Mustefa Kemal Ataturk: The greatest Muslim general of the 20th centuary?

[Mitro]

 

[Rusty]

He was a great general, I will always respect him for that.
But he was not a Muslim as we can see his record when he came to power.

 

[Kompromat]

@somebozo I'll politely ask you to refrain from turning this thread into Islam vs you. The topic is clear, if you cant/unwilling to contribute positively please don't post.

 

[Kompromat]

Yaar, please

 

[Edevelop]

Great leader of Turkey. For Muslims as a whole, umm. i don't think so.

 

[bigzgvr4]

Great leader of Turkey. For Muslims as a whole, umm. i don't think so.

YUp Great General and be Proud that he is from turkey

as for Muslim as a whole the Greatest Leader for Muslim Ummah are the American PoliticiansLOL

 

[somebozo]

@somebozo I'll politely ask you to refrain from turning this thread into Islam vs you. The topic is clear, if you cant/unwilling to contribute positively please don't post.

I do not understand by Ata Turk is being connected with Islam, this is like a distortion of history and surprised that such deliberate misleading in tolerated on PDF!

 

[Mitro]

Then Atatürk carefully constructed and deployed a master plan, today known as the Kemalist ideology or Kemalism. Believing in this strategy Ataturk and his associates started to publicly question the value of religion and held the view religion was not compatible with modern science and secularism was imperative for modernity.

Thus Ataturk regime began step by step to implement the Kemalist ideology with a radical reformation of the Turkish society with the aim of modernizing Turkey from the remnants of its Ottoman past. In line with their ideological convictions the Ataturk government abolished Islamic religious institutions; replace the Shariah law with adapted European legal codes; replaced the Islamic calendar with the Gregorian calendar; replace the Arabic script which was used to write the Turkish language with the Latin script and closed all religious schools.

In addition Ataturk took over the country’s 70,000 mosques and restricted the building of new mosques. Muftis and imams (prayer leaders) were appointed and regulated by the government, and religious instructions were taken over by the Ministry of National Education. Mosques were to preach according to the Ataturk’s dictates and were used to spread the Kemalist ideology.

For Sufi Muslims it was worse. Atatürk confiscated Sufi lodges, monasteries, meeting places and outlawed their rituals and meetings.

According to Ataturk modernity was valued and represented as not wearing any religious dress or being non-religious. So he ordered what cloths Turkey’s citizens should wear. The traditional garb of local religious leaders was outlawed. The fez (Turkish hat) was banned for men and the veil and hijab (headscarves) were discouraged and restricted for women.

Atatürk and his colleagues even wanted to Turkify Islam. They ordered Muslims to use the Turkish word Tanri instead of Allah for God and use the Turkish language in Salaath (the 5 times prayers) and Azaan (the call for prayers). These preposterous changes deeply disturbed the faithful Muslims and caused widespread resentment, which led in 1933 to a return to the Arabic version of the call to prayer.

After some time the Atatürk regime moved towards more extreme measures. Ataturk prohibited religious education. The existing mosques were turned into museums or used for the regimes secular purposes.

The faithful Turkish and Kurdish Muslims be they Sunni, Shia or Sufi were powerless against Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s regime and his military. But they tried to resist the oppression and even led rebellions. But he was too strong for them and Ataturk suppressed the rebellions after massive bloodsheds. (e.g. Seyh Sait rebellion in southeastern Turkey which claimed nearly 30,000 lives before being suppressed had its roots in religious grievances.)

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk died in 1938. After that some of his preposterous laws were revoked by his successors due to their harshness and the fact that Islam was always a strong force at the popular level despite the suppression.

Since then there have been occasional calls for a return to Islam. But the secular governments and military true to the Kemalist ideology have managed to suppress them. Amidst this environment in the 1980s a new generation of educated, articulate and religiously motivated leaders emerged to challenge the dominance of the Kemalist political ruling elite. By their own example of piety, prayer, and political activism, they have helped to spark a revival of Islamic observance in Turkey.

But the Turkish military and the state bureaucracy are infiltrated with (Kemalist) secularists and act as the guardians of Ataturk’s reforms and work to preserve Kemalism and weaken Islam. This situation has gradually led to a polarization of the Turkish society and today Turkey remains as someone observed a ‘torn society.

Yaar, please

 

[somebozo]

He was a great general, I will always respect him for that.
But he was not a Muslim as we can see his record when he came to power.

He did the right thing in rolling out modern scientific education and banning religious fanaticism. Those with fatwa mills of Islam cannot even accomplish 1% of Ata Turk!

Then Atatürk carefully constructed and deployed a master plan, today known as the Kemalist ideology or Kemalism. Believing in this strategy Ataturk and his associates started to publicly question the value of religion and held the view religion was not compatible with modern science and secularism was imperative for modernity.

Thus Ataturk regime began step by step to implement the Kemalist ideology with a radical reformation of the Turkish society with the aim of modernizing Turkey from the remnants of its Ottoman past. In line with their ideological convictions the Ataturk government abolished Islamic religious institutions; replace the Shariah law with adapted European legal codes; replaced the Islamic calendar with the Gregorian calendar; replace the Arabic script which was used to write the Turkish language with the Latin script and closed all religious schools.

In addition Ataturk took over the country’s 70,000 mosques and restricted the building of new mosques. Muftis and imams (prayer leaders) were appointed and regulated by the government, and religious instructions were taken over by the Ministry of National Education. Mosques were to preach according to the Ataturk’s dictates and were used to spread the Kemalist ideology.

For Sufi Muslims it was worse. Atatürk confiscated Sufi lodges, monasteries, meeting places and outlawed their rituals and meetings.

According to Ataturk modernity was valued and represented as not wearing any religious dress or being non-religious. So he ordered what cloths Turkey’s citizens should wear. The traditional garb of local religious leaders was outlawed. The fez (Turkish hat) was banned for men and the veil and hijab (headscarves) were discouraged and restricted for women.

Atatürk and his colleagues even wanted to Turkify Islam. They ordered Muslims to use the Turkish word Tanri instead of Allah for God and use the Turkish language in Salaath (the 5 times prayers) and Azaan (the call for prayers). These preposterous changes deeply disturbed the faithful Muslims and caused widespread resentment, which led in 1933 to a return to the Arabic version of the call to prayer.

After some time the Atatürk regime moved towards more extreme measures. Ataturk prohibited religious education. The existing mosques were turned into museums or used for the regimes secular purposes.

The faithful Turkish and Kurdish Muslims be they Sunni, Shia or Sufi were powerless against Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s regime and his military. But they tried to resist the oppression and even led rebellions. But he was too strong for them and Ataturk suppressed the rebellions after massive bloodsheds. (e.g. Seyh Sait rebellion in southeastern Turkey which claimed nearly 30,000 lives before being suppressed had its roots in religious grievances.)

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk died in 1938. After that some of his preposterous laws were revoked by his successors due to their harshness and the fact that Islam was always a strong force at the popular level despite the suppression.

Since then there have been occasional calls for a return to Islam. But the secular governments and military true to the Kemalist ideology have managed to suppress them. Amidst this environment in the 1980s a new generation of educated, articulate and religiously motivated leaders emerged to challenge the dominance of the Kemalist political ruling elite. By their own example of piety, prayer, and political activism, they have helped to spark a revival of Islamic observance in Turkey.

But the Turkish military and the state bureaucracy are infiltrated with (Kemalist) secularists and act as the guardians of Ataturk’s reforms and work to preserve Kemalism and weaken Islam. This situation has gradually led to a polarization of the Turkish society and today Turkey remains as someone observed a ‘torn society.

He did the right thing because this religiousness and fanaticism took Turkey into the backwardness of dark ages. We can see what wonders AKP is doing in Turkey today.

 

[Mitro]

Science: Contributions from Islam

Astronomy

The most precise solar calendar, superior to the Julian, is the Jilali, devised under the supervision of Umar Khayyam.

The Quran contains many references to astronomy:

"And it is He who created the night and the day and the sun and the moon; all [heavenly bodies] in an orbit are swimming."
[Noble Quran 21:33]

These references, and the injunctions to learn, inspired the early Muslim scholars to study the heavens. They integrated the earlier works of the Indians, Persians and Greeks into a new synthesis.

Ptolemy's Almagest (the title as we know it today is actually Arabic) was translated, studied and criticized. Many new stars were discovered, as we see in their Arabic names - Algol, Deneb, Betelgeuse, Rigel, Aldebaran. Astronomical tables were compiled, among them the Toledan tables, which were used by Copernicus, Tycho Brahe and Kepler.

Also compiled were almanacs - another Arabic term. Other terms from Arabic are zenith, nadir, Aledo, azimuth.

Muslim astronomers were the first to establish observatories, like the one built at Mugharah by Hulagu, the son of Genghis Khan, in Persia, and they invented instruments such as the quadrant and astrolabe, which led to advances not only in astronomy but in oceanic navigation, contributing to the European age of exploration.



Geography

Muslim scholars paid great attention to geography. In fact, the Muslims' great concern for geography originated with their religion.

The Quran encourages people to travel throughout the earth to see God's signs and patterns everywhere. Islam also requires each Muslim to have at least enough knowledge of geography to know the direction of the Qiblah (the position of the Ka'bah in Makkah) in order to pray five times a day.

Muslims were also used to taking long journeys to conduct trade as well as to make the Hajj and spread their religion. The far-flung Islamic empire enabled scholar-explorers to compile large amounts of geographical and climatic information from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

Among the most famous names in the field of geography, even in the West, are Ibn Khaldun and Ibn Batuta, renowned for their written accounts of their extensive explorations.

In 1166, Al-Idrisi, the well-known Muslim scholar who served the Sicilian court, produced very accurate maps, including a world map with all the continents and their mountains, rivers and famous cities. Al-Muqdishi was the first geographer to produce accurate maps in color.

Spain was ruled by Muslims under the banner of Islam for over 700 years. By the 15th century of the Gregorian calendar the ruler-ship of Islam had been seated in Spain and Muslims had established centers of learning which commanded respect all over the known world at that time. There were no "Dark Ages" such the rest of Europe experienced for the Muslims in Spain and those who lived there with them. In January of 1492 Muslim Spain capitulated to Catholic Rome under King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. By July of the same year, Muslims were instrumental in helping navigate Christopher Columbus to the Caribbean South of Florida.

It was, moreover, with the help of Muslim navigators and their inventions that Magellan was able to traverse the Cape of Good Hope, and Da Gamma and Columbus had Muslim navigators on board their ships.



Humanity

Seeking knowledge is obligatory in Islam for every Muslim, man and woman. The main sources of Islam, the Quran and the Sunnah (Prophet Muhammad's traditions), encourage Muslims to seek knowledge and be scholars, since this is the best way for people to know Allah (God), to appreciate His wondrous creations and be thankful for them.

Muslims have always been eager to seek knowledge, both religious and secular, and within a few years of Muhammad's mission, a great civilization sprang up and flourished. The outcome is shown in the spread of Islamic universities; Al-Zaytunah in Tunis, and Al-Azhar in Cairo go back more than 1,000 years and are the oldest existing universities in the world. Indeed, they were the models for the first European universities, such as Bologna, Heidelberg, and the Sorbonne. Even the familiar academic cap and gown originated at Al-Azhar University.

Muslims made great advances in many different fields, such as geography, physics, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, pharmacology, architecture, linguistics and astronomy. Algebra and the Arabic numerals were introduced to the world by Muslim scholars. The astrolabe, the quadrant, and other navigational devices and maps were developed by Muslim scholars and played an important role in world progress, most notably in Europe's age of exploration.

Muslim scholars studied the ancient civilizations from Greece and Rome to China and India. The works of Aristotle, Ptolemy, Euclid and others were translated into Arabic. Muslim scholars and scientists then added their own creative ideas, discoveries and inventions, and finally transmitted this new knowledge to Europe, leading directly to the Renaissance. Many scientific and medical treatises, having been translated into Latin, were standard text and reference books as late as the 17th and 18th centuries.



Mathematics

Muslim mathematicians excelled in geometry, as can be seen in their graphic arts, and it was the great Al-Biruni (who excelled also in the fields of natural history, even geology and mineralogy) who established trigonometry as a distinct branch of mathematics. Other Muslim mathematicians made significant progress in number theory.

It is interesting to note that Islam so strongly urges mankind to study and explore the universe. For example, the Noble Quran states:



"We (Allah) will show you (mankind) Our signs/patterns in the horizons/universe and in yourselves until you are convinced that the revelation is the truth." [Noble Quran 41:53]


This invitation to explore and search made Muslims interested in astronomy, mathematics, chemistry, and the other sciences, and they had a very clear and firm understanding of the correspondences among geometry, mathematics, and astronomy.

The Muslims invented the symbol for zero (The word "cipher" comes from Arabic sifr), and they organized the numbers into the decimal system - base 10. Additionally, they invented the symbol to express an unknown quantity, i.e. variables like x.

The first great Muslim mathematician, Al-Khawarizmi, invented the subject of algebra (al-Jabr), which was further developed by others, most notably Umar Khayyam. Al-Khawarizmi's work, in Latin translation, brought the Arabic numerals along with the mathematics to Europe, through Spain. The word "algorithm" is derived from his name.



Medicine

In Islam, the human body is a source of appreciation, as it is created by Almighty Allah (God). How it functions, how to keep it clean and safe, how to prevent diseases from attacking it or cure those diseases, have been important issues for Muslims.

Ibn Sina (d. 1037), better known to the West as Avicenna, was perhaps the greatest physician until the modern era. His famous book, Al-Qanun fi al-Tibb, remained a standard textbook even in Europe, for over 700 years. Ibn Sina's work is still studied and built upon in the East.

Prophet Muhammad himself urged people to "take medicines for your diseases", as people at that time were reluctant to do so. He also said,


"God created no illness, except that He has established for it a cure, except for old age. When the antidote is applied, the patient will recover with the permission of God."


Since the religion did not forbid it, Muslim scholars used human cadavers to study anatomy and physiology and to help their students understand how the body functions. This empirical study enabled surgery to develop very quickly.

Al-Razi, known in the West as Rhazes, the famous physician and scientist, (d. 932) was one of the greatest physicians in the world in the Middle Ages. He stressed empirical observation and clinical medicine and was unrivalled as a diagnostician. He also wrote a treatise on hygiene in hospitals. Abul-Qasim Az-Zahrawi was a very famous surgeon in the eleventh century, known in Europe for his work, Concession (Kitab al-Tasrif).

Other significant contributions were made in pharmacology, such as Ibn Sina's Kitab al-Shifa' (Book of Healing), and in public health. Every major city in the Islamic world had a number of excellent hospitals, some of them teaching hospitals, and many of them were specialized for particular diseases, including mental and emotional. The Ottomans were particularly noted for their building of hospitals and for the high level of hygiene practiced in them.

He did the right thing in rolling out modern scientific education and banning religious fanaticism. Those with fatwa mills of Islam cannot even accomplish 1% of Ata Turk!



He did the right thing because this religiousness and fanaticism took Turkey into the backwardness of dark ages. We can see what wonders AKP is doing in Turkey today.

 

[somebozo]

Science: Contributions from Islam

Astronomy

The most precise solar calendar, superior to the Julian, is the Jilali, devised under the supervision of Umar Khayyam.

I stopped reading after that. Apparently you are an ardent Zakir Nalaiq fan and propagating his nonsense here. Islam uses a lunar calender which is inaccurate and inferior to solar calender. There is no co-relation between religion and science. This nonsense was invented, funded and propagated by imperial ruling elite to keep the people away from modern thinking and enslaved into backward monarchy!



Jalali calendar is a solar calender that was used in Persia.
Before the Yazdgerdi calendar was completed, Muslim Arabs overthrew the dynasty in the 7th century and established the Islamic calendar, a lunar calendar. Number of months and name of two months (Ramadan and Dhu al-Hijjah) in Islamic calendar was outlined in the Qur'an, and in the last sermon of Muhammad during his farewell pilgrimage to Mecca. Umar, the second caliph of Islam, began numbering years in AH 17 (638 CE), regarding the first year as the year of Muhammad's Hijra (emigration) from Mecca to Medina, in 622 CE. The first day of the year continued to be the first day of Muharram. Years of the Islamic calendar are designated AH from the Latin Anno Hegirae (in the year of the Hijra).


The solar Jalali calendar (Persian: گاهشماری جلالی یا تقویم جلالی&#8206 was adopted on 15 March 1079 by the Seljuk Sultan Jalal al-Din Malik Shah I (for whom it was named), based on the recommendations of a committee of astronomers, including Omar Khayyam, at the imperial observatory in his capital city of Isfahan.[1] Month computations were based on solar transits through the zodiac, a system integrating ideas taken from Hindu calendars. Later, some ideas from the Chinese-Uighur calendar (1258) were also incorporated.[citation needed] It remained in use for eight centuries. It arose out of dissatisfaction with the seasonal drift in the Islamic calendar which is due to that calendar being lunar instead of solar; a lunar year of 354 days, while acceptable to a desert nomad people, proved to be unworkable for settled, agricultural peoples, and the Iranian calendar is one of several non-lunar calendars adopted by settled Muslims for agricultural purposes (others including the Coptic calendar, the Julian calendar, and the aforementioned Semitic calendars of the Near East). Sultan Jalal commissioned the task in 1073. Its work was completed well before the Sultan's death in 1092, after which the observatory would be abandoned.[1]

 

[AUSTERLITZ]

I think ataturk is undoubtedly the best muslim general of the 20th century.I would actually put him among the top 3 leaders of the 20th century.
The only small competition he may have is general massoud,guerilla leader of afganisthan who fought against soviets and talibs.

 

[Rusty]

He did the right thing in rolling out modern scientific education and banning religious fanaticism. Those with fatwa mills of Islam cannot even accomplish 1% of Ata Turk!



He did the right thing because this religiousness and fanaticism took Turkey into the backwardness of dark ages. We can see what wonders AKP is doing in Turkey today.

So you are saying that Turkey was in the state it was in due to Islam?
So how about Russia?
Their government also collapsed after WWI, the Germans's as well.
What their excuse? they weren't Muslim.

Your kind of Fascist ideology is never good for anyone.
Forcing people to become something that they are not is never a good Idea, be it Muslims, Christians, or others.
And what exactly did Mustafa Kamal do after he destoryed the institutions of society?
He turned Turkey into a sex tourism hub of Europe.
It was not until the AKP government, which is more in line with Islamic ideals that Turkey really took off in science, economy and socially.

People like you are the reason all these middle eastern countries are so backwards. you try to ape the Europeans (badly I might add) instead of taking what your own culture and values have to offer and advancing those.

 

[KS]

Science: Contributions from Islam

Astronomy

The most precise solar calendar, superior to the Julian, is the Jilali, devised under the supervision of Umar Khayyam.

Many of the base concepts for this calendar was taken from the already existing solar calender used by the Hindus.

Muslim astronomers were the first to establish observatories, like the one built at Mugharah by Hulagu, the son of Genghis Khan, in Persia,

Lie.

There have been astronomical observatories in ancient India far before a religion called Islam was born. For example Brahmagupta was the head of the astronomical observatory in Ujjain about 500 years before Hulagu was even born !

and they invented instruments such as the quadrant and astrolabe, which led to advances not only in astronomy but in oceanic navigation, contributing to the European age of exploration.

Not entirely true.

Astrolabes had been in use in ancient Greece and Byzantium before the Persian scientists allegedly invented it. What the Persian scientists did was further improve on it by adding certain features.

HUmanity

Muslims have always been eager to seek knowledge, both religious and secular, and within a few years of Muhammad's mission, a great civilization sprang up and flourished.

Perhaps that is why the world famous universities of Nalanda and Vikramshila were completelt burnt to the ground by the Muslim invaders. At the time of its destruction, Nalanda was the biggest and the most famous university in the world with students from all over the world.

Algebra and the Arabic numerals were introduced to the world by Muslim scholars.

Lie.

The Arabic numerals were nothing but the Hindu numerals which the arab traders took to Europe.

Regarding Algebra, another lie - Timeline of algebra - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Mathematics

The Muslims invented the symbol for zero (The word "cipher" comes from Arabic sifr), and they organized the numbers into the decimal system - base 10.

Lie.

The symbol for zero had been in use in various civilizations and it was the Indians who first used it to denote "shunya" (null, void).

Moreover the decimal system was again first used in India from where it was transmitted to Europe via Arabs.

The first great Muslim mathematician, Al-Khawarizmi, invented the subject of algebra (al-Jabr), which was further developed by others, most notably Umar Khayyam.

No.

Algebra was there long before Al-Khwarizmi was born.

Medicine

Ibn Sina (d. 1037), better known to the West as Avicenna, was perhaps the greatest physician until the modern era. His famous book, Al-Qanun fi al-Tibb, remained a standard textbook even in Europe, for over 700 years. Ibn Sina's work is still studied and built upon in the East.

First of all Ibn Sina was a considered a kaffir because he did not believe that Allah created the universe. Rather he believed that the universe itself was eternal with no beginning and no end. Al-Ghazali details that.

Second medicine was well developed in all ancient civilizations by the Islam came into picture. For example much of the Arab medicinal knowledge came from the two groundbreaking works that were transalated into Arabic - the Sushruta samhita and caraka samhita which had detailed procedures for various medicinal procedures including surgeries.

 

[Mitro]

image upload

I stopped reading after that. Apparently you are an ardent Zakir Nalaiq fan and propagating his nonsense here. Islam uses a lunar calender which is inaccurate and inferior to solar calender. There is no co-relation between religion and science. This nonsense was invented, funded and propagated by imperial ruling elite to keep the people away from modern thinking and enslaved into backward monarchy!



Jalali calendar is a solar calender that was used in Persia.
Before the Yazdgerdi calendar was completed, Muslim Arabs overthrew the dynasty in the 7th century and established the Islamic calendar, a lunar calendar. Number of months and name of two months (Ramadan and Dhu al-Hijjah) in Islamic calendar was outlined in the Qur'an, and in the last sermon of Muhammad during his farewell pilgrimage to Mecca. Umar, the second caliph of Islam, began numbering years in AH 17 (638 CE), regarding the first year as the year of Muhammad's Hijra (emigration) from Mecca to Medina, in 622 CE. The first day of the year continued to be the first day of Muharram. Years of the Islamic calendar are designated AH from the Latin Anno Hegirae (in the year of the Hijra).


The solar Jalali calendar (Persian: گاهشماری جلالی یا تقویم جلالی&#8206 was adopted on 15 March 1079 by the Seljuk Sultan Jalal al-Din Malik Shah I (for whom it was named), based on the recommendations of a committee of astronomers, including Omar Khayyam, at the imperial observatory in his capital city of Isfahan.[1] Month computations were based on solar transits through the zodiac, a system integrating ideas taken from Hindu calendars. Later, some ideas from the Chinese-Uighur calendar (1258) were also incorporated.[citation needed] It remained in use for eight centuries. It arose out of dissatisfaction with the seasonal drift in the Islamic calendar which is due to that calendar being lunar instead of solar; a lunar year of 354 days, while acceptable to a desert nomad people, proved to be unworkable for settled, agricultural peoples, and the Iranian calendar is one of several non-lunar calendars adopted by settled Muslims for agricultural purposes (others including the Coptic calendar, the Julian calendar, and the aforementioned Semitic calendars of the Near East). Sultan Jalal commissioned the task in 1073. Its work was completed well before the Sultan's death in 1092, after which the observatory would be abandoned.[1]