Engaging with Babanzâde and Kant on the Relationship Between Religion and Ethics

ABSTRACT Babanzâde Ahmed Naim, a philosophy professor during the late Ottoman Empire and early Republic of Turkey era, was an influential Muslim thinker known for his defense of the significance of religion in various contexts, notably in relation to Immanuel Kant's moral philosophy, which he considered the Western moral framework most akin to Islam. While Babanzâde praised Kant's work and its foundation in rational reflection, he criticized Kant's moral philosophy for its perceived lack of attention to the relationship between religion and ethics. Yet Kant's philosophy does provide an account of this relationship. In this paper, I present Babanzâde's examination and critique of Kant's moral philosophy from his Islamic perspective. I then outline Kant's philosophy of religion and explore his account of the relationship between religion and ethics, with which Babanzâde was likely unfamiliar. I argue that, despite several important differences, their views on the relationship between religion and ethics converge in three significant respects.