"This path-breaking book provides a philosophically deep explanation of Turkey's failure to show the compatibility of Islam with scientific progress and liberal democracy. Bacik reveals that major Islamic communities and tariqats in Turkey still preserve medieval notions of causality, nature, and science. He traces the genealogy of these views in the historical formation of orthodox Islamic theology around the tenth and eleventh centuries. By criticizing the orthodoxy, Bacik demonstrates possibilities of reform in Islamic thought." (Ahmet T. Kuru, author of Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment: A Global and Historical Comparison, and Professor, San Diego State University, USA)"This book delves deep in the idea of nature as an alternative perhaps more instructive analytical approach to critical questions around free will, causality and critical knowledge in Islamic hermeneutics. It is a significant contribution to the study of contemporary Islam and Muslim societies and will open up exciting spaces for important if at times uneasy discussions around contemporary Muslim politics". (Fethi Mansouri, Professor and UNESCO Chair, Deakin University, Australia).