Abstract
In this article, the importance of Musa Kazım Efendi, one of the last period Ottoman scholars, will be discussed with reference to the tradition of Tahāfut which is turned into a religion-philosophy debate and is identified with Ghazali’s work called Tahāfut al-Falāsifa written to criticize Islamic philosophers.In this context, the course of the religion-philosophy debates in the Islamic world will be briefly discussed, the developments that paved the way for the Tahāfut discussions will be mentioned, the mutual criticisms of Ghazali and Ibn Rushd will be included, and the basic perspectives of the authors of the Tahāfut in the Ottoman period, including Musa Kazım Efendi, will be examined.Mûsâ Kazım Efendi, who was a sheikh al-Islam in the last period of the Ottoman Empire, when the debates on religion-science and religion-mind were intense, defends Ibn Rushd against Ghazali by radically separating from other theologians writing works in the tradition of Tahāfut and tries to reveal that there is no religion-science, religion-mind conflict although he is a theologian. Musa Kazım Efendi's centralization of Ibn Rushd in the tradition of Tahafut is quite interesting in terms of timing when we consider that Renan, a positivist thinker who claims that Islam is an obstacle to development as a religion, is also an Averroism expert. At a time when there was a renewed interest in Ibn Rushd, Musa Kazım Efendi would strongly try to justify the legitimacy of philosophy in the person of Ibn Rushd and at the same time would agree with most of Ibn Rushd's rather harsh criticisms of Ghazali.