethnic identity or sectarian issues produces separation and conflict with other ethnic identities and sects.           

Intervention in Afghanistan Continues Sociologically

The Ottoman Empire was located in a region that dominated the rich oil and energy deposits, strategic industrial raw materials, and the transit routes to be used to transfer these resources to the West, which were of interest to the imperialist powers. Ottoman-centered Islamic solidarity was an obstacle for the West, which wanted to monopolize production and expand consumption.

Today, Afghanistan is an area of culture, population and geography which has the similar importance. “There are three important points of origin that will bring Central Asian energy resources to world markets: Afghanistan-Pakistan line, Persian Gulf and Eastern Mediterranean. All three regions are complementary points. In order to establish central control over Central Asian and Middle Eastern energy resources, all three regions must be brought under control. Therefore, in order for the operation that started with Afghanistan, the Central Asia-South and Southeast Asia front to continue on its way, the region stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Eastern Mediterranean must be brought under control.” (3)

Moreover, Afghanistan, just like the sociological power created by the Ottoman's solidarity, which is the basic dynamic of the sociological capacity that holds and integrates all this diversity within its body, it is seen as the potential Asian area of Afghanistan, and even a geopolitical threat that will not be limited to it, but will reflect on all economic, military and political areas and will bring the imperialist powers into a difficult interlocutor. 

For this reason, Afghanistan has been exposed to intense interventions as an area of conflict by different global powers and was occupied first by the USSR and then by the USA and its allies. The fact that these forces have withdrawn militarily will not mean that they have withdrawn, especially in a sociological sense.

It would be the biggest mistake to consider the war in Afghanistan, which is the main line that is aimed to be taken under control, as a classic hot war and that this war resulted in victory, first with the withdrawal of the Soviets and then the USA and its allies.  The sociological nature of the interventions against Afghanistan and the entire Islamic world cannot be ignored.

The Goal of Imperialism Always Is: Solidarity

In order to understand the sociological character of the intervention in Afghanistan, which we have stated as being carried out on a sociological scale, it is necessary to understand the functions of the “solidarity” mentioned above.

The function of the solidarity phenomenon can be understood more clearly with the comparison between Europe before and after Westphalia and the Islamic world before and after the Ottoman Empire. Until it becomes clearer what the solidarity means for Afghanistan…

Just try to remember Europe before Westphalia. The population shaped by sub-national cultures was divided into different identities, and the solidarity around these identities was reflected politically on geography as many feudal clusters in the form of principalities, counties, feudalities and church fathers of different sects. The Britain, for example, was a wild island where tribes fought in the 1600s. Germany, France and Italy were also a geography of chaos divided into feudal principality islands. Europe experienced the Thirty Years’ War between 1618 and 1648, which was revealed by these sub-identity solidarities.

After the Thirty Years’ War in Europe, the Peace of Westphalia was signed in 1648. The main concept of this treaty was the “solidarity”. The structure, which is defined as the Westphalia process and which “sees the nation as the main object of loyalty and in which the nation is at its center” (4), is a reflection of the “change in the context of solidarity” brought about by this treaty. This change has structured the sociological architecture in European societies in line with integration.

The Peace of Westphalia centralized the bond of nation and gave a new upper/catalyst identity to the European identities that were fragmented by sub-national identities such as principality, county and feudality. Church-based state structure in Europe with Westphalia left its place to a new form of organization in which nationality and economy were centered. The process of Westphalia led to the fact that the person who makes sense of himself in an ethnic and sectarian context makes sense of himself in the context of the nation. In this sense, it has formed a theoretical and philosophical basis for the construction of political unity on national identities. Thus, a nation-based state structure was built by putting nationality at the center. Feudality was replaced by nation states. The process of solidarity did not remain at the national level. The USSR was a multinational state. Also, the USA is the same. Recently, Europe is trying to establish a multinational and supranational European Union order, just like the Ottoman Empire.

The nationalism created by the Westphalia process led to nation-state-oriented political processes not only in European societies, but also in the Ottoman Empire. The reflection of these processes on the Ottoman Empire, which was a multinational and multi-religious political organization, was devastating. Nation-centered solidarity manifested as an integrative effect for Europe and a divisive effect for the Ottoman Empire. Because the functionality of the solidarity context change realized with the Westphalia treaty after the bloody Thirty Years’ Wars experienced around sects and other sub-identities in Europe inspired a European strategy to separate the Ottoman Empire in the context of the nation-state. The change in the context of solidarity brought about by the Westphalia process was applied in reverse against the Ottomans. The societies within the Ottoman Empire were encouraged to independence and to convert into nation-state. The interaction of culture, population, geography was managed in such a way as to reduce Ottoman solidarity from the supranational dimension, first to the national, and today to the sub-national level. While the main sociological force that determined the geopolitical structure of the Middle East before the collapse of the Ottoman Empire was Islamic solidarity, a process began in which the national solidarity determined the geopolitical structure that emerged with the disintegration of this system. The key that transformed the Ottoman Empire into the Middle East is this contextual change in Ottoman solidarity. The current Middle Eastern form of the Islamic world is a manifestation of this change in solidarity.

It is necessary to look for the long internal conflicts in Afghanistan in its multi-identity structure that supports and excludes each other around sub-identities. This is exactly what we mean when we state that the intervention in Afghanistan continues on a sociological scale. The bombs that exploded during the US withdrawal should be seen as an expansion of the strategy of inciting these identities against each other and turning Afghanistan into hostile societies in conflict with each other. These are bombs dropped on solidarity in Afghan society.

Let’s remember the Ottoman Empire. The processes of changing the context of solidarity in the Ottoman Empire were not accidental. The spread of the nation-state in the Islamic geography was the result of sociological operations carried out in line with the colonial policies of the Western powers rather than the needs of the societies of the region. As a matter of fact, parallel to this change, since the end of the 19th century, Ottoman geopolitics disappeared, new states, political borders and regimes emerged, and the map of the Islamic world gradually changed. The difference between the Ottoman-era solidarity context and the post-Ottoman solidarity context manifested as a geopolitical difference.

Today, the Islamic world in general and Afghanistan in particular are the objects of the same strategy. The fact that the ability to solidarity that gave geopolitical power to the Ottomans in the Islamic region benefited from Islam made Islam and therefore this ability to solidarity a target. A sociological intervention targeting the solidarity ability of the different identities within the Ottoman Empire had led to the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and the opening the gates of the Islamic region to Western powers. What happened in the 40-year war in Afghanistan should also be considered within the same framework.

The Future of Afghanistan and the Solidarity 

The context of solidarity we mentioned is of vital importance in the emergence of Afghanistan, which consists of many sub-identities in both ethnic and religious terms, on the stage of history as an independent state. To the extent that the imperialist powers target this solidarity context, the structuring element that will be most protected and preserved in Afghanistan’s restructuring process should be the “solidarity context”.  

First of all, let me state that: We do not see the difference and diversity of identities as a problem. Different identities are a sociological fact. Because different identities such as tribe and nationality are an innate and ontological phenomenon that Islam accepts and created by the divine will. Therefore, we are not talking about the standardization of these differences. “Integrated society and standardized society” (5) are different from each other. The problem is not the difference of these identities, but the fact that they lose common solidarity and gain exclusionary and even conflicting features.

The main problem of the multi-identity Afghan society is not standardization, but integration.

If one of the sub-identities is to be centered, conflict with other identities will arise. As a matter of fact, the events since the occupation of Afghanistan by the USSR in 1979 have varied according to the political and military power produced by the solidarity or conflict between the identities in the Afghan geography. Solidarity and integration between different identities in Afghanistan, oriented towards the same goal, underlie the withdrawal and even the subsequent dissolution of the USSR in 1989. In the process that started after the withdrawal, these different identities started to clash among themselves. The replacement of Islam, which was the context of common solidarity against the Soviets, by ethnic, sectarian, authoritarian, totalitarian and leader solidarities, and thus by standardization, brought about the new process, and this time the occupation of the USA and its allies.

Afghanistan's future is tied at the point of whether it will be structured around an integrative upper identity or a standardizing sub-identity.

Religion, combined with ethnic, sectarian and leading political processes, can become a means of legitimizing an authoritarian, totalitarian and leaderist domination over other identities. Sub-identities and solidarities combined with religion can turn religion into a tool that provides motivation to each side in conflicts between sub-identities. Knowing this very well, the USA and its allies focused their fight against Islam at this level, always kept a strategy that built the new process on identity conflicts, and concentrated on this point after the withdrawal. This is essentially the basic strategy of interventions in the Islamic geography.

As can be seen, the future of Afghanistan is tied at an extremely vital point, the “context of solidarity”.

A New Zone of Plot Against Islam: Afghanistan

The international system presents Islam (!) as a rival to Islam, which is a source of global terror and chaos that it has also developed. The desire of the Western countries to exclude Afghanistan from the international arena and to make it a bad example for the same culture for other countries is a strategy that targets not only Afghanistan but the entire Islamic world.

The concepts that form the basis of this strategy of the USA and its allies and that are attached to Islam; The main reason for the mutual exclusion of each other, as well as increasing the contradiction of “which Islam”, which is adopted among Muslims in an exclusionary way, is the fact that exclusion is placed on an Islamic basis and legitimized in the Muslim consciousness through these concepts. Thus, the Islamic world is divided into many radical and terrorist-related groups that are fighting each other, and by bringing these groups to the fore, the solidarity power of Islam is destroyed and it is prevented from showing the true, just, moral and humanitarian side of Islam to the whole humanity.

At this point, Afghanistan appears as a new plot against Islam.

The dynamics of this plot is: Monopolizing the representation of Islam by an ethnic identity by using it as a means of legitimizing the success of the US in its withdrawal…

The examination of the Taliban government’s “turning from a small jihad to a great jihad” is tied at this point.

As a matter of fact, the Taliban Government in Afghanistan first started with the establishment of a regular army in the military field. The role of this military structure in consolidating the authority of the Taliban and therefore the Sociological identity of the Taliban on different religious and ethnic elements in Afghan society will mean the realization of one part of this plot. All the administrative, economic and political reforms that will be carried out to establish the authority of the identity of Taliban at the center in the restructuring of Afghanistan will determine the nature of the Afghan state. This order in the center will also determine the nature of the relationship with the different religious and ethnic elements in the region. The context of ethnic solidarity reinforced by religious legitimacy will bring the ethnic identity at the center to a nature that monitors and controls different identities in Afghan society and, when necessary, repressive. Such a structure would lead to the opening of past areas of sociological abuse in Afghanistan. Such a restructuring will lead to the opening of sociological abuse areas in Afghanistan, as in the past.

A demographic structure with many ethnic, religious and cultural diversity and a state structure open to interventions through all these different identities... A state structure that does not represent this diversity in Afghanistan will constitute the greatest weakness and area of abuse of the new state.

Let us remember the general strategy that transformed the Ottoman Empire into the Middle East. The basic tactic of this strategy was “disintegration”. The expansion of this strategy was an intervention in the cultural base of the existing integration. Likewise, instead of Islam, which is the common denominator of the entire Afghan society, which is at the center of Afghanistan, it also monopolized Islam; thus, turning an ethnic identity that has monopolized political authority into an authority creates a cultural diversity in the long run, and then it will result in the diversification of the population and geography. Internal conflicts will build the image of a bad example in the world public opinion.

When we look at the crises that manifest as intra-country and regional conflicts in the Islamic world, it is seen that the sociological dynamics that trigger these crises are different forms of racism around ethnicity, sect, congregation or leader differences. What the USA and its western allies are trying to construct in Afghanistan are sociological processes that lead to the disintegration of ethnic sociology, sectarian sociology and other sub-identities.

The polarization among the Afghan society around ethnic, sectarian, community and leader differences created a sociological earthquake belt in the past and transformed the country and even the region into a sociological ground that led to the invasion by the USSR and then the USA. “Entering Afghanistan, the most important gateway of Central Asia to the world, the United States established thirteen military bases in the Caucasus and Central Asia and settled throughout the region.” (6) This is a strategy and members of the same religion, different sects, congregations and leaders are directed to a fanaticism that will treat each other as members of different religions around ethnic identities, thereby reinforcing the permanence of the forces settled in the region.

The sociological situation caused by this fanaticism of belonging not only prevents the solidarity of these societies, but also offers all kinds of opportunities for their redesign to the opposing forces. This is what we mean when we say that the intervention in Afghanistan continues on a sociological scale. The future of Afghanistan is tied in the context of this solidarity. The sociological war against Afghanistan is aimed at eliminating the great solidarity dynamics in Afghanistan. In the process of restructuring, the wrong choice of the “context of solidarity” will lead to the loss of the sociological war and subsequent new internal conflict processes.

Change in the Context of Solidarity in the Process of the Prophet's Reconstruction of the Medina Society

The Medina society, which the Prophet gathered under a single city-state, was not a standardized society. While the frame of super-identity was Islam, Muslims were also made up of very different, even hostile, Arab tribes at that time. There were tribes that traditionally maintained the context of solidarity from the pre-Islamic period, defined as the period of ignorance. The Aws and Khazraj tribes are the most typical examples of this. The Prophet solved the crisis of ethnic self-realization between these two tribes and the attachment behavior disorder of these identities by moving the solidarity of these tribes from the framework of ethnic identity to the framework of Islamic identity. With such fundamental contextual changes in the solidarity of the society, it started a sociological process that opened the Islamic society to different religious and cultural groups and built a multi-national, multi-cultural, multi-religious open society.

The biggest support that Turkey and the Islamic world will give to Afghanistan should be to put forward the solidarity obligations of Islam in Afghanistan and to put into effect a common identity framework that integrates different sub-identities.

How the Context of Solidarity is Manipulated: Afghanistan

Those who characterize Islam with terrorism, takfir, sectarianism and ethnicity today are sociological spy groups that serve the status quo, not Islam. They are proxy warriors who fight in the name of Islam, against Islam. Therefore, the powers of these groups will also be proxy powers. That’s what is happened until today.

The more legitimate the war against the USSR in Afghanistan is, the more illegal and un-Islamic the civil war that started after the defeat and withdrawal of USSR is. Also, the more legitimate the war against the USA and its allies is, the more illegitimate and un-Islamic a structure that does not implement the open society principles of Islam will be.

It should be kept in mind that a strategy that provoked the representation of Islam with its morality, peace, solidarity, brotherhood, geoculture and geopolitics, in short, with its civilization, interfered with the process in the restructuring of the Afghan administration.

In an environment that the whole world is scrutinizing, the powers that want to make Afghanistan a bad example for Islam are carrying out all kinds of manipulations to prevent an accurate representation of Islam that will be a reference for both the Islamic world and all humanity. Afghanistan, with its culture, population and geography, is almost like a summary and laboratory of the Islamic world. For this reason, the representation of Islam in Afghanistan will not be limited to Afghanistan only. An accurate representation of Islam is essential to cope with the strategic mind that conducts its intervention through the diversification of identity in Afghanistan and thus in the Islamic world.

How Can Turkey Support Afghanistan?

It is the duty of Turkey, which has experienced the establishment of Ottoman practice of Islam and the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire, to provide the necessary support in Afghanistan to improve the areas of abuse and to eliminate the gaps in representation of the right Islam.

Turkey is responsible for two main tasks in the restructuring of Afghanistan: Which Islamic crisis must be overcome; and the prevention of three fundamental deviations from Islam…

The First Duty: Which Islamic Crisis Must be Overcome

At the root of which Islamic crisis are the interpretations of verses and hadiths, especially cognate (that is, explaining the meaning with simile, representation and metaphor). The similes, representations and metaphors in these verses and hadiths are called “cognation”.

“This verse and authentic Hadiths cover three hypotheses:

First: Verses are the words of Allah, hadiths are the words of the Prophet (pbuh).

Second: The meaning of the word is true and constant. (Whatever meaning Allah meant by the verse and the Prophet meant by the hadith, that meaning is true and constant.)

Third Hypothesis: “This is what is meant in this word. And this is the substance that is the scope; this is what I am showing you.” (That is the meaning of the verse or hadith, I am showing it.) Dispute erupts in the third hypothesis.

There can be no dispute in the first two provisions. These two provisions are not relative. There are no terms, conditions or exceptions. It cannot be the subject of judicial opinion and consultation. Because, it is necessary to believe and accept that the verse is the word of Allah, that the authentic hadith is the word of the Prophet, and that the meaning given by the verse and the authentic hadith is true, it is necessary to establish a connection between these two and not to have any dispute. Otherwise, who denies the first, does not accept the truth, that is, is a liar. The man who denies the latter goes astray and falls into the darkness of denial.

In the third provision, there may be dispute. Because it is a human interpretation, and it is relative. In other words, the interpretation may vary according to the subjects and knowledge. The meaning and desire to be derived from the verse and hadith is the result of judicial opinion, not ambition and enthusiasm. He is not obliged to imitate another interpreter of Islamic law who is already an interpreter of Islamic law. Whoever denies this, in other words, the interpretation of a verse and hadith by someone, will not be disbelievers even if it is with a corresponding judicial opinion.” (7)

     The meaning of the cognate verse and hadith within the scope of this third premise can be the subject of judicial opinion and consultation. Judgments reached through judicial opinion and consultation may vary. These diversifications lead to the diversification of sects and congregations. It is normal for different opinions to emerge in this third point, that is, in the interpretation of cognate verses and hadiths. As long as these views are the judicial opinion of the people. Otherwise, if a historical interpretation that is dependent on the interpreter’s knowledge, expertise, time and society is reduced to a single meaning valid for all times, the verses and hadiths will be closed to new views, interpretations, social changes, and jurisprudence.

This is how the “Which Islamic Crisis”, which the Islamic world has fallen into, benefits from.

When we look at the source of conflicts and enmity among Muslims, it is seen that there are two misconceptions:

  • To reduce the intended meaning of cognation in the verses and hadiths within the scope of the third hypothesis to his own judicial option and interpretation, to monopolize his own understanding.
  • Making this judicial option “related to faith” compels all Muslims to accept them, and accepting those who do not accept the truth as those who do not accept the right word, claiming rights even though they are wrong, or declaring those who deny religion “unbeliever”(8)

This reductionist understanding, which monopolizes the truth, is the fallacy that “What I understood is right”. It is an understanding that disconnects freedom, faith, Islam, and even humanity from each other. On the basis of such an understanding, the alliance and union of the Islamic world is not possible. On the contrary, it will cause faith groups to diversify, to declare each other unbeliever and to conflict among themselves. The basis of which current Islamic crisis is the “belief” of these interpretations and judicial opinions. One of the most influential elements of the Islamic crisis is the representations of people who accept members of Islam other than themselves out of Islam. In the representations of these people, the base problem is the problem of “making relative interpretations” in the religious field.

The ignorance of the dynamic, relative and contextual feature in social sciences, against the universality in the sciences, leads to this theological problem.

Moreover, even the indication of the truth of the data obtained in the sciences is controversial. The clearest example of this is the differences between Ptolemy, Newton, Einstein and Heisenberg physics.

Each perception of physical truth at these different times was accepted as the ultimate dimension of truth at that time, and was given a meaning of belief that transcended the dimension of relative knowledge. However, it has now been understood that even humanity's knowledge of physical truth is relative knowledge and therefore it is temporary.

What people perceive from their own point of view is actually the relative perception of truth. This issue is not only in the religious issues. This relativity exists in all areas of life. Man's comprehension is relative to time, place, attained scientific level and time. Truth cannot be reduced to this relative cognition.

In political and social events, this relativity and contextual feature is even more complex.

As the subjects of interpretation multiply, mutual absolutizations and faiths will come into conflict with each other. The parties concerned come to the point of imposing this relative interpretation as the rule of Islam rather than the interpretation and judgment of a human being, blaming those who do not comply, and even declaring jihad against them. Relativity is the underlying cause of the crisis of solidarity in the Islamic world.

The truth of Islam is manipulated from this point, and movements that turn into a sociological weapon of the intervention against Islam and declare others unbeliever are established and supported. It is necessary to correctly identify these representations that put Islam and the Islamic world in a difficult situation, and to refute the philosophy of these representations with the principles of the Qur'an and the Sunnah itself.

When people’s search for identity is combined with Islam as a means of legitimation, it is clear that the resulting violence and terrorism will also be attributed to Islam. Knowing this very well, the West carries out its struggle against Islam with the help of radical and deviated so-called jihadist movements that Islam has recruited and organized. Such groups are internal components of sociological attacks on the Islamic world.

The function of these pathological movements, which are incompatible with the truth of Islam and only instrumentalize Islam, consists of internally manipulating the geopolitics of Islam. These spy groups, which emerged with roles that legitimize the West's preventive war of “great Islamic solidarity” by fighting in the name of so-called Islam (!), exacerbate “crisis of which Islam” in the Islamic world.

Orientalists thus promote such representations and carry out highly effective sociological operations to turn Muslims against each other. The function of these operations is that members of the same religion mutually exclude each other, diverge and, worse, clash among themselves.

In order for Afghanistan to fall into such a plot, sociological processes should be managed in the direction of integration, based on the Qur'an and the Sunnah of the Prophet, not on relative, contextual, periodic and personal interpretations turned into belief, against those who work with all their might, and thus all kinds of provocations should not be believed.

Turkey should support and help Afghanistan at this point.  

The Second Duty: The Prevention of Three Fundamental Deviations from Islam

The solidarity crises experienced by the Islamic world within itself have developed on the basis of three types of deviations/conflicts experienced in the historical process: (1) Conflict between full justice and relative justice; (2) conflict between caliphate and sultanate and (3) conflict between religion and nationality. (9)

The main characteristic of these three types of conflict is that Muslims themselves are in conflict with Islam, and therefore Muslims are fighting with themselves in the context of their ethnic and sectarian identities as an intra-civilizational conflict.

These three types of conflicts feed the sociological processes of solidarity crises in Islamic societies. Muslim societies, which are trapped by these three deviations and whose solidarity ability has been weakened, constitute one of the most important components that give continuity to the imperialist status quo constructed by Western geopolitics. The most painful example of this reality has been experienced in Afghanistan.

The states under which the political solidarity of Islamic societies gathered, and especially the Ottoman Empire, were erased from the history with these three deviations/conflicts. Thus, Ottoman geopolitics, the biggest obstacle to the global status quo, was eliminated.

The nationalist character of the states remaining from the Ottoman Empire, the increasing ethnic identities in the region and especially the Turkish and Kurdish nationalist structures in Turkey are directly related to these three deviations/conflicts. Just as these three deviations/conflicts opened up space for the exploitation of the global status quo powers in the past, today they form an effect that prevents this structure from changing and ensures its continuity.

When we analyze these three conflicts in the context of the concept of “sociological war”, we can say that Islamic societies have been subjected to intense sociological attacks in order to shift from full justice to relative justice, from the caliphate to the sultanate, from the axis of Islamic nationality to the axis of nation throughout the history. These attacks have intensified today, especially in Afghanistan, as in Syria and Iraq.

The sociological operations carried out by Western geopolitics during both the sociological war phase and the preventive sociological war phase have led to these three main deviations from Islam on Muslim identities and have dragged these identities into a crisis of solidarity. Thus, instead of cooperating and fighting problems, Muslims attack each other with this solidarity crisis.

A brief explanation of the concepts of complete justice-relative justice, caliphate-sultanate and religion-nationality will be an eye-opener in understanding how destructive it will be in the medium and long term in an Afghanistan structure where these three deviations will dominate, and how it will build a perception of Islam in the consciousness of humanity.

Conflict Between Full Justice and Relative Justice

Full justice is pure justice. Full justice is unique. It is just the real justice. Full justice is an understanding of justice that is not based on a race, a group, a person or an ideology, but is based solely on the human being and that person's rights and laws. It is attributed only to the right and the rule of law. The paradigm in full justice is the pure justice itself. Justice is relative to nothing else, everything is relative to justice.

Full justice includes the law of animals, plants and even inanimate beings, namely the ecological order, as well as the law of humans.

In short, the provision to be given does not differ according to the gender, race, religion, group and ideology of the persons. Only one provision is given. The given provision in the name of justice represents pure justice.

In Islam, justice is at the center of individual relations, social structure and functioning.

 The source of relative justice is not unique. Because there can be an infinite number of paradigms to which justice can be attributed: Such as race, interest, ideology, dictator, group... Justice is attributed to them. This understanding of justice is contrary to the understanding of justice in Islam. The relativization of justice to politics, race, group, interest, dictator, etc., taking one of them to the center, is a deviation from Islam's understanding of justice and Islam. The most effective sociological attack against Islam is to create revolutionary communities and organizations that represent relative justice among Muslims, and therefore this deviation. One of the most devastating sociological attacks on Afghanistan will be the structuring of a governing subject that represents relative justice to the center. It is necessary to see how such a structure will build an image of Islam in the consciousness of humanity. An image of Islam that classifies segments of society as oppressors and oppressed should not be allowed.

If a society puts a race or ideology at the center, makes them decisive in justice and structures the mechanism of justice relative to them, produces the law accordingly, full justice, that is, real justice, will not occur. Society and individuals are divided into two categories as the oppressor and the oppressed, with this kind of understanding of justice. If this society is a Muslim society, if it abandons full justice and turns to relative justice, it means that it has deviated from Islam and even started to clash with Islam.

Human being can only be satisfied with full justice by nature Relative justice leads people to oppression on the one hand and rebellion on the other. It drags the society into the tension of protecting-changing the status quo between those who want full justice and those who practice relative justice. If justice has become relative to one race, it leads to the reverse identity building and solidarity of people of different origins around race and ethnic conflict. If justice is attributed to an ideology, justice becomes politicized in that direction and turns into an ideological control mechanism, and thus, the courts control conformity with the ideology, not the law.

Since justice is relative justice, societies change hands between the central subjects to whom justice is relative. If there is a dictator at the center of the organization of society, another one comes, replaces the other; if there is an ideology, another ideology takes its place. One race takes over the center, it strays from full justice against the other race. Thus, according to these changes in the center, justice will also be transformed.

In the anecdotes of the Qur'an, on the one hand, models of despots who have relativized societies to themselves, and on the other hand, societies which have become relative to a despot are mentioned. Those who establish dominion over individuals and societies see themselves as the lords of individuals and societies.  Individuals and societies also see these despots as lords.

The models of Pharaoh and Nimrod in the Qur'an are models that have established a dominion over people that centralizes themselves and their power. Therefore, they are models that relativize the administration and justice to themselves. For example, the Pharaoh model established a complete dominance over the individual and society. Pharaoh is a sovereign subject who puts the individual and society in a shape relative to his interests, pleasures and authority. He declared himself lord. The whole system is Pharaoh-centered and everything was shaped according to the Pharaoh. Learned helplessness pervades society. The Prophet Moses went to Pharaoh and invited Pharaoh and those who follow him to believe in Allah and be His servants. He directed his invitation to the subject (Pharaoh) and object (society) of the despotic status quo. Pharaoh did not accept this invitation. However, this invitation triggered the beginning of change in the society which became the object of the Pharaoh. A sociological process has begun that threatens the pharaoh-centered status quo. The tension between the status quo and change resulted in Pharaoh’s perishment.

Although it is not perceived systematically and clearly with sharp lines, the full justice/relative justice conflict that we are talking about is at the fundamental of all the tensions in societies.

In the construction of a state, the important thing is that there is a subject of administration in the center which will represent the full justice. When we compare in this context, the difference between the palace and authority of the Pharaoh and the palace and authority of Prophet Solomon is just like the difference between the relative justice and the full justice.

Will the restructuring process of Afghanistan be based on full justice or relative justice? Moreover, in the world of actors who will reconstruct Afghanistan, is there an awareness of a phenomenon such as full justice or relative justice?

Turkey should provide the necessary information and awareness support to the actors of restructuring regarding the establishment of an administration that represents full justice and rejects relative justice in Afghanistan.

Conflict Between Caliphate and Sultanate

In modern times, like many concepts of Islam, the concept of the caliphate is distorted. The caliphate is perceived as a purely political concept and is defined as the equivalent of theocracy in the West. This perception and definition are not correct.  Because in Islam, there is no clergy, and therefore no clergy reign, and no legal system or political system created according to the clergy.

On the other hand, caliphate is an ontological concept related to human in Islam. Because man was created as the caliph of the world. The relationship of each person with the creator is the Lord-servant; their relationship with each other is a servant-servant relationship. No person can establish a lord-servant relationship with other people. Otherwise, those who establish this relationship will be shirking the creator. In Islam, both to claim lordship over the servant and to accept the servant as lord means to be a servant to the servant and is shirk.

The laws related to the creation of existence in the field of science and technology are obliged to comply with the obligations, morality and law that Islam imposes on human beings in their attitudes and behaviors and in their relations with plants, animals and humans. When someone does not comply with this obligation, the reign of an emotion occurs within the person himself. That is, by seeing his own nafs as a lord, a person becomes a servant of his nafs. This inner reign makes that person a subject of reign and domination in his relations with the outer world. Now, that person has become an entity that produces behavioral models depending on the feeling under his authority. The relations of people who have become subjects of reign and domination with other people turn into a lord-servant relationship, not a servant-servant relationship. In other words, instead of being freed from all servants as being Allah’s servants, people become servant of other servants.

This is true not only for individuals but also for societies.  For example, a person establishes superiority over other people by putting his own interests, his own power, and his own pleasures in the center in his relationship with other people, or by joining forces with a group of people in this center. By seizing the state, politics, institutions and especially the institutions of justice, it imposes its own interests and authority as the state, politics and justice. Persecution gains an organized and systematic effect.

Man, who is the caliph of the world, consents to objective law, not relative law. In administration, it is not subject to despotic will, but to the common mind that emerges through merit and consultation. Otherwise, he will not be a caliph of the world, but an object of sultanate.

Responsibility of being the caliph of the world is true not only for individuals but also for societies. Administrations are also obliged to be the caliph of the world.  As long as they remain within the framework of this obligation, they have this title. Otherwise, they lose this title and become the subject of the reign of whatever paradigm (race, group, interest, ideology, person) it represents.

The conflict between the caliphate and the sultanate in historical Islam is a deviation from Islam. One of the reasons for the solidarity crises of the Islamic world is this deviation. One of the most functional sociological weapons of the enemies of Islam is to provoke the conflict between the caliphate and the sultanate in the Islamic world. Today, the conflict between the caliphate and the sultanate has ended, and the sultanate has been made dominant in all Islamic societies and there are conflicts between the sultanate and the sultanate.

It is inevitable for the sultanates and rulers who have established dominion over Islamic societies to cooperate with the global status quo powers and turn these powers into a proxy power. Organizations against the status quo are controlled locally by these powers.

Will the Islamic caliphate or the sultanate be taken as the basis in the restructuring process of Afghanistan? Moreover, do those who will reconstruct Afghanistan have any concerns about not making the mistake of establishing a sultanate, which is a deviation from Islam? Or, by saying, “We defeated the United States, we represent Islam,” and accepting themselves as a legitimate central authority, will they go to a structure that represents exactly the reign we are talking about?

Turkey's duty should be to provide the necessary information and awareness support to the restructuring actors in order to prevent the establishment of a board representing the sultanate in Afghanistan.

Prevention of Conflict Between the Religion and Nationality

One of the concepts on which Islam is based is the concept of religion. People face three options in any case: Extravagance, understatement and moderation...

Extravagance means exceeding the legal limit, violating the rights of others.

The inability to even protect their legitimate rights is a characteristic of understatement attitude and behavior.

Moderation means; not falling into both extravagance or understatement. It is an attitude not to violate anyone's rights and to protect their own rights and legitimate interests.

Here, the concept of religion in Islam represents the moderation attitude expressed as “as-sirat al-mustaqeem” (the straight path).

Extravagance, understatement and moderation attitudes and behaviors emerge in a wide variety of areas in the daily flow of life.

The concept of nationality can also gain meaning in the dimensions of extravagance, understatement and moderation. Islam also represents as-sirat al-mustaqeem in terms of nationality. Islam approves nationality. It does not destroy the ethnic consciousness and belonging of people and communities. Because, as we have mentioned before, nationality is an inherent and ontological truth. However, it does not accept the centralization of this consciousness and ethnic self-perception and the transformation of nationality into a means of domination of other nationalities or the cause of domination by other nationalities.

In Islamic societies, the understanding based on non-positive (exclusive) nationality is a deviation from Islam, and while those who represent this deviation are in conflict with each other on the axis of nationality, they are actually in conflict with Islam at the same time.

The most common fact used by the global status quo powers in their sociological attacks on Islam is the religion-nationality conflicts in the Islamic world.  A sense of nationality that is not within the framework of legitimacy of Islam comes across as a functional factor that protects the local and global status quo with the solidarity crises it causes and prevents change.

The nation context brought about by the Westphalia process has made Islam, a framework of transnational solidarity, no longer the context of solidarity of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire was destroyed by this context change. In the same way, sub-identities such as nation, tribe, sect are activated in contextualizing solidarity in the Islamic world. Afghanistan is a clear example of this. Sub-identity solidarities, which prevent reintegration with a large scale of solidarity, are religion-nationality conflicts and are a deviation from Islam.

In the process of restructuring Afghanistan, will it be based on the understanding of nationality that Islam sees as legitimate, or the understanding of negative nationality, which is a deviation from Islam? Moreover, do those who will reconstruct Afghanistan have any concerns about not making the mistake of basing the negative nationality, which is a deviation from Islam? Or, by saying, “We defeated the United States, we represent Islam,” and accepting their nationality as a legitimate central authority, will they go to a structure that represents exactly the negative nationality we are talking about?

Turkey is responsible for providing awareness support to prevent Afghanistan from falling into the same trap.

Conclusion

As a result, the Taliban, which is defined as the main reason of the withdrawal of the USA from Afghanistan in the restructuring of Afghanistan, is desired to be confronted with the role of playing the role of being an internal component of the sociological war against Islam for Afghanistan, with the manipulations we have mentioned above.

A restructuring to be carried out on the basis of an understanding that has creed the relative, human and historical jurisprudence produced in the context of social processes in the past, and that will impose sharia provisions on today's societies will make the Taliban such an actor. Within this framework, an attempt is being made to build a Taliban administration that monopolizes the representation of Islam. Islam is faced with a conspiracy to serve as “Islam” an administration approach that triggers both the three deviations from Islam and “which Islamic crisis” we have tried to point out above.

The catalytic effect of Islam between different identities cannot be disputed. This effect occurs with the definition of the truth of human existence as the caliph of the whole world, with the legitimate framework of full justice and nationality. The catalytic effect of Islam, which rises on these three fundamentals, leads to be a couple, between different identities, just like the marriage of two different sexes. Deviating from Islam on these three bases leads to conflict, divorce and separation and removes the catalytic effect of Islam.

The catalyst feature of Islam will also add a catalyst effect to a nation and state that represents Islam. The greatest need of the Islamic world, which is in a problem of solidarity today, is to be structured around an identity with such a catalytic effect. Afghanistan will pass an important test in this sense.

Man, who is a caliph according to Islam, turns into a selfish being focused on profit and pleasure when this existence loses its meaning. This transformation transforms people and society from being the subject of full justice to a subject of relative justice. This triggers the ethnicity and sultanate. The spiral of these three factors turns society into a swamp that leads to chaos. This chaos has been experienced many times in Afghanistan and it is desired to be experienced again.

The solidarity crisis experienced by the Islamic world in general, the solidarity crisis experienced in Afghanistan in particular, and the Muslim Afghan identities have been a heavy burden on Islam. In order to create a structure suitable for experiencing the same solidarity crises in the new period, a new intervention process was started against Afghanistan.

From now on, the big picture must be seen. The Ottoman Empire, the central country of the Islamic world, was torn apart by these three conflicts/deviations, and the relationship between Turks and Kurds, who constitute the two main elements in Turkey, is a vivid and typical example of these three deviations. Likewise, it should be seen that the internal conflicts in Afghanistan in the past stem from these three deviations and necessary lessons should be learned.

Full justice is Islam; relative justice is deviation from Islam. Caliphate is Islam; sultanate is deviation from Islam. Islam nationality is Islam; nationalism/negative nationalism is a deviation from Islam. Sociological processes in the Islamic world are circulating with tides between Islam and these three deviations from Islam. These facts must be recognized and these three deviations must be carefully considered in the reconstruction of Afghanistan.

The reconstruction of Afghanistan must be carried out within the framework of the consultation and merit orders of Islam. The consultation order should not be limited to the Taliban ulama. It should be carried out by an advisory committee composed of political scientists, economists, social scientists and even ulama specialized in positive sciences, as well as all Afghan scholars and even competent Islamic scholars from the Islamic world.

The role that Turkey will play in the restructuring of Afghanistan within the framework we have pointed out above is of vital importance.

REFERENCES    :

(*) Çağlayan Yusuf, Sosyolojik Savaş (Jeokültür, Jeopolitik, Jeogüvenlik), TİMAŞ Yay. 3Rd Edition, Istanbul 2019

(1) AKÇAY, Engin ve Erkan Ertosun, Mahmut Akpınar, (Editörler) Dini Jeopolitik Yaklaşımıyla Ortadoğu, Akçağ Yayınevi, Ankara-2013, p.15.

(2) FRIEDMAN, George, The Next Decade: Where We Have Been... And Where We’re Going, Translator: Tayfun Törüner, Pegasus Yayınları, Istanbul: 2011, p. 276.

(3) KARAGÜL, İbrahim, Yüz Yıllık Kuşatma, Fide Yayınları, İstanbul: 2005, p. 62.

(4) Yıldız, 2010, p. 19.

(5) BİLGİN, Vecdi, Sosyal Çözülme ve Din, Etüt, Samsun: 1997, p. 16

(6) KARAGÜL, İbrahim, Yüz Yıllık Kuşatma, Fide Yayınları, İstanbul: 2005, p. 9.

(7) NURSİ, Bediüzzaman Said, Muhakemat, Söz Basım Yayın, İstanbul: May, 2012, p.59-60

(8) op. cit. p.59-60

(9) Nursî, Mektubat, 2007, p. 85-88.

 

Last modified on Tuesday, 26 October 2021 11:08
Login to post comments