Though I appreciate the intent of the author of this thread, God bless him, I see a lot of problems that I will briefly touch upon below (in order of the tweets). https://twitter.com/ibnmosharraf/status/1247561455685103617

The first unsubstantiated claim is the attempt to draw a cause-effect relationship between complexity of knowledge and illiteracy. This thread assumes that, over time, knowledge became more ‘complex’, and thus caused illiteracy. Two points must be substantiated:

1) That traditional knowledge in the 19th/20th century was significantly more complex than it was in previous centuries

2)This rise in complexity caused a decrease in literacy

Reality is that most of the very complex texts that are studied today were written long before the 19th century. It is true that in general, discussions became more nuanced within certain disciplines (e.g. Hanafi Usul) over time, but this happened long before 19th century.

In fact, recent times have shown a proliferation of “*insert discipline* made-easy” texts.

Another point: illiteracy of the masses was pretty much the norm before the modern age. It’s reasonable to assume that 10th century masses were more illiterate than 19th century masses.

If that assumption is indeed true, then how is it that the increasing complexity of ‘ilm is what made people illiterate? The line of reasoning doesn’t hold up.

The author of the thread then transitions into discussions of Ottoman inability to respond to new developments in/by the West. I don’t see how this is related to Usul or Kalam, which seem arbitrarily scapegoated here.

The author then mentions that all the knowledge gathered by the ‘Ulama are “largely irrelevant in our daily lives. As they have always been.”

The author recognizes that complex fiqh, kalam, usul, tafsir, and nahw discussions have never really affected the lives of the masses.

Given this recognition, why then did the author scapegoat the increasing complexity of these discussions with the stagnant literacy rates of the masses?

Moreover, why isn’t the same trend evident in the West, where discussions have become far more complicated than they were?

Can’t speak on Ertugrul, as I don’t watch it.

Anyways, I understand the author’s point about the modern Usuli disconnect with the masses. After decades of Salafist simplicity, Usulis are still in a discombobulated awe at the actual complexity of sacred disciplines.

As a result, the average modern Usuli prefers to set up online classes going through traditional primers, whereas the modernists, salafis, progressives, and Islamists continue speaking in a very watered-down (often problematic) & accessible manner that the masses can relate to.

Look at what happens in Ramadan. Usulis go through treatises by 12th century polymaths (which are great), while modernists, salafis, progressives, and Islamists post flashy snippets of simplistic motivational Qur’an reflections. The masses congregate around the latter.

Despite his point, I don’t believe the solution is the simplification of knowledge. That happened in the West, and it was a disaster. In fact, it became a disaster just a few years into the process. We learned pretty quickly that weekend Ijaza retreats are catastrophic.

Historically, there was a convenient disconnect between the masses and intellectual discussions. Now with the democratization of knowledge, everyone has access to everything, so it’s hard to draw that line again.

I’m getting off topic.

Anyways, tl;dr

Usul and Kalam are not the reason we got colonized. They’ve been around for 1000+ years.