Social and Spiritual Diseases and Their Solutions According to Mehmed Ali Aynî
Authors: Özkan Abdullah 
Published: June 2024

With the modernization movements that started with the Tanzimat period in Turkey, a rich environment for intellectual debate was formed in which a wide range of scientific, philosophical, social, and political issues were discussed. In this environment, every issue concerning society was discussed by intellectuals and solutions were tried to be found for the social issues that emerged with the change. Mehmet Ali Aynî, who graduated from the modern schools founded with the hope of reforming education in this period and started his career as a bureaucrat, became one of the most important figures of this debate environment in the second phase of his career, when he focused his interest on scientific, philosophical, and social issues. Aynī took a stance within the Islamic tradition against the positivist and materialist influences that emerged with the new developments and changes of his time and tried to support this stance in a unique way with the evidence he cited from the scientific and philosophical developments of the West. One of his primary goals was to protect the culture of society and the beliefs of the individual against these movements, which he considered dangerous, and thus to ensure the continuity of the foundations of social morality. Aynī presents his criticisms against the ideas of atheism, skepticism, and pessimism, which emerged because of positivist and materialist movements, to the reader's attention most prominently through a poem by Tevfik Fikret, one of the most controversial figures of the period, and continues to offer solutions to negative social behaviors such as despair and suicide in his other works. While he draws attention to the unhappiness and suicide caused by disbelief and pessimism, he presents his scientific, philosophical, and moral analysis and criticism by blending the education he received and the culture in which he grew up. One of the pillars of Aynī's intellectual and spiritual world is Islamic culture itself, with which he tries to respond to scientific and philosophical objections to the existence of God. In doing so, Aynī makes many references to modern philosophers such as Spinoza and Bergson, but he also takes the philosophers of the Islamic world, especially the Sufis, as a source of reference. Despite the evidence he brings from both cultures, it is possible to see traces of an agnostic attitude in the conclusion he reaches. Stating that God's existence cannot be fully known, Aynī nevertheless acknowledges that there is evidence for God's existence. His advice to his readers is to live a life of submission in the face of one's shortcomings and troubles by confessing one's lack of knowledge on matters such as God's wisdom and fate. However, this submission should not be understood as a detachment from life. Aynī, who regards existence and life itself as essentially good, expects his readers to adopt the philosophy of optimism as a philosophy of life that is based on a commitment to life and therefore encourages making efforts to make life better. This study examines Aynī's criticisms of the ideas of atheism, skepticism and pessimism that emerged because of positivist and materialist movements and his proposed solutions to these ideas that emphasize that life is a blessing worth living.