The Concept of Bitad and Hurafa in Islamic Thought

Abstract

The concepts of Bid’at and Hurafe represent an important problem in the history of Islamic thought. The Bid’at is a religious term. It characterises the act of adding new ideas to or subtracting them from orthodox conventional understanding of religious rituals or creeds. Thus, Islamic scholars, gave special attention to this issue. As to the word of Hurafe, İt means to accept and to transform the ideas normally regarded outside religion as if they are part of religion or in the boundary of religion. It is possible to point out to many reasons, which may form the sources of the Hurafe emerged in Islamic thinking and life-style. Among these are mainly the deficiency of religious education, perception of local traditional values, customs and practices, as sacred, poverty and other psychological factors. It can be argued that the best way to overcome the problem of Bid’at and Hurafe emerging in society is to increase the effect of religious education