Kemal Gözler, a professor of constitutional law, has published an article pointing out the change in the trajectory of legal system in Turkey. In his article “The Value of Islamic Law: Could Islamic Law Pose an Alternative to Western Law?” published on Turkish Constitutional Law website, he stated that Turkey is preparing to make a shift to Islamic law.
Prof. Gözler draws attention says Ahval to the huge increase in the number of theology faculties and the number of students studying in these faculties in recent years compared to law faculties.
For him, in 9 years, from 2010 to 2019,
- the number of faculties of theology increased from 24 to 92;
- the number of students enrolled in theology faculties increased from 6,225 to 33,220;
- the number of faculty members in theology faculties increased from 1,120 to 4,121;
- there are 407 lecturers in Theology and Islamic Sciences faculties’ “sharia ” or “fiqh” departments, but there ate only 24 faculty members in Civil Law faculties;
- while the number of theology faculties increased almost by four times, the number of students increased by five times and the number of faculty members increased by three and a half times. The numbers continue to increase exponentially every year;
- there are more theology students than law students and theology faculty members than faculty members of law faculty.
For him Turkey’s connection with the Western Law weakens and Islamic law becomes dominant. He points out a dilemma in Islamic law: Islamic law, while it is an advanced law theory that attaches great importance to values, it is a law practice in the bloodbath. For him, “if we replaced the modern legal system with Islamic law in Turkey, it would be a “trap law”. … those who believe that high values will soon be realized by Islamic law, they will soon notice that they are wrong. Because currently, there is lack of mechanisms in Islamic law to restrict the power of managers and protect the citizens.”
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