However, sociology studies showed that while typically the same offenses were being committed in the city, these disputes did not make it into courts like in other cities because there were strong and well-established social control mechanisms such as clan and tribal relations that ensured that disputes were settled among the concerned parties without resorting to judicial mechanisms. Thus, since strong social control mechanisms were in place in Muş, the crime rates would seem lower than in other cities. The settlement of disputes in this manner would decrease the costs to the state as well as economic and social costs. Indeed, when it came to crimes against property and life, the rate of these crimes was very low in Muş. Therefore, the dispute settlement mechanisms that are functional in Muş and which formed the references of social life in the street should be regarded as beneficial. However, sociologists studying this subject concluded that the low crime rates were the result of “the surviving feudal relations in the region.”Crime rates are increasing. The economic crisis, social pathology, shocks to the family structure, magazine culture and the encouragement and aestheticization of illegitimate relations, which are glorified by the media, erode our social life. The number of those who go crazy, who beat their spouses or children, who rush to divorce for trivial reasons, who grow indifferent to their close relatives and even to their parents or other people who are dependent on them or who refuse to assume responsibility is increasing. Even in the smallest disputes, people may draw knives or rush to use pistols, and even murders may be committed. The increase in the number of situations involving adultery, prostitution and other sexual crimes is another matter.
Neither laws nor law enforcement authorities can prevent this tragic collapse. Society is deteriorating in line with postmodernist perceptions, but nothing is substituted in place of that which has dissolved. The traditional codes that prevent crimes from happening or disputes from growing further and the social control mechanisms relating to history, a clan or a tribe can maintain their impact, but modern sociology (and, of course, social scientists) scorn them as archaic structures.
In this case, sociologists are obviously making a serious assessment error. In our past, particularly after Islam was introduced to these lands -- Syria, Iraq, Anatolia and Iran -- no feudal relations could exist. The Western forms of relations between serfs and feudal lords did not exist in our history. For this reason, it is impossible to make sense of the social developments or events in this country by looking at them from the perspective of feudalism’s legal relations concerning land, as seen in the Byzantine Empire or continental Europe. The effort to describe feudalism as part of traditional life in Muş or Anatolia is not only a grave material error but also an act of humiliating or disparaging the past of this country and the people who are part of this past.
There is no and has never been any connection between the history of Islam and feudalism or the modern state that has sprung to life from this feudalism. As the modern state formed and traditional society was transformed into a nation, law was completely centralized. The people who led a life that was dependent on soil were oppressed by feudal lords in the past and by absolutist states or administrations in modern times. In the West, the struggle has always been in the form of individuals seeking greater freedoms or societies trying to create civilian autonomous areas in the face of the top-down pressures.
On the other hand, the civil law in the history of Islam is civil, and public law is different as it is today. Law, be it public or civil, is made by civilian mujtahids (scholars of law). Through the agency of legitimate and reputable scholars, Islam accepts social control mechanisms as reality and takes necessary measures to ensure that this reality does not lead to breaches of law. For this reason, örf (authentic traditions and customs and established social practices) is strong in Muslim societies as it derives its strength and legitimacy from religion and legitimate scholars.
As modernization policies become centralized, established social practices and customs start to be discredited. The modern state and modern nationalism disintegrate these traditional textures, replacing them with a cumbersome bureaucratic tutelage with everything expected from the central administration.
