Islamischer Fundamentalismus = dritte Form totaler Herrschaft? (German Edition)

Hence the Intermediate World will either provide a foretaste of the joys of paradise or the torments of hell. In order to get an idea of the Intermediate World, one should imagine a movie that transcends the restrictions imposed by the four dimensions and addresses all the human senses.

On the one hand, the human produces physical waves that are perceived as sound in this world. This form is first sensed by the angels accompanying each human being. Eklund, Life 93—; on classical ideas of the continuing perception of the dead: Smith and Haddad, Islamic understanding 51; further reports on visions of the barzakh: Rebstock, Grabesleben no.

Gramlich, Alte Vorbilder 59—, on the dead exhorting the living: This stage is preceded by a phase of decay, which will not come as a surprise to those who know that, like humans, the universe undergoes various phases of life. He maintains that in society, decay is already apparent. People are becoming more and more isolated from each other, and an orderly family life has become rare: Millions died during the communist revolutions and the wars in Chechnya and Bosnia.

Worldwide, million people suffer from hunger, and although the advance of technology makes ever more sophis- ticated gadgets available, people have lost a sense of gratitude to the Creator who makes these developments possible. The number of earthquakes is on the rise, the same applies to storms, the latter being a result of global warming. He explains the rising of the sun in the West, believed to be alluded to in the Quran, as a planetary catastrophe similar to events that have recently occurred or which have been detected by current research.

If the rotation of our planet slowed to the velocity of an airplane, all the objects on its surface would be whirled around and the usual order of rainfall would cease. As an alternative explanation he suggests that the poles might shift, as this has happened at least times during the last million years.

We can conclude that he has confused the magnetic poles with the poles of the rotation axis from his claim that the weakening of the magnetic field, which has recently been observed, proves his assertion. In various Christian and Muslim countries, their followers, such as Hitler, Lenin, and Saddam Hussein, seized power and suppressed the people. He declares science fiction and fantasy films such as Star Trek see below to be unacceptable because they cast doubt on the wisdom of the Creator.

Furthermore, he warns that if the seeds of hatred between Muslims and Christians are sown, they might result in armed conflicts. Although most Christians still cling to the belief in the Trinity, some have recently come close to accepting the true nature of Jesus. Hence they might be willing to accept that Jesus will reappear among the Muslims.

In a dream, he experi- enced an earthquake and tumbling rocks. Suddenly he saw his soul leaving his body and floating above charred ruins toward an unknown place. In his e-mail, the astronomer replied that such a collision was highly unlikely and, if the Earth were to be hit, then it would be by a hitherto unknown celestial body. However, doomsday does not necessarily have to come from space: As predicted by Professor King, if cur- rent developments like global warming continue for another sixty years, the end of mankind will be unavoidable.

In order to explain this aspect in accordance with traditional cosmological and eschatological motives, he juggles with scientific terminology of which he has only a limited understand- ing. As can be seen in Q In order to under- stand what will happen then, one has to imagine what will happen when all energy is withdrawn from the electrons. All particles will suddenly leave their places.

This vision of a total dissolution of matter is quite abstract; thus in the depic- tion of the judgment he returns to more earthly dangers like earthquakes and the moon burning. In accordance with the majority of classical sources, he asserts that animals will accompany men on the march and that they will be present at the judgment. Hence, their atoms zerreler, i. As proof of the possibility of transporting atoms to a designated position, he refers to the experiment of Austrian physicists who allegedly managed to transfer particles in Sins and virtuous acts are no longer put down in a book, but in a recording device unparalleled by anything we know.

Everyone will be shown everything they ever did and said in word and image. The speed with which it will be crossed, and whether one will succeed in crossing the passage at all, is determined by the amount of good and bad deeds of the person in question. Hence everybody will glorify Allah in his or her own particular lan- guage. They passed away without preparing themselves for infinity.

Smith and Haddad, Islamic understanding 76f. He stresses that wild beasts and snakes become tame. The idea that cloning proves the possibility of resurrection seems to be popular in the Islamic world: While only the brain senses pain in this world, in hell every single cell will be tormented. In addition to physical pain, sinners will suffer from utter loneliness.

The worst punishment, however, will be seeing those who have entered paradise. According to his concept, the world will be created anew in totally different forms of matter and light. He goes on to assert that, in addition to the common paradise, where all of the rewarded will interact, every individual will be endowed with a personal paradise. These personal paradises will differ in size and richness depending on the good deeds the person in question has done during his worldly life.

And they will also make up for the hardship that the person had to endure. Thomassen, Islamic hell The idea that paradise consists of levels that reflect different levels of piety and religious achievement as such could already be found in pre-modern eschatologi- cal literature: Furthermore, the inhabitants will experience objects, which are regarded as inanimate in this world, as living because an angel will be assigned to each one of them.

Moreover, they will be able to assume any size they want. For example, if something hap- pens to her child in Japan, a mother will know about it via telepathy. The pos- sibility of such an interconnection results from the fact that when the universe began it was compressed to 10—33 cm: This also serves to explain reports about velis who were seen at different places at the same time or who suddenly disappeared.

Moreover, the defamation of Newton and problematic speculations allegedly based on quantum physics are a common theme in New Age literature: First, it will be a compensation for emotional and sexual pleasure, which one should reasonably forgo in this world: How many beautiful women have fallen in love then become crazy and end up as drug addicts, because their marriages falter!

However, they will experience something completely different from sexual intercourse in this world, that is, from genital penetration. In the other world, all the cells of the two bodies will permeate each other. They will flow in the rhythm of the unknown music of the heavens, the winds, and nature in paradise. Everything will be filled with pleasant smells. Yet, even in paradise, people will not cease to ask questions.

They will be curious and ask who grants them all these unbelievable favors and they will long to see Him. Finally the heavens will open up, the souls will stand still and freeze durup dondunuz and so will the time of paradise. And this transformation is a reciprocal process: Because paradise and its inhabit- ants love each other, paradise, too, will increase in beauty. Infinity awaits us; it did not matter that we had to endure hardship, that we were freezing, that we could not enjoy ourselves for twenty years or so on this bitter road toward indescribable expanses; may those who did good deeds and gave priority to their ritual duties as believers enjoy infinity!

It is here that he admonishes his readers to collect the treasure and to plant a seedling for the hereafter with every single action. These aspects are the focus of the atten- tion of another author, Harun Yahya. The Eschatological Visions of a Fellow Traveler of the Nurcus Eschatological motives form an important part of the writings of Adnan Oktar, a former student of architecture and philosophy without a religious educa- tion , who is known under the pen name Harun Yahya b.

These sermons were supplemented by books and tracts that consisted to a large extent of photocopied press clippings. Until the s, Yahya was a figure on the fringe of the Islamic religious camp in Turkey and, as late as , even the most knowledgeable observer of Islamic groups did not give his group much chance of survival. Thus he has gained prominence in Turkey and abroad for his polemics against the theory of evolution on his various websites.

He now commands considerable financial means and a staff of collaborators who write the dozens of books published under his name. Furthermore, he organizes conferences with non-Muslim opponents of the theory of evolution and with religious dignitaries. His emissaries are sent to Islamic conventions worldwide in order to propagate his ideas.

The cross sum of Q According to Yahya, these are unmistakable predictions of AIDS, which according to scientists in Europe and America was transmitted to humans from guenon monkeys in Africa, hence from beyond Mecca. The enormous speed ascribed to the beast refers to the quick rise in the number of those afflicted with AIDS. The association of AIDS with homosexuals is underscored by clippings from the secular press: Moreover, he asserts that, when this time comes, philos- ophy and technology will have made so much progress that man will consider himself the true Creator.

Hence, he concludes that if there was a development that could be associated with the advent of the beast then it should be sought in the field of reproductive medicine instead. According to this tradition, there is no illness against which God has not sent a remedy. Hence, in earlier times the plague virus sic should have been considered the beast. With headline clip- pings from newspapers he creates the impression that gambling, the con- sumption of alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs, crime, divorce, suicide, and prostitution are increasing relentlessly.

He considers this prophecy to be fulfilled by the various wars taking place at the time. Hence he equates contemporary Muslims, who have to cope with the propaganda of materialist ideologies, to the ahl al-kahf, who had to struggle in a hostile environment. However, he asserts that, contrary to common assumption, this will not happen in Medina. A list of apocalyptic signs also contains natural and major man-made disasters like the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown and the Bhopal gas leak. Seven thousand years does not refer to human history as a whole, but to the time that will have passed after a landmark event in human history, such as the Great Flood.

Harun Yahya objects to the claim that the umma will exist for 1, years. Cook, Contemporary 55, He mainly restricts himself to listing his characteristics, and events that will help to identify him. With this term, which is usually used by Kemalists to denounce religious groups, Harun Yahya refers to those who impose excessive religious demands, and hence overemphasize formalities, forbid the arts and music, humiliate women, and oppose technology. Even with the end of the world in sight, Harun Yahya seems to consider it necessary to demonstrate his loyalty to the state.

The last issue he deals with is the smoke from which Sura 44 takes its name. According to Harun Yahya, it has to be identified with the radioactive fallout after the core meltdown in Chernobyl in Given that page references are lacking, one may conclude that he has used material compiled by another author. Although this ingredient is absent from the eschato- logical writings of the other authors discussed here, it is a central element of Nurcu thought and Turkish Islamic discourse in general.

He first took a warm bath and put on clean cloths. The jacket he put on was an American bomber type jacket. Outside of it he carried a walkie-talkie for communication so he could radio back to the Center and tell them when and where to pick him up after the contact had ended.

He also carried a gun for protection. At , 10 minutes before the Pope died, Wendelle Stevens said he was in the kitchen with Billy as he stood ready to go for contact. Meier then waved his hand to Wendelle, that he has received the signal to depart for contact. He walked towards the kitchen door. Steven followed after him, so close that he could see the outer door closing in front of him. Both Stevens and Bertschinger put this time down as At Contact began which meant that Billy Meier, only one minute after walking out the kitchen door, had entered and was inside the Pleiadian beam ship.

He was there met by Semjase and Quetzal according to the German contact notes. This was only 9 minutes before the Pope died. Stevens said when he came outside, after having followed closely behind Billy through the kitchen door, Billy Meier had all of a sudden vanished. The only trace he left behind was three footsteps in the mud, which abruptly stopped at the fourth. They were fresh as he noticed that the rain water was filling them up.

Looking at the German contact notes, at Billy Meier makes the following remark: He has now changed side, Quetzal. I do not understand? I will explain it to you after you have finished your speech. You see, it was This is the time the Pope dies. This remark would explain the timing of the contact.

Why it started so close up to the time when the Pope died. Because according to the German contact notes the Pope was murdered by poison and the same would happen to the next pope, but nothing is mentioned how this murder event was carried out. Wendelle Stevens, on the other hand, in his speech in Laughlin in goes into details of what happened just Prior to when the Pope died.

This is where the time line comes into the picture. They had to start Contact at the same time as the segment they planned to delete from the German contact notes and give verbally to Stevens would start. Because when Billy starts a contact, he always put down the time by the minute when it starts. So in contact this time would not only mark the start of the contact but also mark the start of the time line which again would mark the start of the event that would cause the Pope to die minutes later according to Stevens.

So Meier here created a timeline which had a length of 9 minutes and 13 seconds. The words spoken until then takes only 2 minutes and 40 seconds to read through with normal speed. Leaving a deleted gap of 6,5 minutes at the very beginning of the contact. He told Stevens what he saw on the viewing screen on-board the Pleiadian beam ship and he also gave him the names and details of the next two popes to follow. Stevens said he took notes and over the months that followed follow it all comes true, exactly as Meier told him.

So it appears they decided it was dangerous to give the true reason for why both popes were murdered in the German contact notes. In-fact, in the contact notes there is no reason at all mentioned why Pope Paul VI died and who did it. Instead the dialogue is about what will happen to then next pope, Johannes Paul 1, and why he will be murdered.

This was told to Billy Meier by the extra-terrestrial Quetzal. And Stevens told the audience in Laughlin that they already knew his name, the next pope, who at that time had not even yet been elected, because Meier told him the next morning, Aug 7 , that his name would be Johannes Paul 1. So what the German Contact notes state is that the next pope, Johannes Paul 1, will also be ousted from his tenure through a murder the same.

And that his death will not be a natural one, rather a violent one, which yet again will be caused by a type of poison that suspends the working of the heart, and gives the impression of a heart attack. Then three silly and non-realistic reasons are given of why he will be murdered. That is, he will shock the snobby leadership of the Vatican and horrify them through his behaviour and way of life. He will also create deadly enemies among the group of Cardinals and several others, because he breaks the tradition with a triple crown in the pope crowning sermon and instead allows for a sermon that to some degree is simpler.

The new Pope becomes far too people friendly in the eyes and views of many influential in the Vatican hierarchy which is not good for the Vatican, because he would lose authority through this. The version in the contact notes fit all the hallmark of being a decoy with the intent to deceive an adversary or divert his attention, since true character attributes and true incidents have been used but none of them are logical reason for murder.

What is chilling is that this possible decoy was created based on character attributes and incidents which Johannes Paul 1 later became known for, but all this happened in the future and only when he became elected Pope. And he was not even yet elected to become the next pope when this contact to place on the 6 th of August This would give Meier the necessary plausible denial for his own protection.

Where they showed him how the murder on Pope Paul VI was carried out. And this segment also fit time-wise the 6,5 minute deleted gap at the beginning of the German Contact notes. This is what he claimed Billy Meier told him the next morning, on Aug 7 He said I watched it all on viewing screens. He said we got there 5 or 10 minutes before. And the first thing they showed Billy was the man servant in the kitchen in the Vatican preparing the tray with the warm tea on it, for the Pope, and there was a cardinal standing there with his hands in his pockets of his cassock, just watching what was going on — nothing was being said.

And the man servant got the tray ready, got the tea ready, and put some lemons on it, got it all ready. While he was gone Billy saw that cardinal take a little bottle out of the pocked of his cassock, unstop it put two drops of liquid into the tea, then he stopped it and put it back in his cassock pocket. When the man servant got back, that cardinal was standing the same way he did before, and the man servant did not notice anything. He took the tea inn and put it on the bedside table for Pope Paul the sixth and Billy saw all this on another viewing screen, and then he left the room.

And then the scenes switched back to the cardinal standing in the kitchen. The man servant started putting things away. The cardinal stood there for 4 or 5 minutes and then looked at a clock and then walked back and looked in the popes room, and apparently satisfied he closed the door carefully and went to the Popes office and picked up a folder that was laying on the popes desk, ready for an announcement to be made the following morning.

He put the folder under his arm and walked out with it. And they did not show him where it went, but they told him…, he is protesting that they do not do this too… and they showed a scene … oh he, Billy was protesting and Semjase said he, this pope, had discovered the Vatican losses, through the Vatican treasures, hundreds of millions of dollars, and he was going to announce the losses and appoint a commission to investigate it. And she said the commission to investigate it, whatever it was, involved some of the perpetrators, some of those who were involved in the loss, and they could not have this come to light because it would cost them their careers and possibly their lives.

So three or four co-conspirators, together, arranged to get the pope out of the picture, before he could make the announcement and make off with the announcement. Now, that was what happened. Well, I can tell you something else you can watch for; He said they showed me that the next pope, his successor, would be elected on the largest conclave in the history of the church; of course there are more cardinals. He would elected on the shortest ballot, and in my research I found there is only one other ballot that short.

He would be elected on the third ballot. It will take 33 days to verify the ballot, if evidently they poll the cardinals that vote. They verify the ballot and they said the new pope will take the name…They gave Billy the name that newly elected pope would be, his given name. And then they said, when he was crown pope he would take the name John Paul the first. And then, he added, that this Pope would discover the losses and begin the process all over again, and the co-conspirators act once more, and he will die by the same hands for the same reason and exactly 33 days.

The same time, minutes it took for the poll, to vote. Wendelle Stevens speaking in Laughlin, Nevada in where he told the audience what happened and what he observed when Contact took place. He was there, with Billy Meier in Switzerland, the day he went for that contact which was the 6th of August This video segment starts when Lt Col.

Wendelle Stevens, the lead investigator in the Meier case, begins to speak about what happened the day contact took place, 6 August , same day as Pope Paul VI died. He was there, together with three others, and saw how Billy Meier that day spent the day on the sofa nursing his cold.

But shortly after 5 pm he started preparing for the contact. This was about 3,5 hours before the pope died. The contact began only 10 minutes before the Pope died, which was when Billy Meier walked out the kitchen door and simply vanished in thin air. The only trace he left behind in the wet mud was three footsteps, which abruptly came to a halt on the fourth. This supports the information in contact , that Meier was told by the Pleiadians, more than two months earlier, of the exact time when the Pope Paul VI would die.

Because Meier acted as if knew this. When it would happen, when looking at the time he started preparing for the contact for when he knew he had to stand ready and be prepared in the kitchen and wait for their signal to go outside and be brought into their ship. In the Zeugenbuch Eng.

The Witness book both Stevens and Bertschinger, each in their separate statements, wrote that the time was 8. Stevens goes on to tell how they all went in a car to pick him up after the contact with the Pleiadians had ended. He was then at a location 16 km 10 miles away. He then goes on to tell what happened the next day, August 7 , when Billy Meier took him aside and told him what the Pleiadians had showed him and told him inside their ship the evening before. Stevens here states that Meier that morning told him the name and other details about the next two popes to come. This information is the same as in the German contact notes but what is significant here is that Stevens confirm that Meier got this information from the contact the day before.

Meaning Stevens here verify that this information was known to Meier on that date, August 7 , and it was not something he could have added to the contact notes after these future events had occurred. Moreover, Stevens also said that he took pages of written notes of what Meier told him that morning and that he then watched it all come true in the months ahead. According to the German contact notes it was Quetzal who gave Meier this information, the name of the next two popes. Pope Paul VI died 6 August at The official cause of death: This is a short video clip which shows Wendelle Stevens speaking about the Meier case in Stevens was there when it happened.

Stevens told the audience at the IUFOC in Laughlin that the next morning, on the 7 th of August , Billy Meier took him aside and told him what happened on board the Pleiadian beam ship the day before, and what he had been shown on the ships viewing screens. He said Meier then told him the names and other details of the next two popes to follow after Pope Paul VI, who had died the night before.

Stevens said he took notes and watched these predictions come true exactly as Meier had told him. On the 9th of March Stevens was again back in Switzerland to investigate the case and on this occasion Billy Meier promised to give him a copy of fulfilled prophecies in contact This gave him yet another opportunity to follow up on another set of prophecies, if they also would come true or not. They were all fulfilled, exactly as they had been foretold in the contact.

When Wendelle Stevens was given a copy of future prophecies and watched them being fulfilled. In Message from the Pleiades Volume 2, Wendelle Stevens wrote that during a visit to Switzerland in March , to see Billy Meier, he was given predictions from Contact which was not fulfilled at the time when he was there. Contact was held on the One of the prophecies was first fulfilled more than five years later after it was given to Wendelle Stevens. That was the assassination of Indira Ghandi which took place on the 31 Oct This is Wendelle Stevens own words: Edited and annotated by W. Meier offered to show me his restricted notes on prophesies that had already come to pass.

Wanting evidence for myself, I asked for copies of the pages listing only the events mentioned which had already occurred. He handed the notes to Eva and sent her out of the room to make copies of those pages for me. While she was doing that, Meier was called to the telephone. While he was still talking on the phone, Eva came back with the copies and handed them to me, which I stuck in my briefcase. When Meier came back from the telephone, he asked me if I had been given the copy pages, and I said yes and patted my briefcase.

When I looked at the notes later, I discovered that Eva had misunderstood and gave me more pages than Meier intended, because there were prophesies that had not yet been fulfilled. I have now decided to release those few pages from the th Contact on 19 October for your appreciation. These pages then followed, translated into English from the original German language text Stevens got photocopied that day, 9 th of March The part he received ends at line 97 spoken by Semjase Semjase speaks a total of numbered lines in this contact and in addition there are dialogue by Ptaah and Quetzal which are numbered separately, meaning each of them have separate line numbering.

Below are the very last lines of these pages Stevens published and which Steven wrote he was given on the 9 th of March On that date these prophecies here mentioned had not been fulfilled. This is the exact English translation Stevens printed in Message from the Pleiades and I have placed the original German text from the German Contact notes below just to show that his translation is from the original German contact notes.

Remember the prophesies about the threatening Third World War. You talk of the prophesies which discuss the overthrow of the murderer-knave Shah-in-Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlevi, of whom you have already spoken, and about the death of the Jugoslavian dictator Tito, who shall die during the coming three years when the Saturn shines her light towards the Earth, and about the marching-in of the Soviet Russian army into Afghanistan in the end of the year , as well as about the newly elected Indira Gandhi as Prime minister in India, and her following then death, which will shake the whole Indian nation as well as the alliances.

Surely, I am speaking of this, but in this thoroughness, none of the prophesies have been told you, because these details have not been mentioned in them; so these rise from your own calculations and figuring out. In any case you have not received these from us. Denke an die Prophezeiung des drohenden dritten Weltkrieges. Von uns jedenfalls hast du sie nicht erhalten. Soviet Invasion of Afhanistan 24 December The event took place 10 months after Lt.

Wendelle Stevens , on the 9th of March ,was given a part copy of the contact in Switzerland which had this prophecy in it.

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Wendelle Stevens, on the 9 th of March , was given a part copy of the contact in Switzerland which had this prophecy in it. Prophesized in Contact , 19 Oct The murder on Ghandi took place five years and six months after Lt. Wendelle Stevens, on the 9th of March , was given a part copy of the contact in Switzerland which had the prophecy in it. The prediction Billy Meier published in In this section there is a chapter called Predictions and Prophecies Germ.

Riots, revolutions, wars and other disturbances of various forms will strongly increase, whereby especially the Islamic fundamentalism will play a very tragic part in the course of this. It depends on the context. That is, the circumstances that form the setting for the event and in terms of which it can be fully understood. And that is not known since the event is not known. The German expression vor den Kopf stossen which I have translated to affront means an action or remark that causes outrage or offence.

The above appear to be a prediction and the general rule for a prediction is not to disclose it before after the event has occurred, since it is not allowed to interfere with the event. It has to play out. It means that if a prediction is to be published before the event has occurred, it would need to be rewritten and cloaked in a wording in such a way that the specific event cannot be recognized, at least not before after it has occurred.

This is an excerpt from contact held on the 20th of July between Billy and Ptaah: And if one considers what he already have done in Afghanistan in this regard — equal to his father, who was not a whit better, then one can in fact imagine that the rumour makes sense. With respect to that, I am not allowed to give an open answer, since you write down the conversation report when you later retrieve it from our recording devices.

I see, also this answer already says a lot. Aha, auch diese Antwort sagt schon allerhand aus. Doch eine ande Frage: According to the Henoch Prophecies in contact , , Billy Meier was told about the terrorist destruction of the WTC long before it happened and that this would only be the beginning. The terrorist destruction of the WTC, i.

The south tower of the World Trade Center on September 11, With reference to Plejadisch-plejarische contact reports, conversations, block 5 Two hundred Fifteenth Contact Saturday, February 28, , 2: Excerpt contact , p. My English translation above the German original. But now I would like to specifically address you on the future. You have promised me that you would bring me material or mention various prophecies from the Henoch prophecies for the Third Millennium.

Of course, I keep my promise, but before I make the Henoch prophecies clear, I would like to point out that prophecies are always changeable and can be changed for the better if people make positive changes in their thoughts, feelings and actions which will lead to what is better and positive progressive. Prophecies are always only based on certain causes, from which in turn certain effects result, whereby these effects, however, can be changed at any time, if already the preceding causes are changed in their form.

It is therefore possible that negative or evil prophecies never have to be fulfilled if the preceding causes are purposively positively changed in such a way that from these positive and good develop, instead of negative and evil. However, this does not apply to predictions, because these are based on unalterable events which will happen in the future with absolute certainty and definiteness. Predictions are based on a preview and therefore on a direct look into the future which neither has to do with a prophecy nor with a probability calculation.

So there is always the possibility - always provided that humans on Earth become reasonable -. But if this change does not occur, then Earth and its entire population are approaching a very bad, evil and negative time in the coming new millennium. Since the last, that is the Second World War, very much has changed for the positive and good in the thoughts, feelings and actions of people on Earth, but all this is in my opinion not enough, because the great change for the better has not been established, and in fact neither by the powerful of this world nor by the world humanity itself as a whole.

Both governments and newspapers and radio stations were informed by me, as well as TV stations and many private persons worldwide. But the whole thing has not achieved anything, because up until now it has been carried on in the old manner and given no attention whatsoever to the prophecies, predictions and probability calculations. And that will probably continue to be the case when I distribute the Henoch Prophecies for the Third Millennium in the coming time, if I receive the permission from you to do so. You surely never give up hope. Your optimism deserves honour and to be heard by people, but just as everything has turned out in this century to this day, there is no great hope that humans on Earth will bethink themselves and listen to your words.

This will only then be the case when the prophecies are starting to come true or even only when they have already been fulfilled. But the distant future will prove the entire truth about our contacts with you, and then people will also accept our help that we have provided them through you, even though they mistakenly assume that we come here from the Pleiades known to people on Earth. Semjase and Ptaah already told me that. I will do that in a moment, but I would first like to specify that I am not authorized in official form to provide precise year information.

Understand, but that is certainly a good thing. But I would be grateful to you but if you could offer the prophecies in a somewhat understandable modern language for a better understanding for the people. This also implies that an open language and presentation is desirable; simply that the prophecies should not be done in riddles and mysteries, because if I should publish everything, then open explanatory and unencrypted prophecies should be of value, because I think that only understandable prophecies can bring benefits, because through encodings people's interest fade because they are not able to understand anything.

My experience shows me that people are much more responsive and care more in-depth and with more interest about a matter when something is explained to them clearly and explicitly. While it is true that by encoding of prophecies, etc. Your words are correct. The time at which these prophecies will begin to fulfill will then be when there is no longer a Pope residing in Rome.

The whole of Europe will then fall victim to a terrible punishment by evil forces. The Christian religion will collapse and the churches and monasteries will end up in ruins. Enormous powers will be created through the sciences and released by the military and armies as well as by terrorists whereby a major destruction result. Millions and even billions of people will be killed by acts of terrorism, wars and civil wars, and in the end will in part every third and in other places every fourth human being lose his or her life. The states in the East will rise up against the states in the West, and the Western against the Eastern.

Many deaths will be brought upon the people from combat and bomber aircrafts, and bombs as well as rockets will destroy and annihilate small and large villages and towns. The people will be completely powerless against this and live through days of all earthly hells, tormented by famine and epidemics which will claim more human lives than the war itself. The time will be as hard as never before on Earth, because in the end nothing can be purchased or sold any longer.

Many waters will mix with human blood and turn red, as once the Nile in Egypt turned red through blood. And it will be that the fanatics of Islam surge up and draw the countries of Europe into war, whereby everything will tremble and shake. Westwards will everything be destroyed, England defeated and thrown to the lowest level of misery.

And the Islam fanatics and Islam warriors will retain their power for a long time. But everything not only applies to Europe, because eventually will all countries and people on earth become affected, because the whole thing widens to a war that will involve the whole world. Only for a short period after the turn of the millennium will the papacy still exist.

Pope John Paul II. Only one more pontificate will follow after him. Then a Pontifex Maximus will follow, who will be called Petrus Romanus. Under his religious rule, the end of the Catholic Church will come; a complete collapse the same becomes inevitable. This will be the beginning of the worst catastrophe that will ever befall the earth and terrestrial mankind.

Many Catholic clerics, priests, bishops, cardinals and many others will be killed and their blood will flow like rivers. However, the reformed Christianity will also become vanishingly small like the Catholic. Through the fault of the scientists will the power hungry and their military, warriors and terrorists acquire immense power, both through laser weapons of all kinds, as well as through nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

Also regarding the genetic engineering will an enormous misuse take place because this will be unrestrainedly exploited for war purposes, not least through cloning of combat-humans, just like it was also practiced in earlier times with the Henoch descendants in the Sirius region. But that, however, will not yet be all the horrors, because in addition to the genetic engineering and the ABC weapons, still very much worse, more dangerous and more deadly weapons of mass destruction will be produced and put to use.

Both the irresponsible politicians who will unscrupulously exercise their power, as well as their subservient scientists and servile military will wield an even deadlier scepter and create clone type beings. With complete lack of conscience these will be bred and manipulated to become killing machines, who division by division will destroy, murder and annihilate everything, devoid of any feelings. First and foremost it will be the USA, together with all other Western capitalist countries, which will take on the eastern countries, but whereby, on the other hand, they will also have to defend themselves against the eastern intruders.

In the overall, America will play the most decisive role, because under the guise of pursuing peace and fighting terrorism she will invade many countries of the world, bomb and destroy everything and bring thousand fold deaths to the populations. The US military policy will likewise know no limits, nor will their economic and other policies, which will be designed — as has already been the case for a long time — to build and exercise the power of a world police.

But that will not be enough, because under the guise of a so called peaceful globalization, the US policy will aim at achieving absolute economic world domination. And this will lead the way to that a third world war could arise out of this, if people as a whole do not finally conceive rationality and take the necessary steps against the madness machinations of their governments and military as well as their intelligence services, and prevent the power of the irresponsible people responsible in all areas.

If this does not happen, then many small and large nations will lose their independence and cultural identity and become crushed, because the USA will gain hegemony over them with evil violence and force them under their control. Many countries will at first howl with the US-wolves, partly out of fear of American aggression and sanctions, as will many irresponsible in Switzerland and Germany as well as other countries also do. But others will be involved in part, because they will somehow be forced to it, or become irresponsibly misled through the American and pro-American propaganda.

But ultimately will many Asian, African and also European countries oppose the American hegemony when they realize that they are only being exploited by the United States of America for war, conquest and exploitation purposes. So many countries will at first become American vassal states, before reason and realization makes its entry within those responsible in the governments and within many in the population and a turning away towards the United States follows. But the great war will be difficult to avoid because the people of Earth will probably not find the directions for the better and thus to true love, to true freedom and true peace, because their striving are only oriented towards affluence, pleasure and wealth and towards all sizeable material values and vices as well as for unlimited power.

So will enormous lethal armored formations roll across the countries, while warplanes and missiles will be speeding through the air and bring death, ruin, destruction and annihilation to countries and people. And the bad time will come, at which also the army land forces and armed forces will get out of control and cause savage and evil devastation and unimaginable massacres of people who will powerlessly have to watch the savage activities. Yours and our warnings are thrown to the winds by the majority of Earth humanity, although there is still a great deal to salvage and the worst of it could be prevented, if yours and our words of love, of peace, of freedom and wisdom would be followed.

But precisely that is unfortunately doubtful. Thus, in the Third World War, if it actually takes place, which at the moment and also in the few coming decades appear probable as calculations and observations have shown, then as ever, in an tremendous great extent, the civilian population will be the most suffering part of the whole catastrophe, not least through the fault of the irresponsible scientists who will create human clone fighting machines, without conscience and emotions, as well as tremendously lethal and all-destroying computer weapons.

In the course of this, it is then to be feared that the human fighting and killing machines, the fight clones, become independent and under their own supervision bring death, devastation, destruction and annihilation to the earth humans and over the planet. The whole thing will become an unprecedented inferno, to such extent, that anything like it would never have taken place on Earth until then. The cruel events will last about days whereby the civilization collapses. But the terrible scenario will continue, because plagues, epidemics and various diseases as well as tremendous hunger will spread among the people, while the world economy is at a low point completely destroyed and will no longer be able to produce any goods.

Of course, all food and medicines etc. The position I encounter when reading a text or in a face-to-face dialogue is at the same time an explication of how things belong together. Therefore, in our fusion of horizons, necessary as it is for understanding, we might encounter a-constructive-dash 36 Cf.

Grundziige einer philosoph ischen Hermeneutik, Ti. Gadamer uses the ambiguity of ,Aussage' 'proposition' and 'testimony, deposition in a lawsuit' to illustrate his point that what people are made to say. IDEM, 29 of theories because my own horizon may provide other data which put my partner's explication into a new context, and vice versa.

Thirdly, in Wahrheit und Methode Gadamer has problems with the concept of universal history. We cannot, he says, understand the past or present in view of the totality of events, because the course of events is not yet finished and human experience is finite and therefore incapable of seeing the whole. But understanding still works in view of an anticipated whole, as Gadamer unconsciously admits when mentioning the "totality of that which is unsaid". The horizons of past and present can only then fuse without either one appropriating the other completely, if this fusion takes place in the greater horizon to which both past and present horizons belong.

According to Gadamer language suffices to bridge the different horizons. It is this claimed factuality which provides the material for understanding. Finally, a comment is due on Gadamer's insight that understanding a text is to understand which question it answers. From our dialogue with the text itself? That is Gadamer's answer. But can an author not fail to do his or her assignment? In this case, it will be difficult to read the question out of the text's content. This 41 42 43 44 30 Wahrheit und Methode, vol. Pannenberg, "Hermeneutik und Universalgeschichte", p. While Gadamer has not tackled Pannenberg's criticism concerning the propositional character of language cf.

Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode, vol. He, approvingly, reports Collingwood as saying that ,man diese Frage [sci!. Wahrheit und Methode, vol. Gadamer and Collingwood have not stated what exactly they mean by 'text' here. The above criticism presupposes that they thought of the content.

Furthermore, it was Gadamer's own insight that our preliminary understanding is a creative factor in understanding.

An exclusively intra-textual understanding seems neither desirable nor even possible. There must be extra-textual coordinates which enable us to say things like: Firstly, understanding is more than empathy. In reading texts from an historical temporal, cultural, religious distance, one can bring to light what could not be seen from other perspectives, including the author's own. This insight can encourage a study like the present one.

And such a study can be a test of the insight's truth. We will not only present other people's opinions. We will try to understand them also by fusing horizons; in other words, by discussing their views. Secondly, one cannot develop one's method before starting to work. This warning against a methodological obsession should keep us alert on two levels.

On the one side, we will be dealing with authors discussing methods of Koranic interpretation. We should also consider what happens to their methodological reflections when they actually interpret the Koran. On the other side, we are trying to find an appropriate method for religious studies. The quality of any proposed method will only prove when set into action. Thiselton, Nem Horizons in Hermeneutics, London The renowned New Testament scholar Geza Vennes, e. Meier, A Marginalfe7e', Rethinking the Historical]esus, vol. But Meyer should not be taken to say that a scholarly work must have its methodology set and stated before it can start to work.

His point is really that one should be conscious and explicit about what one is doing as a scholar at any moment. Although Meyer's own book starts with an elaborated methodology criteria of historicity , which he uses throughout, one should not doubt that every method is shaped also in dialogue 31 Thirdly, meaning is the function a part has in a whole. The whole however is not yet completed. History is still going on. We therefore have to keep an eye on the question which role the course of events plays for those who try to find new meaning in the Koran?

Though the introduction of the word 'hermeneutics' in Muslim exegetical reflection is recent, first generation Muslims have of course already done exegesis. But could one go further and claim that there has been Muslim Koran hermeneutics in the normative sense, i. Two arguments can be adduced fort hat. Firstly, Meyer had already worked on New Testament texts before he developed his method.

And secondly, his method does not and cannot contain a comprehensive meta-method which tells him each time how to apply which criterion. Angelika Neuwirth, "Koran", Helmut Gatje ed. Can such awareness be found in Muslim Koran exegesis? In other words, how hermeneutical is Islam? In our search for the key we had seen the necessity of an amateur manual of locksmithing. This has been presented above. We know now what the key we are looking for should look like. So we can have a look at the maps drawn until date. Urdu Voices The study by the Dutch scholar]. Baljon on modern Tafsir Koran exegesis makes special use ofUrdu commentaries.

Qjtriin, which appeared in ; the ljadital-. Baljon regrets not to have studied any Turkish authors. They might, he supposes, have been of great value for his inqmry. He begins his study with the year because it was in that year that AJ: Imad Ijan's influential commentary appeared. Page numbers in the text above refer to Baljon's book. Baljon's sometimes unusual English has in quotations been reproduced literally. Being not a native writer of English himself, the present author is aware of the travails and risks envolved in composing an English text as a foreigner.

Baljon argues that Muslims are when writing in European languages "constantly jealous of the good name Islam must maintain. Consequently, the expose's are a-priori of an apologetic nature in the much restricted sense of the word". That type of presentation provides an impression of Muslims' thoughts. It offers the results, without indicating the ways on which the authors got there. It does not offer the thinking.

Therefore, it does not allow for the analysis of schools, camps, strands, trends, discuss,ions and developments, nor for the tracking of presuppositions all the way out to their ramifications or into conceptual systems. But the advantage of this type of presentation is that one can use Baljon's book as a compendium. It allows for synoptic comparison. In the authors he studies, Baljon sees either a "consistent elimination of all that is supernatural" or a more moderate "attempt to minimize as much as possible miraculous elements".

Baljon's characterises the types of commentaries with words in '-izing'. Only in his conclusion will he be explicit about that. Comparing Christian and Muslim exegesis, he assesses that "both of them sometimes cut queer capers". So, the glipse at Christian New Testament exegesis is worthwhile. Here however Baljon has analogised more than necessary. In comparison with this reading of Matthew, 'is "finding telegraph, telephone, tramway and microbes recorded in Koranic passages" really to be counted as "[a]nalogous elucidations of Muslim modernists" p. Is it not formally different to say 'a certain 56 34 Perhaps Baljon would have described his own method as the '-izing'-izing of modern Muslim Koran exegesis.

Baljon lists many instances of Muslim commentaries which triumphantly declare they have found yet another scientific theory to be already in the Koran. He says that when encountering "such fantastic interpretations one is induced to make the sarcastic comment: Baljon concludes his study with an apologia of apologetics. From the way he justifies this claim, one sees that what he means by 'apologetics' is the rational justification of religious claims.

He does not see a principal problem with apologetics. Thirty-five years after Baljon however such a problem has become visible: Baljon has not refuted the "general" p. But by seeing the essential role rational justification plays in religious thought, he has contributed an important insight.

Baljon distinguishes between two types of apologetics: And Baljon calls it "a certain attempt at logical reasoning". In this early study, Baljon has provided some criteria for the assessment of modern Muslim theology. With hermeneutical discussions having continued since Baljon, one can today see three problems in his criteria.

Firstly, it is difficult to decree that an interpretation clashes with the actual meaning if one is not able to show what the actual meaning is. Secondly, the question is not what is admissible and what is inadmissible, but what will hold the test of time and argument. Baljon already mentions where he sees the problem and where he 35 sees the first Muslim attempts to solve it: Iiili have already seen that the Koran "makes use of an antiquated Weltanschauung and of obsolete social norms".

Accordingly, present-day Muslim interpretation follows a pragmatic line. However, the plea for pragmatism over against theoretical criticism should not be exaggerated. There may be a pragmatic necessity for theory. Jansen's thesis on Koran interpretation in modern Egypt is another pioneer achievement in Western Islamic studies. He lists more than Arabic titles in his bibliography. He says he found very few original contributions. Jansen reflects on the origin and nature of Koran interpretation.

He states that "from the very beginning, the exegesis of the Koran seemed somewhat artificial". Christians and Jews themselves decided in a gradual process, he says, about their canons; it was only when the canons were closed that "there was a large-scale need for an interpretation". For the Muslims after.

Muhammad's death the Koran was already there, and they were in "immediate need to explain and apply" it. Although one should not overlook the disputes in the history of the Koranic text, Jansen's claim that the Koran's canonisation was faster and less disputed than the Bible's 57 36 Johannes]. Page numbers in the text above refer to this book. Jansen is steering towards a most relevant point, but he has not yet made it. His remark can be expanded thus: One is that a community agrees on a text; what is expressed in the text may be called the common ground; the interpreter is a part of that community; the most important criterion of correct interpretation is whether it agrees with the common ground; the text is only a means of the common ground's manifestation.

Both situations are common to us. The first type, the 'common ground' situation, is that of democratic jurisprudence laws are made to express justice and can be reformed accordingly , and of ecclesial New Testament reading each document was written and canonised to express the meaning of Jesus, who is the actual point of reference.

The second type, the 'opposite' situation, is that of the interpretation of historical documents, literature including newspapers and letters , and of the Koran. Neither situation is "artificial". Therefore, Jansen's assessment can in today's reflection be seen as too strong. But it has drawn our attention to a relevant hermeneutic distinction, which will play a role later on.

Jansen finds 20th century Egyptian Koran exegetes to work under three "aspects" p. A similar type of relation exists when an author discusses his or her own writing. Often, phrases like 'what I wanted to say is Jansen then collects philological 62 approaches. Philological exegesis, he fmds, is very much in line with the classical philologists. He mentions Ibn 'Abbas d. But in her choice, Jansen sharply notes, she sets her own priorities: Jansen's interpretation of Bint as-Sati''s choice is: Jansen observes that Bint as-Sati' starts from the presupposition that in its context every word can have only one meaning.

If a word have several meanings according to the classical dictionaries, then what decides the intended meaning is the Koranic parallels analysed "with common sense". Jansen praises al-Ijuli's and Bint as-Sati''s studies as equal to, or better than, the classical commentaries. According to Jansen's observation, the true subject of practical-"day-today affairs"-interpretation is often "the degree to which Western influence on the secular and religious aspects of life should be tolerated".

The approaches Jansen subsequently lists focus on semantics, grammar and textual structure. His explication of "'historical" exegesis is exclusively future oriented: Rather, the point that history is not a prominent subject for Muslim theologians other than in reconstructing an original Koranic context is a vital contribution to the debate on interpretation. Above, two remarks of Jansen's were interpreted in a way he himself was still unable to see.

If interpreting Jansen meant only repeating what Jansen meant, we would not have been allowed in our interpretation to develop, as we did, from his text the ideas of a typology of text-interpreter relations and of multi-dimensional historical reading. She covers works written between the end of the h century and the s. The principle seems to originate in Spinoza: HansGeorg Gadamer, Hermeneutik, vol.

Grundzuge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik, Tiibingen , p. Gadamer's observation that a work of art leaves its author and becomes an entity in its own right which can be understood independently of one's knowledge of the author, is a valid criticism of that principle. Rotraud Wielandt, Offinbarung und Geschichte. She takes 'modem' as a mere chronological marker, "not as a qualifier to mean 'progressive' or 'open-minded'" p. Page numbers in the text above refer to that study. As the first Western scholar in this field, she also takes modern Turkish texts into account.

But for the era she covers she has to state yet: And when she surveys the seeds of historical thinking about to sprout among Muslim intellectuals, she explicitly mentions Ankara University's ilahiyat Fakiiltesi as a promising place of historical-critical Koran exegesis. The authors she analysed were mostly of Egyptian or Indo-Muslim origin: God could have inspired it verbally and used, in order to make Himself understood, wording and imagery of Muhammad's time.

Has any Muslim thinker seen the compatibility of verbal inspiration and historical interpretation? Thinkers taking their starting points for revisiting the Koran from literary theory are able to do justice to both. Iamid Abu Zayd; and Wielandt has kept track of these more recent exegetical developments, which she portrayed and analysed in several subsequent studies.

Sayyid Ahmad Khan 69 and Mul: Iammad 66 Already in , Wielandt mentioned the possibility that Muslim theology could hold that a human, contingent, historical element might have entered the Koran through God Himself Offenbarung und Geschichte, p. Starting from a suggestion by Taha l: Among them are Amin al-l: The meaning of a text, they say, can only be what the first recipients understood, and any text, revealed or otherwise, can be analysed according to its artistic qualities.

The choice of words, the figures of speech, the structure of sentences and larger units and different literary genres can be studied. For them, art "is primarily a means of appealing to the public's emotions and to direct them according to one's aims".

Ialaf Allah drew the conclusion from this theory that the Koranic narratives about earlier prophets are largely unhistorical. God used them as "psychological facts". A work not coming from this school but also applying literary criticism to the Koran, though less systematically, is Sayyid Q! He does not challenge the historicity of the Koranic narratives. Wielandt terms more precisely "exegesis taking full account of the historicity of the Qlr'an".

She then describes Fazlur Rahman's hermeneutics, whom she sees in basic agreement with an earlier Muslim voice, 'Allal al-Fasi. According to Fazlur Rahman, the general ethical norm expressed in a Koranic stipulation must be distilled from the historical formulation. This model takes up a classical Islamic approach, viz.

Subsequently, every generation has to do its own re-encoding. Finally, Wielandt introduces Muhammad Arkoun, who sees the whole Muslim exegetical tradition as the process of appropriating the the Koran as proclaimed by the different factions of the umma. Semiotic and socio-linguistic instruments 70 42 In Offinbarung und Geschichte, p. Interpreters Wielandt placed in this category, like Sayyid Qltb and Abu 1-A 43 him and supervised his study. If it is the task of exegesis to distinguish code from message, is there a method to control this distinction? And if the message can be subtracted, does it then float code-free in the air, before being reencoded?

In this point, Abu Zayd is very close to Fazlur Rahman. Both should be asked whether their approaches are not implicitly reducing the Koran to a deontic 'thou shalt' message. The "new immediacy" trend seems completely unaware of any hermeneutical problem. The bridging of the historical distance between text and today cannot start with a reforming of the present world situation into a Koranic ideal, because first we have to find out what the Koranic ideal is. Either it is claimed to be expressed unambiguously in the text-then we hear the Koran with today's ears, which will distort its original meaning because the meaning of words changes.

Or we accept that our way of understanding traditional words today is sometimes misguided and that we have to try to find out what the words really mean-then we are in the middle of historical studies, and have lost the immediacy, which is thus discovered to be na"ive and misleading. This reasoning explicates the immediacists' underlying assumption that language-at least in the case of the Koran-is not changing. Ianafi should be asked first, whether he seriously means what he says, and if so, why he botl1ers at all to explain his view?

If the criterion of correct interpretation is whether it mobilises the masses, he has abandoned propositional truth. Therefore, he need not argumentatively present it to a critical audience. He should, rather, test his theory on the masses. If they are mobilised, it must be correct. One wonders however who will be mobilised by it. People want to believe that what they believe is true, and not only an effective means for their mobilisation.

Even with the limited amount of space in an encyclopaedia, Wielandt gives insightful comments on the views portrayed. She can welcome an approach e. She also sees Koranic exegesis in its socio-political contexts. Thus, she touches upon the collision of Koranic scholarship and politics, including the condemnation of thinkers like I: Iamid Abu Zayd in Egypt in and respectively. She mentions the petrifYing monopoly of the traditional religious scholars, 45 p.

Desiderata Our survey of the state of research on modern Muslim Koran interpretation should now be combined with what we saw when reviewing hermeneutics.

This should lead us to a listing of what the state of research leaves for other researchers to investigate. In other words, where on the maps are the blanks? Areas not yet mapped. The maps so far drawn prove to depict only a small area of Koran interpretation. We have not found any study on exegesis in Persian or Indonesian, from Black Africa 73 or the former Soviet Union, nor by Turkish authors.

All of these are certainly promising areas of research. Are there criteria for preferring one or the other area for an expedition's destination? The answer should be given only after searching the map for the other two types of blanks. Aspects not yet mapped. Unrecorded aspects of tafsir include, largely, a study on the applied methods' origins. Wielandt lists several interesting findings on sources of the approaches she studied. Farid Esack, whose Islamic hermeneutics of liberation claims that the Koran can only be understood by people committed to "liberative" practice.

Furthermore, the authors' methodology is hardly being discussed. Here, the only exceptions can be found in Wielandt's works cf. Authors covering modern Koran interpretation rarely state which aspects of interpretation have not but could be covered by Muslim authors. The exception is Wielandt's study on revelation and history, which concludes that Muslims might rethink what revelation is. Stating desiderata is not putting something down, but challenging and thus promoting it. So, a major desideratum in Islamic Studies on Muslim Koran exegesis is the naming of desiderata.

It is precisely this desideratum which makes it difficult to judge from the state of research to which area an expedition should be sent first. So, how to judge? Another criterion would be to look for places which offer a. When scanning the map with this gauge, Turkey proves to be the primary destination of our expedition. This will be demonstrated in the following section. The extant maps cover the aspect of historical aareness in Muslim Koran interpretation.

It is precisely because of this coverage that we can say with relative certainty that what has been produced in the mapped areas does not meet all challenges of contemporary hermeneutic reflection yet. Although we could find an awareness of the distance between text and interpreter with some authors notably in 75 76 77 Jansen, Interpretation, p.

Wielandt, Offinbarung und Geschichte, p. It is traditional and it is a novelty, it continues Ottoman lines and takes up Western structures, it follows a Kemalist programme and it may prove to be of worldwide relevance for Islam. Eine rechtsgeschichtliche Untersuchung", Die Welt des! A decree of February 26, established a twelve-year pre-university course of theology which included in fact only traditional subjects and text books.

One exception can be found in its seventh year, when "modern physics bikmet-i gedtde " was to be studied. The university Faculty was by decree of October 1, replaced with a specialists' school at the Siileymaniye Mosque. A law of April 2, added a fourth department to this school, viz. J; Fiqh; Kelam and lfikmet. Among the new professorial chairs introduced by an October 4, decree were three for J: Ianafi law and one for each of the other three great legal schools, plus one for occidental literature.

The medreses were to teach more and more secular subjects but they could not be subjected to the control of the Ministry of Education, although Ziya' Gokalp suggested it. Only MuHafa Kemal's programme "We will turn ourselves into the most modern nation" p. The day the Great National Assembly in Ankara decreed the abolition of the caliphate, it also issued a law No. The Istanbul school's director had an "enthusiastic belief in the possibilities of reforming Islam to become a vital and inspiring force in the life of new Turkey".

Reported by Henry Elisha Allen; p. The only surviving, indeed thriving, type of junior theological education was that of the school for Koran recitation, dar iil-qurra. The ilahlyat Faculty was structured according to "modern scientific principles" p. But its students' numbers were decreasing rapidly, together with those of the imam batzb schools. A decree of the Ministry of Education dated August 29, abolished Arabic and Persian classes from the high school curriculum.

Subsequently, knowledge of these languages was no longer a prerequisite for admission to the Theological Faculty. In and , laws regulated a reform of the University. Page numbers refer to this article. In , Turkey became a multi-party democracy. The call for a better training of the 0 religious staff din adamlan was voiced. Less than a year later however parliamentarians demanded a re-opening of state-run preachers schools. Two newspaper statements will illustrate the atmosphere: It is also a social fact, a matter of the community.

In the countryside, there are often no more hocas religious staff to bury the dead. If we do not educate religious staff, superstition will prevail. Already, we hear about heavenly letters passing from hand to hand. Religious fanaticism is bad. But fanatic irreligion does not match with our tolerant society, either. It was not in order to ban Islam from Turkey that we accepted the principle oflaicism. Against the Soviet advance, we have to utilise the force of the Islamic Belt, stretching from Java to the Atlantic Ocean.

The intention was to avoid a return to the dualism of religious and secular education, of medreselilmektebli mentality "still existent in oriental countries" Tahsin Banguoglu; 83 p. On January 15, , both in Ankara and Istanbul, ten-month courses were established to train prayer leaders and Friday preachers. Soon after, this was done in eight further cities.

The courses starting in were decreed to last for two years. Again, Banguoglu demanded that the Faculty should counter reactionary movements: At the same time, and again from , he was president of the Turkish Language Association. Perhaps, he said, it was due to the revolutionary atmosphere that the old Faculty had been unable to find a sufficient number of students; with more than one hundred young men following the imam Hatip courses in , things seemed to have changed.

To observe and record these events and, if necessary, take 0 the leading role rehberlik vazifesi is the task of an alert uyanzk institute of religion. Now some spotlights should be switched on to give us a live impression of the scene. But he also sees that "besides the training of religious staff, the new Faculty considers as its task-which considerably surpasses the old medreses' scope-to confront the mental values of Islam with modern sciences, thus obtaining for Islamic theology a standing in modern intellectual life, as Christian theology has always had.

Furthermore, gradu" ates of the Faculty were simply deprived of many rights of graduates of other Faculties. The traditionalists "argued that secularism w s misunderstood and misapplied in Turkey". Moreover, in their view, Islam had become inferior to the minority religions in Turkey, because, they said, it lacked an independent organisation.

They feared religion might be abused by the corrupt, they said.

Revisionist Koran Hermeneutics in Contemporary Turkish University Theology: Rethinking Islam

National 86 Ibid, p. In the very first period of the Ankara government, there was a Ministry of Religious Affairs and Pious Foundations, but already in a Presidency for Religious Affairs diyiinet ifleri ri'isligz was established, whose head was nominated by the Prime Minister. J was decreed by the Constitution article and re-established by article of the Constitution, with three further stipulations. It was com1nitted to the principle of laicism, thus e. Its employees were to be civil servants. If laicism means that the state is neutral towards religion, the Presidency as it is must be seen as contradicting that principle.

Spuler-Stegemann says that an established Islam ,Staatsislam' as practiced in Turkey cannot be justified by Islamic theology. While, towards the end of the Ottoman era, the seyp iil-isliim and his staff had de facto gained the rank of a Ministry, the Presidency has never been elevated to such independence; it is only the Presidency of Islamic Affairs; this means discrimination against other religions in Turkey and contradicts the constitutional principle of religious equality , art.

Anti-clericalism had for long been a reform factor in Ottoman history. In spite of the supreme religious authorities' hostility to the nationalists, MuHata Kemal tried to compromise by keeping the Caliphate, when the Sultanate had been abolished in His goal was civilisation, which for him meant Western culture. He seems to have been able to distinguish between Islam as a sclerotic blockage against modernisation, and Islam as a tradition able to evolve.

According to Laut, translations of the Koran were promoted under Atatiirk in hope of the "bajka yok mu-effect". Laut is referring to an episode reported by Albert von Le Coq from eastem Turkmenistan. He did so and received the 53 considered Islam as a source of social, national coherence and ethical motivation.

And one may presume he also saw that an assault on Islam as religion would have been the end of his own project of creating a modern national state. He disestablished Islam, restricted then prohibited religious education, introduced European legal codes, reduced then eliminated the power of religious scholars, prohibited religious brotherhoods and Westernised such Islam-connoting cultural symbols as dress, headgear, calendar and alphabet. Modernisation can mean a new type of influence. Religion in a modern state can play an important role which does not rest on hierarchical privileges but on convincingness and people's personal involvement.

Kemalist or not, the institution of theological faculties at state universities should be seen as giving religion a new scientific, social and thus political standing. They clearly wanted a Western-style theology, i. Giinaltay's strategy is to point out that Islam would never have risen to its glory without the Turks; p. Geoffrey Lewis shows that one function of 'proving' the Turkish origin of words like filosoft was to justifY their survival. TlJe Turkish Language Reform. A Catastrophic Success, Oxford , p. Both the religious and the linguistic efforts might be understood as apologetic nostrification.

The model of Western theology was explicitly quoted in a memorandum gerekfe by Ankara Universitesi's senate: For the difference between Faculty and medrese is quite fundamental. Faculties, because they are 0 houses of science ilim evleri , strive for comparison mukayese , 0 empirical knowledge miiJahede, lit.: But already the demand for academic theology voiced in by Ibrahim Efendi, the!

But in Arabic it has never meant 'theology' as the whole academic discipline. It could be used in three ways. Ismay1l Hakla BaltaciOglu d. It was founded in , is a branch of the Turk Diyanet Vakf1 and seems to have unlimited financial resources. The Centre employs more than renowned scholars, offers grants to doctoral students, runs a fine library, edits a research quarterly, and is in charge of the publication of the completely new edition of the Turkish Encyclopaedia if Islam.

It betrays however a particular interest in Ottoman studies. One might understand the Institute itself as an hermeneutical project. Intellectual quality of worship: Members of the institute do participate in the present discourse on Koran henneneutics. Sozeylem T eorisinin T arihi 0 zerine", Omer Kara ed. One may ridicule these suggestions just as an adan call to prayer in Turkish: But could the Theological Faculties not be places where such reforms are discussed and experimented with?

Turkish theologians are, according to the present author's impression, very much involved in high standards of intellectual discourse. But they seem to be reticent, or uncreative, or uninterested, or shy, when it comes to rethinking a change of cultic practice. It is structurally one of the most promising grounds for a well-reflected renewed Islam to grow. So, if our expedition sets out anywhere-and does not get lost in the preparation-it should visit the Turkish Theological Faculties.

Two reasons for its establishment were advanced. The number of jmam Hatip schools had increased, and the Faculty had acquired the reputation of training philosophers and sociologists rather than guides for people's religious practice. I 09 Between and , eight Higher Islam Institutes were established for the training of religious education teachers and employees of the Presidency of Religious Affairs. The former was heard from the Fatih Mosque, Istanbul, from January on. The latter was the official version decreed by the Presidency of Religious Affairs in November and valid until Prime Minister Adnan Menderes had the muezzins return to the Arabic original in Beginning in , many more Theological Faculties were founded in Turkey.

Their number now totals twenty-four. In , the deans of six of the nine Faculties were ildhiyat graduates of the Faculty of Ankara.

The Henoch Prophecies - WW III

Only recently were deans from the original staff appointed after they were able to form their own Faculty. The new curriculum was designed to be flexible and interdisciplinary. Its goal is "to train a type of ildhiyat graduate who can depend on the Q! If however there are not enough university graduates among the applicants, [the appointee must be an imam-Hatip school graduate. I am grateful to Dr. The verb of the sentences, i.