Mehmet Özay 16.07.2025
May your Eid be blessed... Muslims in Arakan have been expelled and exiled from their homeland and continue to live in the most unfavorable conditions in neighboring countries. Those who want to escape this situation, such as those who have relatives in some of the other countries in the region, continue to save their money and - with considerable help from human traffickers - board makeshift boats and set out across the ocean in search of hope.
May your Eid be blessed... Life in Jammu-Kashmir, the Indian part of the Greater Kashmir region, continues to be miserable due to the strict military policies of the Delhi regime. As if this state of confinement and oppression is not enough, the factions and communities within the Kashmiris themselves - instead of joining forces against the Indian regime - continue to fight among each other secretly and openly, while those whose minds and souls are tired of this are looking to throw themselves out of Kashmir as soon as possible.
Are we aware of the demands, desires, the place where the Muslim community in Moro-Mindanao, which reached a peace agreement with the central government in 2014, and in Patani, which has been in a peace process with the central government for a long time, wants to see itself, its inspirations from its history and culture, and the existence and integrity of its past relations with other Muslim communities in the region? What do these societies, which are subject to very important transitional periods and in this sense face religious-cultural and sociological existential problems, mean to us? How can we consider it our right to see these societies in a subordinate position, to treat them with overt and covert contempt, to have a superior attitude towards them?... on the contrary, we have much more to learn from these societies.... Let me at least try to do this properly.
May your Eid be blessed... In the regions where Muslim societies live, let alone organizing social life with Islamic values and sensitivities and tidying up and putting things in order, the United Nations' "Sustainable Development Goals" (SDGs), which are limited to the famous 17 areas brought to the agenda in a purely secular context (Sustainable Development Goals-SDGs), it is difficult to find any steps taken even within this framework. There are no sound policies, no nuanced practices in the areas of education, health, employment, development, etc., which are of vital importance and which are expected to have an impact on Muslim societies from the individual to the social structure as a whole. It is the Muslims who are in need of water and bread; in need of education and employment; in need of clean air and parks, among others, in significant numbers... Historically home to the region's richest infrastructural resources, these societies unfortunately continue to be victims of corruption and deprivation while looking each other in the eye.
As the human tragedy unfolds in Palestine and hearts darken and cry out, it is not possible to find much change in the policies of governments as well as in the daily practices of large segments of society. Although in some countries there have been post-October square demonstrations, these are no longer common. It is more economical to watch demonstrations of 'humanism' in Western capitals! On top of that, even "prayers for Palestine" are no longer heard in Friday sermons in mosques... Boycotts of various products, which can be considered passive and to some extent effective, continue in one form or another. This coffee shop, that dessert shop, that burger joint, these companies that everyone served their money to before the 'massacre' - if they are helping Israel - we have already seen the results of that help, and we will probably soon see what kind of effect the boycotts will have. What is happening in Palestine is not the first time... Isn't it? While Palestine should be understood without separating it from the problems of other Muslim societies, dividing even Palestine and limiting the development to 'Gaza' probably means nothing more than covert support for Israeli policies.
In today's conditions where the underdevelopment, poverty, deprivation and corruption processes of Islamic societies and the world in general are becoming more and more visible, one inevitably asks what kind of value those who display their flags with the name of Allah in the stadiums of "football gods" and on top of that, those who take ownership of the football temples produced by the West and turn to Western societies and say "We are also in your temples" have to offer to humanity. There is no doubt that there is a need for people of faith in these societies who can say that these images, which give the impression that they are trying to compete the name of Allah with these secular gods, are the product of a vulgar understanding...
May your Eid be blessed... Are we aware that those who say 'I am a professor', 'I am the director of a center', 'I am the rector' by dancing in the academic field with their upstart ideas, 'I am a professor', 'I am the director of a center', 'I am the rector', and on top of that, in an effort to add the superiority of the spiritual field to these, 'I am a sheikh', and suggesting that 'wisdom should be sought' behind everything they do, are the ones who block the way for Muslim societies? Can we see where those who hold captive the most sublime structure of faith and its universal dimension that prioritizes thought, logic, morality, learning, questioning, etc., with their own lowly and even manipulative mindsets that they have created by instrumentalizing hidden and overt religion, are dragging Muslim societies?
May your Eid be blessed... In the turmoil, dilemmas and inconsistencies of the modern world, we celebrate Eid without calculating how much it justifies the claim of living a religious life as a whole and the thought of "thank God we fasted and did our prayers this year". And we are in a state of great comfort, without thinking about how much we deserve the feast or not... We observe our fasts without taking into account that there is not only a significant inward dimension to disciplining the body, but also a dimension that is expected to permeate every moment of daily life and should touch every individual and every institution we are in. We try to convince ourselves that we are fasting by "keeping the religious sphere and religious influence within limits", by creating the limits ourselves.
May your Eid be blessed... But in these circumstances, once again thinking about what Eid, which Eid and why we celebrate Eid...
English and Indonesian versions translated with DeepL AI
