Merhaba,

At first I would like to ask- is Sünnet the correct Turkish word for the Sunnah- the book describing details of Prophet Muhammad´s life? Are there any other possible words to use? I´m asking all these questions, because recently I´ve come to misunderstanding with a Turkish person when we talked about Sunnah.. I mean, perhaps my friend undestood well what they wanted to say, but I couldn´t understand them.. these are the fragments of the chat:

Me: Dün İslam tarihi dersinde eğitmen Sünnet  hakkında anlattı. çok sevindim

F: sevindin mi

Me: evet

F: korkmadın mı yada bilmem farklı değil mi << "were you scared  or I don´t know, different don´t you" << here I stopped understanding.. what is the "different" word in this phrase? What should I be afraid of? That´s why I asked my friend for explanation:

Me: anlamadım... korkabildiğimi neden düşünüyorsün?

F:sünnet ne demek << and at this point I realized I don´t understand anything ;/ Did they just asked "what does sünnet mean"? My friend is a Turkish Muslim I know this for sure, so how come they don´t know the word Sunnah? Is there another more popular word for the Book?

Me: bu türkçeye çeviri doğru olup olmadığını bilmiyorum.. sözlükte buldum. Arapçadan Sunna olarak gelen kelimeyi demek istedim. Hz Muhammedin hayatını belirten kitap

F: sünnet Hz Muhammedin yaptiği ve bize söylediği herşeydir << and now my friend was talking like he knew about Sunnah, so why at first they asked what it was?? I asked for further explanation:

Me: Biliyorum, ben öğrendim ama önceki mesajında sen ´sünnet ne demek´ diye neden sordun? 

F:sünnet ayrıca bi durum için kullanılır

o durumda Hz Muhammed in yaptığı bir şeydir

ama ondan belki biraz korkabilir insanlar

Please, help me to translate the last message from my friend, because I´m not really sure what they meant... It´s like they thought of other thing than the Sunnah I talked about... But why did they asked "Sünnet ne demek?" at first- that´s the most puzzling for me.. Please anyone explain to me the point of this misunderstanding

Sünnet(sunnah) has two meanings in Turkish

1.Sunnah is the way of life prescribed as normative for Muslims on the basis of the teachings and practices of Islamic prophet Muhammad and interpretations of the Quran (from Wikipedia)

2.circumcision

It is not a book as you see. It is a term. I guess he/she thought that you were talking about circumcision.

Oh, I see my mistake. I referred to Sunnah as book, because I realize it must have been written somehow, but that´s true.. probably the storage of Sunnah consist of more than one book

So, my friend´s question: "sünnet ne demek?" should not be translated as "what is sünnet?because I don´t know" BUT more like "what do you mean by sünnet?" is that right?

So, now as for translation of my friend´s last message:

"sünnet ayrıca bi durum için kullanılır

o durumda Hz Muhammed in yaptığı bir şeydir

ama ondan belki biraz korkabilir insanlar"

Now, after you cleared out my mind I understand it as:

"Sünnet is also used for a situation(?)

In this case it is something that Great Muhammad did

but it is a thing that some people are afraid of."

Is that correct?

That situation is circumcision. He tries to say circumcision is sunnah too. But some people are afraid of it.

I hope you understand now.