Köprü Anasayfa

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"Kış 2008" 101. Sayı

  • Love

    Editorial

    Recognized one of the ultimate reasons for the creation, Love is one of the basic concepts in the Qur’an, too. However, social sciences as philosophy, sociology, psychology, literature, and theology conduct many studies and researches on the source and content of love and its influences on the individual and society and elaborate the subject from many dimensions.

    As we are speaking on the destructive effects of modernism upon human being, we have to emphasize mostly the issue of the lost of value of the concept of love. It becomes a value which is sought and needed to its existence by the modern man abundantly. Remaining loveless in the modern era leads the whole humanity to infelicity in our day, a fact signified by the contemporary socio-psychological studies, when the communication debates reach its zenith. In spite of the material satisfaction, the unhappy life of the modern man displays the importance of the love realized as one of the keys to secure a happy life.

    One of the biggest handicaps of humanity in our age seems to be its estrangement to the love-centered relations such as the love to his Creator within the daily responsibilities and occupations. Thus, its relation to the family, society and other entities has been detracted. In our day, love mostly lost its meaning. One reminds that word only within the words of a song, it is only to be spoken, but not as a feeling which is transmitted to the heart and real life. The invalidation of the essential character of love within the private and social life promotes the unhappiness of individuals and society, thus, people begin to look for happiness in the virtual worlds offered by technology. While the effects of modernism, the technological developments and globalization on love are being discussed, the role of the alienation of human being to his nature should also be considered in this issue. From this point on, Islam is a religion accepting love as one of the reasons of creation, considering love as the direction of religion, and used the expression of Yunus "I love the created beings due to the Creator" as a motto to love every being in the name of their Creator. However, it is very strange that the members of such a religion behave opposite to this understanding in all spheres of their individual-family-social lives, which turns love to a nostalgic value.

    We can remember the political affairs in our country in the last years which is a good example of a political language that is far away from the love perception can bring about tensions in the society. In this context, Bediüzzaman’s idea on the reasons of being backward than Europe as "affection to the enmity" needs to be drawn more attention. The social-psychological studies should be done in order to understand the reasons for the social acceptance of feelings like hate, hostility and enmity instead of love; of the publicization of the conflict culture. Even, the widespread of departure from the honest behaviors, treating only according to the self-interest should be considered seriously. Another question can be the following: what kind of a social psychology did produce the treatments that are incoherent with love: disliking others, otherization, the acceptance of a life-style loaded with hate to the inner and outer enemies.

    We should also discuss the relationship of love with the concepts of affection and clemency. Those three words occupy very important place in human’s life. They seem to be very close to each other, but they have different meanings and functions. Love as being a magical word has been kept always in the foreground through centuries in religious and mundane level and people turned to captivity under this concept. Clemency is a kind of love that is sincere and unrequited mercy, feeling pity and grudging to others. From this perspective, clemency play a wider and active role within the human interactions that love and affection. Considering the connection of mystical "love" with the Unity of Existence and the commentary by Bediüzzaman on this subject, we should think about his choice of clemency but not love and try to find an answer how can we interpret this from the perspective of Qur’an. What kinds of meaning are attached to these concepts by the disciplines as mysticism, philosophy, sociology and psychology?

    We decided in our 101st issue the dossier subject as "love". We try to study this subject within the conceptual framework of "love, affection, affection to God, love, clemency, contemplation, worship, fear, hate, hostility, peace, Divine Love, humane love, mysticism, Unity of Existence, tranquility, happiness, Otherworld" and under the light of the following questions:

    What is love and its content? What are the consequences of the existence and dissemination of love among individuals and in the society with its essential meaning? What is the role of love sociologically within the social peace and tranquility? What are the end effects of a social structure composed by love-focused individuals? How should we understand the concept of "love to enmity" invented by Bediüzzaman as one of the reasons being backward? What kind of an emotional state does stay behind the love on enmity and the insistence on hostility, psychologically? What is the role of love from the perspective of democratic constitutional regime? What is the importance for the society of a democracy appropriated the language of love? What are the messages given to us by the Prophet in this issue who is an example of love? What is the place of love in the Tradition of Prophet? What is the approach of Bediüzzaman in his works to the issue of love who has red the problems of our age very appropriately? What should be the Qur’anic approach against the perspectives after September 11 which assumes that Islam embraces violent elements and it is a fear religion? What is the difference of Islamic approach to love from other religions?

    We leave the word to the content of our journal and hope to meet you in our next issue with the dossier "The Language of Risâle-i Nur".