Abstract

The aim of this study is to reveal the role of religious, political and cultural factors on the way of understanding the concept of Ahl al-ḥaqq, one of the most important theopolitical concepts of Islamic thought, and to identify the projections of the semantic traansformatinon that concept of Ahl al-ḥaqq has experienced. In the comparative study with the group of "Ahl al-Shirk", "Ahl al-Kitāb", "Ahl al-Bid'at" and "Ahl al-Hawā", it has been determined that the concept of Ahl al-Haq has a multi-layered spectrum of meaning. A number of critical periods can be mentioned in the formation of this multi-layered meaning structure. The first of these periods is the founding period in which a conception is constructed through the description of the superstitious actions of the "Ahl al-Shirk" and "Ahl al-Kitâb" groups in belief and practice, even though the term "Ahl al-haqq" is not mentioned in the Qur’ān. In this context, it can be said that all Muslims who confess and recite the shahada or the word tawhid with the intention of illa'l-haqq in faith and deeds are included in the category of Ahl al-haqq. After the first semantic period in which the opposition between Islam and un-Islam was decisive, the socio-political issues that emerged among Muslims moved the debate on who could be included in the scope of Ahl al-haqq to the intra-Islamic plane. In the second semantic period, in which every sect considered itself to be right, the scope of Ahl al-Haq was mostly described through the nass-centered references of the Salafiyya and the superstitious practices in belief and practice of Muslims included in the Ahl al-Bid'at category. The third semantic period was shaped relatively by the encounter with philosophical traditions. This is the period in which theologians defending the Islamic faith tried to keep dynamic the outward/objective epistemological aspect of the concept. In the fourth semantic period, which coincided with post-modernism, Ahl al-Haq returned to the socio-political meaning of the opposition between Islam and un-Islam in the founding period as an anti-imperial attitude against colonization activities. As a result, considering all these definitions, it is concluded at the present time that, it would be more accurate that the concept of Ahl al-Haq is better defined to include all Muslims who have accepted the principles of Islamic belief and declared their adherence to the Qur’ān and Sunna.