Yitik Cennet: Ütopya mı Gerçek mi? Düşüşten Dirilişe Sezai Karakoç’ta Medeniyet Meselesi

This study aims to evaluate the conception of civilization that Sezai Karakoç tries to reveal based on his work titled Yitik Cennet (LostParadise), with its possibilities and limitations. Karakoç seeks the rebuilding and maintains the civilization that in crisis by establishing a new connection between Islam/truth and life, which will be established under the responsibility of intellectuals. According to Karakoç, intellectuals who relive the concrete Islamic ideal with its spiritual, social, political, economic, cultural, and aesthetic aspects will not be alienated from life, reality, and historical consciousness. In this sense, he places the situation or attitude of Islamic civilization on three main axes: The first, the metaphysical perspective that determines the theoretical basis; the second, the view of the world and nature as realism based on this perspective; the third is to surrender to the divine. The habitat that Karakoç's thesis will embody is the state. The state is, first and foremost, an idea, a form of ideals and virtues. Karakoç considers the political formation of this ideal state as a city-state based on particular virtues, as in Aristotle and Farabī. Karakoç's proposal is labeled with a lifestyle based on moral common sense, including achieving human metaphysical goals. Thus, a balance will be established between reason, and sensitivity; with this harmony, the possibility of rebirth will be found by making room for belief and morality.