İslam Fıkhında İhtidânın Hukukî ve Teolojik Temelleri

Abstract

Bu çalışma, ihtidâ olgusunu hukuki, teolojik ve ahlaki boyutlarıyla ele alarak İslâm’a intisap etmenin doktriner temellerini, usulî çerçevesini ve sosyo-hukukî yansımalarını incelemektedir. İhtidâ, bireysel veya itikâdî bir dönüşümün ötesinde mühtedinin haklarını, yükümlülüklerini ve toplumsal statüsünü de yeniden tanımlayan yapısal bir hukuki süreçtir. Klasik fıkıh kaynakları, şehâdetten önceki ve sonraki aşamaları niyet, samimiyet, cebir (ikrâh) ayrıca ihtidânın evlilik, miras ve ceza hukuku gibi alanlardaki etkileri bakımından ele almaktadır. Tarihî uygulamalar, ihtidânın yalnızca bireysel bir tercih değil, aynı zamanda devlet otoritesi ve toplumsal yapıyı alakadar eden bir süreç olarak ele alındığını göstermektedir. Hem mühtedinin hukukî statüsünü güvence altına almak hem de toplumsal entegrasyonunu sağlamak amacıyla tanık beyanları, devlet denetimi, resmî belgelerin düzenlenmesi gibi kurumsallaşmış prosedürler geliştirilmiştir. Disiplinler arası bir yöntem benimseyen bu araştırma esas itibariyle hukuk metinleri üzerinden ihtidâ sürecinin kurumsal yönlerini analiz etmektedir. Böylece dinî kimlik, hukukî çoğulculuk ve İslam hukuku ile devlet otoritesi arasındaki ilişki bağlamında çağdaş tartışmalara katkı sunmayı amaçlamaktadır.

Keywords

• İslâm Hukuku
• Mühtedi
• İhtidâ
• Fıkhu’l-İhtidâ
• Dini Kimlik
• İhtidanın Düzenlenmesi

Legal and Theological Foundations of Conversion to Islam (Ihtida) in Islamic Jurisprudence (fiqh)

Abstract

This study explores ihtidā (conversion to Islam) as a legal, theological, and ethical phenomenon within Islamic jurisprudence, analyzing its doctrinal foundations, procedural frameworks, and socio-legal implications. Beyond a personal or theological transformation, ihtidāis a structured legal process that redefines the convert’s rights, obligations, and social status. Classical fiqh sources regulate conversion through pre-shahādaand post-shahādaconsiderations, addressing intent (niyya), sincerity, coercion (ikrāh), and its effects on personal status, including marriage, inheritance, and criminal liability. Beyond legal formalities, this study explores the ethical dimensions of conversion, analyzing how postconversion obligations (tatabbuʿāt al-ihtidā) shaped the responsibilities of converts within Islamic society. While classicalfiqh sources establish the normative framework, historical applications demonstrate how conversion was formalized within judicial and administrative structures. Historical records reveal institutionalized procedures such as witness testimonies, state oversight, and the issuance of official certificates, serving both as legal instruments and means of social integration. Methodologically, this research employs a comparative legal-historical approach, integrating doctrinal analysis with case studies drawn from primary legal texts and historical court records. It further contributes to contemporary discussions on religious identity, legal pluralism, and the intersection of Islamic law and state authority, offering insights into how legal traditions managed conversion across different historical and political contexts. The findings reveal that, in the Islamic legal tradition, ihtidā was not merely a matter of personal choice but was subject to formal procedural requirements such as witness testimony, judicial oversight, and the issuance of official documents. These mechanisms aimed, on one hand, to attest to the sincerity of the conversion, and, on the other, to prevent abuses manifested in forms such as evading debts, circumventing inheritance laws, or escaping criminal liability. This study bridges the gap between classical Islamic jurisprudence and the socio-legal history of ihtidā, approaching it in a layered manner as both a spiritual transformation and a regulated legal process.

Keywords

• Islamic law
• Converted Muslim
• Conversion to Islam
• Law of Conversion
• Religious Identity
• Regulation of Conversion

References

1. al-Qur’ān al-Karīm (The Holy Qur’an).
2. al-Bukhārī, Muḥammad b. Ismā‘īl. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī: al-Jāmi‘ al- Ṣaḥīḥ. İstanbul: Çağrı Yayınları, 1982.
3. al-Dasūqī, Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad, Ḥāshiya al-Dasūqī ʿalā al-Sharḥ al-Kabīr. Cairo: Dār al-Fikr, 1997.
4. al-Ghazālī, Abū Ḥāmid. Iḥyāʾ ʿUlūm al-Dīn. Beyrut: Dār al-Maʿrifa, 2000.
5. al-Kharshī, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh, Sharḥ Mukhtaṣar Khalīl. Cairo: Dār al-Fikr, 2000.
6. al-Māwardī. al-Ḥāwī al-Kabīr fī Fiqh Madhhab al-Imām al-Shāfiʿī. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1999.
7. al-Nawawī, Yahya ibn Sharaf. Al-Majmūʿ Sharḥ al-Muhadhdhab. Beyrut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 2002.
8. al-Nawawī, Yaḥyā ibn Sharaf. Minhāj al-Ṭālibīn. Batavia: Imprimerie du Gouvernement, 1882–1884.

9. al-Qurṭubī. al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān. Cairo: Dār al-Kutub al-Miṣriyya, 1964.
10. al-Sarakhsī, Muhammad ibn Ahmad. al-Mabsūṭ. Beyrut: Dār al-Maʿrifa, 1993. al-Ṭabarī. Jāmiʿ al-Bayān ʿan Taʾwīl Āy al-Qurʾān. Cairo: Maktabat Ibn Taymiyya, 2001.
11. Awdeh, Khaled. Islamic Legal Principles and Their Applications. London: Routledge, 2020.
12. Ayalon, David. Mamluk Military Society. Londra: Variorum, 1994.
13. Berkey, Jonathan. The Transmission of Knowledge in Medieval Cairo: A Social History of Islamic Education. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.
14. Crone, Patricia; Hinds, Michael. God’s Caliph: Religious Authority in the First Centuries of Islam. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
15. Emon, Anver M. Islamic Law and International Human Rights Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
16. Fadel, Muhammad. “Muslim Modernism, Islamic Law, and the Universality of Human Rights,” Emory International Law Review 36 (2022), 713.
17. Faroqhi, Suraiya. The Ottoman Empire and the World Around It. Londra: I.B. Tauris, 2004.
18. Frank, Richard M. Creation and the Cosmic System: Al-Māturīdī and Ashʿarī Discourse. Leiden: Brill, 1991.
19. Gerber, Haim. Crossing Borders: Jews and Muslims in Ottoman Law, Economy and Society. Istanbul: The Isis Press, 2008.
20. Gibb, Hamilton A.R. Studies on the Civilization of Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1962.
21. Hallaq, Wael B. Sharia: Theory, Practice, Transformations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.
22. Hallaq, Wael B. The Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
23. Heyd, Uriel. Studies in Old Ottoman Criminal Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973.
24. Ibn al-Qayyim, Shams al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Abī Bakr. I‘lām al-Muwaqqi‘īn ‘an Rabb al-‘Ālamīn. Edited by Ṭāhā ‘Abd al-Ra’ūf Sa‘d. Beirut: Dār al-Jīl, 1973.
25. Ibn Nujaym, Zayn al-Dīn ibn Ibrāhīm. al-Baḥr al-Rāʾiq Sharḥ Kanz al- Daqāʾiq. Cairo: al-Maṭbaʿah al-ʿIlmīyah, 1894.
26. Ibn Nujaym. al-Baḥr al-Rāʾiq Sharḥ Kanz al-Daqāʾiq. Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, 1997.
27. Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya. Zād al-Maʿād fī Hadyi Khayr al-ʿIbād. Beyrut: Muʾassasat al-Risāla, 1997.
28. Ibn Qudāmah, Muwaffaq al-Dīn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad. al-Mughnī. Cairo: Imbābah, 1986.
29. Ibn Rushd. Bidāyat al-Mujtahid wa Nihāyat al-Muqtaṣid. Cairo: Dār al-Ḥadīth, 2004.
30. Ibn Taymiyya, Majmūʿ al-Fatāwā, vol. 32 . Damascus: Dār al-Fikr, 1994.
31. Ibn ʿĀbidīn, Muhammad Amīn. Radd al-Muḥtār ʿalā al-Durr al-Mukhtār. Beirut: Dār al-Fikr, n.d.
32. Ibn ʿĀshūr, Muhammad Tahir. Maqāṣid al-Sharīʿa al-Islāmiyya. Tunus: Dār al-Salām, 2013.
33. Imber, Colin. Ebu’s-su’ud: The Islamic Legal Tradition. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997.
34. İnalcık, Halil. The Ottoman Empire: The Classical Age, 1300-1600. London: Phoenix, 2017.
35. Kamali, Mohammad Hashim. Principles of Islamic Jurisprudence. Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society, 2011.
36. Kasumovıć, Fahd. “Understanding Ottoman Heritage in Bosnia and Herzegovina: Conversions to Islam in the Records of the Sarajevo Sharia Court, 1800-1851”. Belleten 80/288 (Ağustos 2016), 507-530. https://doi.org/10.37879/ belleten.2016.507.
37. Özcan, Azmi. Pan-Islamism: Indian Muslims, the Ottomans and Britain (1877–1924). Leiden: Brill, 1999.
38. Peirce, Leslie. The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993.
39. Peters, Rudolph. Crime and Punishment in Islamic Law: Theory and Practice from the Sixteenth to the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
40. Petry, Carl F. Protectors or Praetorians? The Last Mamluk Sultans and Egypt’s Waning as a Great Power. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994.
41. Powers, David S. Law, Society, and Culture in the Maghrib, 1300–1500. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
42. Schacht, Joseph. An Introduction to Islamic Law. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982.
43. Yılmaz, Hüseyin. Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018.
44. Zilfi, Madeline C. Women and Slavery in the Late Ottoman Empire: The Design of Difference. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.