Ankara School of Theology

ANKARA, might 22 (Reuters) - Scholars round the Muslim world had been alarmed five years ago by news reports that chicken in the pipeline an innovative new, perhaps heretical collection of Prophet Mohammad's sayings which may scrap those it believed had been out of date.

Turkish spiritual frontrunners and theologians got anxious telephone calls asking about Western news reports they might modify a "radical" new set of hadiths, scriptures which are second simply to the Koran in Islam.

"are you going to compose an innovative new Koran after that?" one irate Arab scholar requested a baffled Turkish scholastic.

The latest work, eventually ready after six years inside creating, is nothing like the 95 Theses by which Martin Luther condemned methods within the Roman Catholic Church and launched the Protestant Reformation.

Instead, its 100 writers have actually selected a few hundred associated with the about 17, 000 reported quotes from Mohammad to examine Islamic views on Jesus, trust and life in terms your typical contemporary Turk can comprehend.

"we do not live in the 20th century anymore, " stated Mehmet Ozafsar, director of project and vice-president of Ankara's Religious Affairs Directorate, or Diyanet, a situation agency.

"We required a fresh assist Islamic thinking when you look at the viewpoint nowadays's culture."

The hadiths record Mohammad's terms and acts during his life. Preachers and jurists use them to understand the Koran and support Muslim teachings and fatwas (religious edicts) on all aspects of life, from prayer to education for ladies.

Digests of chosen hadiths aren't anything brand new in Islam. Scholars have created them for centuries to aid Muslims learn about the Prophet's sayings without having to navigate through the long and often confusing classical compilations.

What makes this 1 various usually it selects and explains the hadiths through the point of view of today's Turkey, whoever mixture of a secular state, powerful economic climate and Muslim community features stimulated significant curiosity about the Middle East because the Arab Spring revolts two years ago.

A senior spiritual authoritative in Egypt, where conventional Islamic scholars, the ruling Muslim Brotherhood and radical Salafis differ over crucial dilemmas in the belief, stated the hadith collection could deliver a new viewpoint toward discussion.

"Among intellectuals in Egypt, there's a welcome for this new explanation that they believe is very important the Arab world become subjected to, " said Ibrahim Negm, advisor to Egypt's grand mufti, the best Islamic legal expert there.

"CONSERVATIVE MODERNITY"

The hadith task initially attracted interest in 2008 as soon as the BBC called it "an innovative reinterpretation of Islam and a questionable and radical modernisation for the religion."

Diyanet, Turkey's top Islamic authority, labeled as this also reports "entirely wrong" and predicated on Christian misreading of Islamic practice. Media interest dropped off together with task moved ahead, making scholars overseas wondering what to expect.

Exactly what has emerged is a seven-volume encyclopaedia of what its writers considered the most crucial hadiths. Grouped based on topics, these are generally followed by short essays that give an explanation for sayings inside their historic framework and what they suggest today.

The collection could be the first by chicken's "Ankara class" of theologians just who in current years have actually reread Islamic scriptures to draw out their timeless spiritual message through the context of 7th-century Arab culture which they arose.

Unlike many conventional Muslim scholars, these theologians work in contemporary institution characteristics and many have examined overseas to understand just how Christians analyse the Bible critically.

They subscribe what they call "traditional modernity, " a Sunni Islam real into the faith's core doctrines but minus the strictly literal views that ultra-orthodox Muslims have been advertising various other areas of the Islamic world.

"you will find different perspectives when you look at the Islamic globe many tend to be closed-minded. Turks have yet another concept of Islamic culture, " project manager Ozafsar said.