The developments and transformations of the politics of the Muslim World in the 20th century may provide us with significant clues to make projections for the 21st century. The aim of this article is to develop a theoretical framework for the periodization of the political transformation of the Muslim World from the perspective of the political, cultural and economic conditions and their correlation with the changes in political thougnt and imagination. The general characteristics of each period and their relevance to the formation of political understanding has been analyzed in order to show the elements of consistency in the dialectic of continuity and change. Different aspects of the transformation of the Muslim World in the post-Cold War era has been explored as a theoretical foundation of the projections for the 21st century.

The Sunna or hadith in the classical mean is defineted as uttarences, acts and consents of the Prophet . However, some new attempts are made with respect to definition of sunna today. These attempts may be gather two general title; The sunna definitions in West World and the sunna definitions in Islam World. In this study, we evaluated the definitions of sunna which made by the comtemporary researchers. In short Goldziher has studied to prove the diversety between sunna and hadith. Again, Schacht has applied the law sects before Şafi'i to widen this step. He separated distance sunna and hadith and definited sunna as custom or proceeding of society. He claimed to happen the expression of "the sunna of Prophet" later, namely at the same time with Şafi'i. Surely, these claims has been answered in the beginning and this activity is continueing.

In this article, famous Hanefi law expert (fakîh) Tahavi examines the method of understanding and interpretation of the hadiths. By this work with Tahavi's book, Şerhu me'âni'l-âsâr, on the disagreements between (different) hadiths, it is tried to put forward about the contributions of fakihs' hadith interpretations. Sherhu ma?ani al-âsâr is, at the same time, one of the first important works which explains and comments on hadiths. Tahâvî has used rumour (rivâya) and inference/theoretical (nazar) methods altogether when he is explaining hadiths. In addition to this, one of the components which makes his work indispensable is that he conveyed the information with their attributions, appropriate to the characteristics of his era. Thus when reading the interpretations of Tahâvî on hadiths, it is possible to follow the differences and the continuity of comments along the historical processes.

The main thesis of the article is that Ibn Khaldun's and Hegel's approaches to causality cannot be reduced to a mechanical application of Aristotelian doctrine and that in developing their philosophies of history, both Ibn Khaldun and Hegel transformed the so-called Aristotelian doctrine of the four basic causes (which has its own problems). Their transformations of this doctrine were so profound that it is an oversimplification and a distortion to simply impose the Aristotelian scheme on their systems. Besides, the article argues that Ibn Khaldun and Hegel applied the doctrine of causes to the flux of history and their theological commitments led them to develop some sort of flexible, dynamic, dialectical, context-related notions that are quite distant from the Aristotelian original scheme.

Kınalızâde Alâ'ad-dîn Alî b. Emrullah is an Ottoman scholar of XVI. century, who was born in H.916/A.D.1510 in Isparta. He was the father of Kınalızâde Hasan Çelebi who is the author of the book Tezkiretü'ş-şuarâ. He worked for Ottoman goverment as a scholar and a judge. He died in 979/1572 while he was (Anadolu Kazaskeri) The second Vice-chancellor of Turkey. Although Kınalızâde published quite a lot of book on subjects like the canon law of islam (fıkıh), exposition (tefsir), literature, his best well-known work Akhlâq-ı Alâî was about practical philosophy, which followed the trend of Nasîr ad-Dîn Tûsî's Akhlâq-ı Nâsırî and Jalâl ad-Dîn Devvânî's Akhlâq-ı Jalâlî. In this book, Kınalızâde analyses the practical philosophy in three sections, the ethics, the economics and the politics, like those of prior work on this subject. However Ahlâk-ı Alâî was not tought to be just a rephrasing, interperetation or expounding of the previous books, which covered these subjects before. In Ahlâk-ı Alâî, Kınalızâde reevaluated all the knowledge and the big cultural inheritance that were accumulated until his time in his vast articulation of knowledge, by synthesizing all of them without neglecting philosofical, religional, and literature aspect of the matters.

The celebration of the holy prophet's birthday (Mawlid) has been of great importance to the religious life of the muslim societies. These celebrations, which had not been known to be performed throughout the first centuries, had began to be done during the Fatimid period at the IV. (X.) century. The mawlid celebrations that had carried a political importance as well as a religious one for this state, had been performed by other muslim states afterwards with colourful and magnificient cerenomies, and turned out to be an important element of the religious life. In addition to the mawlid celebration itself, the religious legacy of the practices done during the mawlid celebration had been discussed by the scholars. While some of the scholars because of their attitudes towards bid'at had opposed to the mawlid celebrations totally, the others approved this practice, only opposing to the behaviours observed during the celebrations that were not religiously acceptable.

In this study, we are presenting the translation of al-Fârâbî's Kitâb al-mille (Book of Religion) with our introduction. This work of al-Farabi contains his views concerning the practical philosophy. The issues which are delt with in this essay are very well fitted his views in his works Madîna al-fâzıla, al-Siyâsa al-madaniyya, Fusûl al-madanî. In this work al-Fârâbî stresses upon how the city which considers the most important element of the political philosophy can be governed virtuely. In this respect, as a philosopher relies on metaphysics, al-Fârâbî emphasises that the ruler of virtuel city must take Allah, the creator and ruler of the universe as an example. Additionaly, after starting that there are two ways of governing the city virtuely, he explains these ways. Later on, too, in the light of the relationship between philosophy and religion he tries to explain the significance and the function of religion in virtuel society.

This paper presents a critical edition of Risâla fî ÂdâbiSuhbet al-Mulûk by Ibn al-Akfânî (d. 749\1348), accompanied by a short analysis of the text and its translation. This text by Ibn al-Akfânî is realized under 'the literature of advice' in history of politics thought. Another characteristic of the text is that it is well-organized and short summary in its field. In this text which is written taking into consideration viziers and other officials are presented in ruler's entourage is kept in mind the politics tradition of Indian, Iran and Greek in general.

Artists' signatures are of great importance to get acquinted with the historical and cultural environment which the works of art belong. We can acknowledge the circle, style, school, and the interaction within which many works are created thanks to these signatures. For various reasons, it is observed that some masters do not have their signatures on their works. However in Turkish-Islamic art circles many important art works still have signatures. One of them is the Şehzade Mehmed Tomb which is the subject of our research. The epitaph which is written as makılî calligraphy in the müsenna style at Shehzade Mehmed Tomb, the name Muhammed/Mehmed is read as repeated four times. The signature which was not noticed within the design of the epitaph upto now has come out mysteriously with an interesting coincidence. What makes this signature mysterious is the expression of 'amilehu' which meant to be 'made it' when the word of 'Mehmed' is read from the opposite. Within the signature inscription on the tiles of Edirne Selimiye Mosque, by writing the name of the master 'Ali' in the reverse way beside the expression of 'amilehu', the reverse reading of the expression of 'amilehu' is also achieved. By getting together the names of 'Muhammed' and 'Ali' side by side, the epitaph is attributed a different meaning. Our research put forth that some epitaphs with makılî calligraphy in the müsenna style may have masters' signatures. By the addition of others to these two examples of signatures we present so far, many artists which are unknown upto today will be brought to light.

In this work, the important factors related to the adoption to the religion of Islam of Uighurian Muslims, who firstly accepted the Islamic faith not by war but by invitation and trade, and the spreading of this faith to the Uighurian geography and neighbours' lands, are exposed. The Uighurians who had quite experiences on education and instruction even before accepting Islam, tried to carry out this kind of professions in a disciplinal style, after accepting Islam. The most important institution which met the need of that profession is the Islamic madrasa which were built in this period. These madrasas which are kneaded with traditional and Islamic architectural features, besides some constructive characteristics, with their instructors of good quality, education method, the course schedules which are not restricted with Islamic sciences, rich library facilities, and tranquil study places arrived at the position of the important science centers and trained great personalities.