“There are those who think that ‘The collapse of the Ottoman Empire has not yet finished. Everywhere has split up as Ottoman provinces. Only the Southeast is left; and that is the final stage. Once that breaks away, too, the collapse of the Empire will be complete.’ But division is a sin whether or not the Ottoman Empire even exists. Allah imposes unity among Muslims as an obligation.”
There is a theory proposed by some people that ‘The collapse of the Ottoman Empire has not yet finished, it is still going on.’ In other words, they supposedly see the Ottoman Empire surviving within the Republic of Turkey. They regard the Southeast as one of the provinces of the Ottoman Empire that has not yet broken away. ‘The Southeast also needs to break away as an Ottoman province. In the same way that Bulgaria, Greece and all the other places broke away; just the Southeast now remains. There is the final stage. Then the collapse of the Empire will be complete,’ they think.
For one thing, the Ottoman Empire never pressured anyone. It never interfered in anyone’s religion or language. Everyone in Bulgaria spoke Bulgarian, not Ottoman. Everyone in Algeria spoke French. There was never any interference in their religions, either; everyone was free and at peace. That is a feature unique to the Ottoman Empire. The reason for the collapse of the Ottoman Empire was fundamentalism and bigotry. The coming of Darwinism, the spread of a Darwinist and materialist system, the spread of atheism, the weakening of faith within the state and finally the almost complete domination of the state by Darwinism. It was a collapse resulting from weakness of faith caused by that. During the initial expansion of the Ottoman Empire it spread very fast. A policy of conquest was followed and the Ottomans ruled everywhere, but they were devout believers with a strong religious structure. But then this weakness of faith appeared. The collapse began with the growth of Darwinism and materialism within the Ottoman Empire. And then it came to this position. I am saying this in order to resolve the misunderstanding here; the collapse of the Ottoman Empire did no good to anyone. It brought no prosperity to Greece. Greece was ruined. They saw no abundance or beauty as a result. The same with Cyprus. The Turkish part is well-off now, but not the Greek part. The economy in the Greek part has collapsed. The state is bankrupt. The state is also bankrupt in Greece. The economy has collapsed. It brought no prosperity with it. And even if the Ottoman Empire collapsed, we are Muslims. And Muslims must be as one. It is not essential to call it the Ottoman Empire. There is Islamic Unity and Muslims have a duty to be united. The people of the Southeast, our brothers there, are also Muslims, and we are Muslims. We must be united as Allah commands. Division due to tribalism is a sin. “Do not separate” (Surat al-‘Imran, 103) says Almighty Allah; “...do not quarrel among yourselves lest you lose heart and your momentum disappear....” says Allah (Surat al-Anfal, 46). It is a sin. Look, “Do not separate”. This is why we need to analyze the matter on the basis of the Qur’an. We should not attach any credence to the words of those who engage in sociological analyses. (January 13th, 2013, A9 TV)
