“Each of us must use our own mind in pursuit of truth. (17:36; 10:100; 39:17-18; 41:53; 42:21; 6:114-116; 10:36; 12:111; 20:114; 21:7; 35:28; 38:29).” (Edip Yuksel here.)
If Edip Yuksel believes that “each of us must use our [sic] own mind in pursuit of truth,” then why does he feel compelled to list verses from the Qur’an as textual authority for this unremarkable statement? Does he want “each of us” to use our minds “in pursuit of truth,” or does he, Edip Yuksel, rather, want “each of us” to be, as he apparently is, blindly and blandly obedient to the Qur’an, Hadith, and Sira? For what else can one conclude when a banality is asserted with which no one would think of taking issue (“each of us must use [his] mind in pursuit of truth”), and yet he feels it necessary, in order to ensure that this obvious statement be accepted by his Muslim audience, that he dutifully list Qur’anic passages by way of Authority, so akin as it is to the medieval “auctoritee” we find in Chaucer: 17:36; 10:100; 39:17-18; 41:53; 42:21; 6:114-116; 10:36; 12:111; 20:114; 21:7; 35:28; 38:29.
And there’s a bit more about Edip Yuksel that can be learned, after two seconds of googling, and that suggest or rather reveal that he is a bit of a nut, theorizing about the “mathematical” structure of the Qur’an and focusing on the number 19. Here’s what I found in an interview with what I presume is a magazine (“Furkan”):
Furkan: Let’s turn to the subject of 19. Can you mention
briefly the theory of 19?
Edip: All units, that is, letters, words, sentences and chapters of the
Quran are mathematically designed on a prime number which was
prophesied in a Chapter called “The Hidden One” for more than 14
centuries. The simple to understand but impossible to imitate
mathematical harmony, in my opinion, is beyond human capacity to
construct. Integration of arbitrary human language with the precise and
universal rules of mathematics in the Quran and in the original Bible
is a marvel that can be appreciated only by those who study it with
critical and truth-seeking mind. The examples of this mathematical
design are demonstrated in several books, including my Turkish book
“Uzerinde 19 Var” (published by Milliyet Yayinlari) and its forthcoming
English version “Code 19”.
Furkan: Why do you think most people ignore or disagree with this thesis?
Edip: Because most people follow religious or anti-religious ideas with their hormones, rather than their intellect.
Furkan: Contrary to traditional acceptance of the Islamic world, you
concluded that two parts that are regarded as verses at the end of
Surat al-Tawba do not actually belong to the Quran. I wonder what you
experienced psychologically in the process of this important decision.
Edip: In addition to the mathematical evidence indicating that those
two “verses” do not belong to the mathematically designed book (Kitabul
Marqum), God blessed me with a personal experience that made me certain
about my decision. I begged my Creator for a sign to save me from
confusion and guide me the truth. My sincere and persistent search for
truth was responded by my Lord. He fulfilled his promise of 41:53 by
supporting my faith through BOTH objective
and subjective evidences. I believe that every person who seeks the
truth and is ready to acknowledge it regardless the cost of such an
admission, that person will witness objective and subjective divine
signs.
And later in the same interview, Edip Yuksel makes special mention of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
He is, in short, a gentleman in a dustcoat trying to make Muslims
and non-Muslims hear, but he’s still caught in the coils of Islam, and
can’t get out (said the starling). Now it doesn’t often happen that
John Crowe Ransom, Laurence Sterne, and Vladimir Nabokov appear in the
same sentence, but it does happen.
Returning to our Eid el-Fitr lambs, we may find unsurprising that Edip
Yuksel overlooks the fact that for non-Muslims, the number 19 has
entered their consciousnesses as the number of calmly smiling mass
murdering Muslims — mostly Saudis, with that one Egyptian, Mohammad
Atta (a frustrated urban-planner whose rage over the destruction of old
buildings in Cairo was, in Hamburg, somehow diverted into hatred for
the Infidels, the same Infidels who did not treat him, a Muslim, in
Hamburg as he thought Muslims should be treated) — who took direct
part in the attacks of September 11, 2001 when the members of that
Novemdectet employing their aerodynamical wind instruments to play a
murderous theme. And variations on that theme have been played by
others before, and also ever since.
In the batty mathematical mystagoguery of Edip Yuksel, the number 19
is an instrument he employs to find a way both to exalt the supposed
mathematical structure of the Qur’an (That Must Come Only From God)
and, at the same time, to provide tortuous justification for regarding
as extra-Qur’anic some verses now found in the Qur’an that he, Edip
Yuksel, finds particularly dangerous. This surely will not work.
Edip Yuksel hasn’t been able to free himself from the mind-forged
manacles of Islam. He cannot, as yet, allow himself to follow the
examples of Ibn Warraq and Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Wafa Sultan and many
others who, through no fault of their own, were also born into Islam,
yet who found the mental stamina, and the moral determination, and the
physical courage, not only to jettison that Total Belief-System, but to
tell the world about what led to their decision.
Someday he may take that same path, and at long last be able to free
himself from the mental desarroi that many of those who engage in
apologetics on behalf of Islam so often display. Those who wish him
well would certainly wish for such an outcome.