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The Identity of Cypriotness and Differentiations In Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot Communities

by Mehmet Hasgüler, Ass.Prof. Dr., University of Canakkale

  1. MÜLLER CELKA et J.-C. DAVID, Patrimoines culturels en Méditerranée orientale : recherche scientifique et enjeux
    identitaires. 1er atelier (29 novembre 2007) : Chypre, une stratigraphie de l’identité. Rencontres scientifiques en ligne de la
    Maison de l’Orient et de la Méditerranée, Lyon, 2007.
    THE IDENTITY OF CYPRIOTNESS
    AND DIFFERENTIATIONS IN TURKISH CYPRIOT
    AND GREEK CYPRIOT COMMUNITIES
    Mehmet HASGÜLER
    Ass.Prof. Dr., University of Canakkale

ABSTRACT
In Cyprus, there are signs of a quest for a common Cypriot identity, which requires in-depth scientific investigation. Here, the aspiration for a common Cypriot identity will be analyzed from the point of view of both Turkish and Greek communities. The self-identifications, expectations and values that are seen to be part of the Cypriot cultural identity by the two communities will be placed within a conceptual frame of reference.
A fragmented political culture is one in which beliefs, values, traditions, emotional attitudes, sentiments, symbols and ideologies vary amongst groups within the society. In so far as the political system is concerned, differences are being reinforced and produced by such cleavages as history, geography, ethnicity, tribe, religion, and language. History has long been referred as the main source of existing troubles in Cyprus. It has been argued that the present difficulties of Cyprus’s political life stem, to a large extent, from the diversities of the historical past. The nature of such a diverse historical past has
given occasion to a bi-communal society, deprived of an emergent Cypriot national consciousness.

Cultural subnationalism is defined as “political assertions of self-aware groups within the state”. It is also to be noted that the political system in Cyprus was already fragmented due to the veto right of the Turkish Community or the establishment of two separate Communal Chambers. It is generally accepted that there is congruence between political culture and political structure, though complete congruence does not seem to be absolutely necessary for political stability in democracy. Political culture and structure are in a mutual relationship. They affect each other and they also constitute a political behaviour. In Cyprus, political behaviour has been affected more by values than by structure. The political structure has been given enough chance to live, grow, change, and affect political attitudes for a long time. The emphasis of this study will therefore be on values (political culture) rather than interests or the structure.

Amongst many studies concerning Cyprus, the issue of identity has remained as one of the vaguest items. The issue has become even more complicated with the increase in the number of relevant studies. This must have
a lot to do with the fact that identity is still in the process of being constructed.
The notions of identity and non-identity were amongst the topping discussion items in the unipolar
world of the post-1990 period when ideologies were turned upside down. The boundaries of these charming
notions which were created particularly by the new actors emerging as a consequence of the collapse of socialist
regimes were expanded through unending discussions. These discussions were so charming that they could even
go as far as proclaiming of the end of ideologies and the history. The discussions still continue with all its charm
like the atom splitting, with its smallest particles invested with identities. Cyprus had been mesmerized by this
charm at least fifteen years before 1990. As a matter of fact, the question of identity on the island of Cyprus is
one of the most sensitive movable assets. The question of Cypriotness has always been an old and popular
discussion item among the intelligentsia, yet these discussions are still far from being fruitful. The significance
1
and complexity of the matter can both account for this. The purpose of this essay is not to offer a solution to this
intricate question but to seek answers through novel questions.
Cypriotness as a phenomenon can be discussed in five different periods. The first is the Ottoman period
between 1571-1878; the second is the period of British Colonization between 1878-1959, the third is the period
of Independent Cyprus between 1960-1963 ; the fourth is the Ghettoisation period of 1964-1974 and the fifth is
the period of Schism in the aftermath of 1975. As suggested above, intensive discussions regarding the identity
of Cypriotness commenced after 1974. The underlying factor behind these intensive discussions was the war and
the fact that the island was divided. The Venetian and Phoenician periods prior to the Ottoman era can present
important clues and reference points to foster a deeper understanding of the question of identity. However the
history of the term Cypriotness is not even as long as the basic classification stated above. At the beginning of
1927 the governor of Cyprus, Sir Ronald Storrs commanded that the term Cypriot be used in official transactions
in government offices because he found the term “indigenous” degrading. The reason why this term was opted
was to create a new Cypriot patriotism in order to slash the sway of Hellenistic nationalism. 1
In order to come up with a definition of Cypriot identity, one needs determine the cultural similarities of
and differences between the two communities. For this, the concepts of cultural similarity and difference should
be contextualized in a given time frame. An accurate elaboration on the identity of Cypriotness calls for a
historical reading. For instance, how was the identity of Cypriotness positioned under the Ottoman rule? Before
the Ottoman reign, Orthodox Christians had inhabited these territories for almost fifteen centuries. The Orthodox
Cypriots claiming to have the final say on this historical heritage alone creates a Muslim Cypriot “other”.
Muslim Cypriots who came to Cyprus with the Ottoman rule were treated as guests on the island. At least a
period of a few centuries had to lapse for the Muslim Cypriots to develop a sense of belonging towards the
historical and cultural environment. The Majority of Muslim Cypriots were anyway “nomads in exile”. The
integration of Muslim Cypriots with Orthodox Cypriots was to a certain extent successful. However, once an
awareness of nationalism arose, the two communities were separated by the seditious enlightenment. Under the
Ottoman rule, the similarities of, and differences between, the two communities were welcome as richness and
perhaps that was the only period when Cypriotness could ever flourish on the island. Ottoman rule was also the
only period that the two communities co-exited in peace and harmony with no feeling of enmity against each
other. 2
Under the Ottoman rule, Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots converted their religions in massive
numbers which could be considered a historical phenomenon. However referring to these reciprocal conversions
as separate, isolated developments might distract us from the current context. Nevertheless one needs to be
aware of the political, economic and religious factors behind these conversions. But I believe that those
discussions are no longer relevant.
Religious, financial and political autonomy that was granted to the Orthodoxy Church under the
Ottoman rule enabled Greek Cypriots to become a more organized society and contributed significantly to their
enlightenment. The Greek Cypriots engaging in commercial activities and thus accumulating capital where led to
an earlier and faster nationalization process than that of the Turkish Cypriots. This situation cannot be explained

1 AN A. 1998, p. 34. 2
ÖZGÜR Ö, 1989, pp.17-22.
2
solely by looking at domestic factors. The Hellenic Revolution of 1821 and the subsequent freedom movements
contributed to this process. In this sense, the fast awakening and rise of nationalization during the time of British
colonization imparted the Greek Cypriot community a vanguard role and identity. There are merchants among
Muslim Cypriots as well. However it is not possible to say that their commercial activities are conducted in a
disciplined and organized manner.
The identity of Cypriotness is an embodiment of the anti-colonial movements during the last seven
decades in Cyprus and the reactions and counteractions of Cypriots. It is possible to say that during the first
years of these anti-colonial movements, Greek and Turkish Cypriots were on good terms. Untouched by the
process of modernization, disparate religious identities could co-exist in the common public realm; therefore
social unrest was almost non-existent. The new order established in the aftermath of the Second World War and
the consequent anti-colonial movements overwhelmed and beleaguered this underdeveloped island in an instant.
On the one hand were the Greek Cypriots who were able to keep up with the process of anti-colonial movement
for enosis and on the other, Turkish Cypriots, who reacted to idea of enosis and demanded the partition of
Cyprus. As a consequence, while the Greek Cypriots became the symbol of anti-colonial movements, Turkish
Cypriots happened to represent the resistance block.
“Cypriotness” is a concept which was referred to by those aspiring to bring together and create a
rapprochement between the two communities after the dramatic division of the island in 1974. New Cyprus
Association which was founded on 19th March 1975 under the leadership of the Cypriots aiming to reunite the
divided island is the most typical example of such an initiative. The association provided a joint platform for
those who pursued the common goal of raising the awareness of Cypriotness. However this was a belated
attempt made out of despair only after the division of the island. Needless to say, “Cypriotness” cannot act as a
sponge to absorb the historical and cultural predicaments of the tiny island, mobilize sufficient number of people
and neutralize the exuberant zeal of nationalism. The colonial past in Cyprus and diverging reactions of the two
communities against this process precluded this concept from becoming an umbrella term during modern times.
There are a few fundamental reasons behind it. Cypriotness was torpedoed by the British during the dismantling
of colonialism in order to perpetuate their status quo. Thus, the British ensured staying clear of the matter by
inciting the two communities against each other during hard times. The second reason is the fact that Greek
Cypriots chose to carry on the struggle on religious grounds and aimed at achieving enosis (annexation) with
Greece instead of true independence3
. The third reason is the fact that the chances to amalgamate the two
communities throughout the process of independence were disregarded. The nationalist-religious Hellenic
mentality which relegated the status of Turkish Cypriots who were an heir to the Ottoman heritage merely to that
of a guest on the island and significant disparities in religious perceptions of the two communities can also
account for this. While Turkish Cypriots were secular, Greek Cypriots were devout Orthodoxies. The major
policy-makers in the Republic of Cyprus and its aftermath were the priests.
Western countries and Turkey could recognize the presidency of a priest, Makarios of the nascent
Republic of Cyprus where Muslim-Turkish Cypriots were also co-founders. In the modern sense of the word, the
construction process of the Cypriot identity commenced with the First Republic and could last only three years
until December 1963 ending in disillusionment. The Greek Cypriot rulers being reactionary in their religious
perceptions, was one of the main reasons of the failure. Religious, political and financial centers of power

3
MAVRATSAS K. V 2000, p. 39–55.
3
amongst Greek Cypriots could not tolerate the co-existence of the two communities in the Republic of Cyprus.
Of course Turkish Cypriot militant nationalists and influential people from the finance world who took
opportunity from the existing situation cannot be excluded from the picture. From the perspective of the Turkish
Cypriots, their attitudes could be interpreted as an endeavor to preserve their identity and personality against the
Greek Cypriot religious and political centers of power who were self-seeking and hence denied the Turkish
people the right to live. On the other hand, from another perspective, those attitudes might also be read as
disproportionate and provocative reactions. The birth of the Cypriot identity in the modern sense of the word
could be traced back to the foundation of the Republic of Cyprus. The attempt by the Greek Cypriot political
elites to try and greatly amend the constitution of the common state by political coercion marks the onset of this
still-born identity. The conditions under which Cypriotness would be constructed could last only for three years.
In other words, instead of reaching a common denominator, the two communities clung tightly to their ethnic
identities and took the risk of engaging in a conflict.
Discussing the question of identity merely in the light of the aforementioned factors runs the risk of
taking some aspects for granted. Therefore one needs to consider some other elements which constitute the
identity of Cypriotness. The common culture of lethargy, which the geography and unfavorable climate
conditions dictate, is one such crucial factor. The extended summer season and extreme warm temperatures
resulting in 4-5-hour idle time during the day have created this common culture for Greek and Turkish Cypriots.
Due to the extreme and unbearable temperatures in summer and the rules imposed during the British colonial
period, a “siesta” culture emerged, which exists neither in Adana nor Mersin, two southern provinces of Turkey.
This is the invariable positive similarity between the two communities dictated by the local climate. The other
positive commonality is the culture of tolerance typical of the Mediterranean people. The culture of
entertainment based on eating and drinking is one of the first and foremost elements that bring together the
islanders. It is well-known that when it comes to eating and drinking, the two communities were never at
loggerheads with each other. While they have an identical taste for food, their intentions and perceptions differ.
These positive similarities play only a minor role in the formation of the Cypriot identity. The major factors
which determine the minor ones are unfortunately negative. For instance, within the Greek-Cypriot decisionmaking pipeline, the church has the final say. Minister of education cannot be appointed without consent from
the church. From the assignation of the university president to the approval of a marriage act, benediction of a
priest is crucial. While the influence of the church penetrates all areas of life, Turkish Cypriots visit the mosque
only at religious festivals, which differentiates the communities further from each other.
When it comes to understanding of democracy, for Greek Cypriots, the status for the church is
incomparable to even that of the British Queen. The church is not only a traditional but also a political and
economic actor. Particularly the church, called Kykko, operates like a huge company. Kykko has investments in
many fields and its revenues are entirely exempt from tax. For Turkish Cypriots, this tradition is inconceivably
anachronistic. This in fact is only a small example of the spiritual structure determining the political structure in
the south. Both sides of the island are rapidly moving towards the judgment that “heaven is hell” since the gates
are open; therefore it is implausible for the question of identity to fully establish itself before these basic
problems are overcome. Cypriot identity has been an insincere unification tool wielded by the leftists on both
sides of the island. Especially majority of AKEL supporters have had no problem whatsoever with the priests
and their practices. AKEL is even a party in the power struggles amongst churches and tries to gain influence.
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Historically speaking, AKEL has always avoided a possible conflict with the Church.4
The Secretary General of
AKEL Demitri Hristofias is the Speaker of the Greek Parliament and has to garner support from the priests in
order to become the President in the future.
There are significant shortcomings in the literature about the “re-emergence” of Cypriot identity within
the scope of the EU membership. For example, during the analysis of the two communities, tremendous
differences in the way political phenomena are prioritized were deliberately taken for granted. These differences
however call for a comparative approach and a scientific explanation. As has been stated above, priests are at the
top of the decision-making hierarchy in the Southern part. Political parties follow suit. Military is ranking the
third within this hierarchy. In the Northern part, however, army is ranking the first in the decision-making
hierarchy, just like in Turkey. Political parties come second. Clergy rank the third. This difference alone leads to
a remarkable variation in the sense of belonging, which is an important element in the formation of Cypriot
identity. This significant variation in the sense of belonging, which attach the two communities to political life,
lays bare the hollowness of Cypriot identity. Looking at political problems utterly from a religious-military
perspective precludes an objective and detached approach. The biggest problem in Cyprus stems from the fact
that the Greeks cannot dissociate their religious identities from politics and in the same vein, the Turks cannot
act independently from the army. The main reason behind the collapse of the Republic of Cyprus was the fact
that the Greek Cypriots gave the reins of politics to a religious leader. Of course today priests can no longer be
elected as a president yet it is not at all wrong to say that politics is still not freed from the influence of the
priests.
By looking at the discussions regarding the Cypriot identity in the TNRC Parliament, one can see how
primitive and poor the evaluations are. The discussions are based on unfounded and arbitrary assessments.
Focusing on the cultural similarities between the two communities with the aim of understanding the reasons
behind these would not only minimize complications in the matter but also lead to more sensible discussions. In
fact, there is a very big and important difference between the political cultures of the two communities. The
Greek Cypriot Community’s culture is very much idea oriented while the Turkish Cypriot Community’s culture
is order, reality and might oriented.
One of the most serious problems besetting the Turkish Cypriots is the deployment of settlers from
Turkey to the island. Turkish settlers and Turkish Cypriots differ from each other in their, social, cultural,
religious and economic perceptions. This dual structure becomes even more problematic when Turkish Cypriots
want to shape their own destiny. After 1990s, one repercussion of the Cypriot identity in the TNRC was
“otherization”. Cypriotness was perceived as something superior to Turkishness, hence an orientalist approach
towards the settlers. This approach manifested itself particularly after 2000s with the EU membership process
and peace negotiations gaining momentum. Of course there is a unique culture and lifestyle in Cyprus. However,
being unique was mistaken for being superior and the other being inferior, which, as a matter of fact, is a form of
racism. Especially Turkish Cypriot leftists adopt this humiliating stance when trying to stress the identity of
Cypriotness. It is true that those unable to stand on their feet and sustain their lives immigrated to Cyprus from
miscellaneous cities in Anatolia. However the attitude towards them has to be seriously questioned and
challenged. The chauvinism of Cypriotness is presented as a form of patriotism which isolates and humiliates the
oppressed and the proletarian coming from Turkey. This can also be explained with the fact that these miserable

4
HASGÜLER M. 2007, p. 356-389.
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people who were not very prominent in Turkey became visible within the Cypriot population and were
manipulated by political figures. The labor force coming from Turkey, numbering between 60 and 100 thousand
people are exploited extremely especially in the construction sector. Nobody is willing to ponder over these
problems. The politicians who ascended to power by espousing Cypriot identity have no serious social security
policies or control mechanisms tailored for the immigrant workforce. The northern part of Cyprus has become an
entire construction site. All the “ex” peace-lovers who used to defend Cypriot identity became paunchy
constructors and beaurocrats. Their biggest concern is to sell out as soon as possible the villas which they have
built on lands owned by the Greek Cypriots and deposit their earnings to off-shore banks without having to pay
any tax.
In the light of these explanations, it is apparent that there are multiple social structures in the north. One
can analyze this multiple structure from the perspective of legal and political citizenship. There are two groups
of Turkish Cypriots, to start with: authentic Turkish Cypriots and second-comers. This highlights the problems
stemming from the dual population structure in the TNRC. In the aftermath of 1974 people from Turkey were
mobilized in order to make up for the labor shortage. During this population transfer, the administrators in
Northern Cyprus granted citizenship to massive number of immigrants which led to an eradication of Turkish
Cypriots’ political will. Consequently, according to the Annan Plan, a significant portion of the TNRC
population was recognized by the UN as Turkish Cypriots. Thus, they were not only entitled to vote in the
referendum but also become legal citizens of the prospective United Cyprus. On 27 April 1992 Spanish deputy
and the reporter of the Committee on Migration, Immigrants and Population of the Council of Europe, Alfonso
Cuco, drew up a report concerning “The Demographical Structure of Cypriot Peoples”. Then on 7 October 1992
the Committee accepted recommendation number 1197 and urged that the population of the island be determined
and reliable data be collected.5
However in Northern Cyprus a reliable census under the supervision of
international organizations could not be conducted yet. That’s why there are no reliable data concerning the
population structure in TNRC. This situation does not seem to improve in the long run. Due to the number of
Turkish settlers transferred from Turkey and the resultant dual population structure in the TNRC which
contradicts the raison d’être of the Cypriot identity, Turkish Cypriotness seems to be under serious threat. Hence
the internal identity crisis in the northern part of the island.
In the light of the examples stated above, it is possible to say that the Cypriot identity is yet to form. To
start with, there are two main ethnic and national communities living in Cyprus: Turkish Cypriots and Greek
Cypriots. There are differences and similarities between the two. When these two communities define
themselves to each other, they refer to the terms “Turkish Cypriot” and “Greek Cypriot”. When they are outside
the island, say, when Turkish Cypriots are in Turkey or Greek Cypriots in Greece, they define themselves only
as “Cypriot”. So the two communities introduce themselves as “Cypriot” before third parties. In the past,
Cypriotness was associated with the common denominator between Turkish and Greek Cypriots’ lives. Now it is
high time to take the internal divide in northern Cyprus into account in addition to the differences between
Turkish and Greek Cypriot communities. Thus, Cypriotness can no longer be discussed under the same old
preconceptions. Under these circumstances, Cypriotness refers to a non-existent phenomenon. There is an
identity crisis which stems from the internal dynamics of Northern Cyprus. The main reason behind this is the
presence of two types of Turkish Cypriots who have divergences in their cultural, social, economic and religious

5
An A. 2002, p. 320-321.
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perceptions. On the one hand are the Turkish Cypriots, who tied their destiny eternally with the island and on the
other, those who feel only partial attachment to the island. This generates tension amongst Turkish Cypriots.
Although this fact has been taken for granted, this is a reality for Turkish Cypriots. Due to this internal divide
and the tension, Turkish Cypriots cannot exercise the right to self-determination properly.
The ideal and right solution for the Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots is to come together under the
same roof as is the case in France or Belgium. However one cannot expect this to take place overnight. It is also
evident that the Cyprus issue has lost its popularity since the Annan Plan was shelved. Especially after massive
number of people from the two communities started face-to-face interaction as of 23rd April 2003, the relations
were expected to deepen and thrive. It was not the case. Contrary to expectations, the yearning for the past and
desire to live together began to fade with the Annan Plan referenda on 24th April 2004 and the will to co-exist
has since lost ground. Needless to say, this has a lot to do with the leaders’ ambition to hold sway and establish
their domination. Another factor to account for this is that the Greek community, with the EU membership card
in their hand, did not want to share with the Turkish Cypriots the poor social-economic-cultural standards they
were living under. The borders were opened reciprocally, yet with the Annan Plan a long-term “psychological
Green Line” was drawn between the two communities. In other words, Annan Plan will be remembered as a
psychological barrier in the future relations between the two peoples. After the opening of the border gates and
the Annan Plan referenda, the Greek Cypriots acceded to the EU. Initially the Annan Plan, and then the EU
membership set the two communities apart. This is also a determining factor in the bilateral relations on the
island. The gap between the Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots which result from only the Greek side being
an EU member is the culmination of the rupture which has existed for long. By embracing this island state
without Turkish Cypriots, the EU raised further doubts about its putative identity of being a Christian club in a
dangerous way. The EU is in no way concerned with the Cypriot identity on the island. It has restricted its
definition of identity to that of citizenship. As a matter of fact, the EU, as the chief architect of the division of the
island, confirmed its position by siding with the Christian Cypriots. The EU recognized Turkish Cypriots,
namely the Muslims, as its citizens individually, yet proscribed them as a society from being an actor in the state
which they were the founders of. In a way, the EU otherized the Turkish Cypriots vis-à-vis the Greeks robbing
them of the power to rule . This way, the EU continues its hypocritical policy and tries to make up for this
attitude with different proposals from time to time. It is possible to define the crisis which has been created in
Cyprus by the EU as the repression of identity. In line with this approach, the EU recognized and portrayed
Muslim and Turkish Cypriots as its ordinary citizens rather than social actors, hence turning the Cyprus issue
into an excruciating and incurable problem.
The last point I would like to talk about is the hypotheses that country or homeland- based patriotism in
Cyprus is going to supersede and even replace ethnic-religious nationalism. These hypotheses were inspired by
the post-Second World War decolonization movements which emerged from country-based nationalisms. If you
take the national independence movements in Africa as an example, you can find country-based nationalisms
behind them. African countries such as Zaire, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, Ethiopia and Burundi are among this
group of countries and fit the definition of country-based patriotism. Now that Cyprus is a former British colony
like most of the African countries, an “island-centered” idea of homeland and patriotic nationalism are supposed
to flourish just like it was the case in post-colonial nationalisms. However, due to some missing links and
disregarded elements, these expectations are bound to be disappointed. What are those elements that have been
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disregarded? True, Cyprus was formerly a British colony like the African countries. However, the nationalisms
in Cyprus are different from nationalisms typical of underdeveloped countries. Presently, both Turkey and
Greece are small countries in the process of economic development, yet at different stages in history both nations
played very important roles, founded empires and changed the course of history. Comparing the ethnic
nationalisms in Cyprus, which might be considered as offshoots of the two grand nationalisms, to homeland-orcountry-based nationalisms in Africa, only because they share the common history of being British colonies and
hoping that such a patriotism which transcends other nationalisms will set a model for Cyprus, is nothing but
denial of the reality. This is a superficial and reductionist perspective. This does not spell that homeland-based
patriotism cannot emerge in regions which have an ancient history and a long-established civilization. For
instance, in China and India, vast experience accumulated through thousand-year-old civilization and state
culture transcended ethnic and religious references and paved the way for country-based nationalisms. In the
same vein, in Switzerland and the USA, which are two prominent examples of social contract model, countrybased patriotism could find ground. However, the geography of Cyprus neither boasts the experience of
thousand-year-old civilization which might be conducive to an overarching consensus among different
ethnicities nor is the outcome of a social contract process like the historic examples of Switzerland and the USA.
Nationalism which sets ethnic and religious references aside and focuses solely on homeland-patriotism
is hard to find ground; it is even harder in a country such as Cyprus, which only recently gained its
independence. On a small island which has been beset with ethnic conflicts, historical and religious rivalries
between the two communities, life becomes more challenging and these challenges need to be recognized by all
parties involved. Today’s nationalism is marked more by ethnic and religious references than secular and
economic ones. These factors impart nationalism its true color. Artificial nationalisms, such as identity of
Cypriotness, which denies the aforementioned factors are doomed to flounder. There are examples of this.
Country-based nationalisms can survive in countries like China and India which have a long-established
civilization or in places like Switzerland and the USA, which are successful examples of the social contract
model. Cyprus belongs to neither of these groups. You cannot import these blueprints to Cyprus. Moreover, all
of these countries acted on their free will to establish their system. In that sense, Cyprus, which can be likened to
pre-arranged marriages or imposed engagements, does not have much in common with those countries. The
millennium-old rivalry between the two peoples and religions continue to prevail on the island. The aim should
not be to rule out these two ethnicities and belief systems or camouflage them with a superficial cover, but to try
and find an equilibrium between these two cultures. One of the cultures being in minority is faced with the
danger of getting assimilated or degenerated. In such a case, sufferings similar to those of the African Americans
or Puerto Ricans will be experienced. That’s why this situation will continue to pose serious problems for the
Greek culture, which represents the majority, as well.
REFERENCES
AN A. 1998 Kıbrıslılık Bilincinin Gelistirilmesi,( Evolve of Cypriotness Conscience), Galeri Kültür Yayınları,
Nicosie(nord), p. 34.
AN.A. 2002 Kıbrıs Nereye Gidiyor? (Where Does Cyprus Go?), Everest Yayınları, Istanbul, pp. 320-321.
8
9
HASGÜLER M. 2007 Kıbrıs’ta Enosis ve Taksim Politikalarının Sonu, (End of Enosis and Partition Politics in
Cyprus), Alfa Publishers, Revised and Updated Fifth Edition, Istanbul, p. 356-389.
MAVRATSAS K. V. 2000 Aspects of Hellenic Nationalism in Cyprus, (traduc. Ulus Irkad), Galeri Kültür, Nicosie
(nord), p. 39-55.
ÖZGÜR Ö. 1989 “Cultural Aspects of Cyprus Problem”, Cyprus Law Review, July-September 1989, p.17-22.

 

Turks and Human Potential Pool

by Ömer Özkaya, Turkish Writer
08.03.2016
If Capitalism is what is claimed to be a global dominant power, why isn’t England, the cradle of Capitalism, a global power? If the rich resources and vast lands that make it a global power, then why is Russia as big as a continent not a global power?

The claim that the Ottoman Empire disintegrated because it did not establish a racial rule is not true. China, Japan, and Germany would not be sinking, invincible, if race-based dominance were sufficient to maintain dominance. The coexistence of people of the same race is not a sufficient condition for domination.

If a group of people were released into the open field for the purpose of an observation, they would be seen gathering around a tree. He has millions of fans. The Gospel of Jesus, St. Moses also has the Torah. People gather around the organizations under which they will be shadowed.

Until the last century, being a global dominant power was possible by taking over the management of organizations. The British were the most skillful in this regard, and they maintained their dominance by keeping the top administrations of the structures they built on line or religion or later captured under their control. However, when they could not perceive the change in the philosophy of dominating the world and adapt to the new situation, they lost their place to America. America has no past to learn from, it is trying to walk by learning from the mistakes of England and the long-lived empires…

The powers that have emerged victorious from wars and struggles know that they cannot completely destroy those who have been defeated, and that they will continue to exist. Therefore, there is no complete and continuous dominance among the dominant powers, but there is alternation of victory.

The secret of “long” domination, though not permanent, is in the observance of merit. State administration in the Ottoman Empire was open to the world, Istanbul; He saw the world as a human potential pool. The Ottoman Empire met its needs from this global pool, provided that it recognized its identity. Many Grand Viziers and Pashas were not actually of Turkish origin, the door of the Ottoman Empire was open to anyone who knew their business well.

These devshirme knew how to be a martyr as much as they knew how to manage and war. In the Battle of Ankara, when he and Yıldırım fought against Timur’s army, it was seen that as many people died as martyrs on the battlefield at the end of the battle, as many people had entered the battle alive. Therefore, in order to be a global power, it is not enough to employ the best, you must also put forward a world understanding that will be accepted by wide segments. Having a global personality is possible by having a global idea.

British political historian Arnold Toynbee, the Ottoman devshirme system “Taking a lamb from the flock, making it a shepherd dog and giving it the task of protecting the flock against the Wolf is a feat invented by the Turks.” he says.

In the times when the cultural level of the Muslim East was superior to that of the Christian West, Turkish intellectuals were right to be content with only Islamic culture, but the situation began to change after the Renaissance. The West rose, while the East descended. England infiltrated the Ottoman government organisms, differentiated the parts that made up the whole. The Ottomans could not find a solution to this.

Apparent and real are different. He who believes only what he sees and hears and does not use his mind cannot understand the game. Not understanding the game is losing.

 

Turkey and Intellectual Diversity

by Ömer Özkaya, Turkish writer

Junes 16 and 22, 2016

Is there a conflict between protecting the diversity of ideas and public order and national security?

Intellectual diversity has an important place in the future of people and societies. It is important for national security to grasp the value of our country’s intellectual richness, to protect these riches and to protect them in the long term. Because the national security of the country, sooner or later, is based on human potential.

One of the important factors in Anatolia being one of the oldest civilization centers in the world is that ideas suitable for producing civilization are naturally found here in terms of type and diversity. In other words, the role of intellectual diversity in this geography is high in the emergence of Anatolian civilizations. Westerners used the diversity of ideas compiled from this geography in their intellectual improvement and construction studies. Because the genes for the new high-skilled ideas that are tried to be produced by breeding or construction work come from the roots or relatives of these ideas in their homeland.

In this respect, Anatolia, the cradle of ideas, is the long-term assurance of the world.

In general, all types of ideas in a country are considered to be the wealth of both that country and the world. Also important are the variants and “wild” relatives of these ideas. Because local varieties and “wild” species are gene reserves of ideas with strategic value. Therefore, the protection of intellectual diversity is a kind of insurance. The greatest importance of this geography for the world is the intellectual wealth it hides, and its most important natural resource is not its mines and petroleum, but the genes carried by these ideas.

Perhaps the most important aspect of intellectual wealth is the long-term value of preserving diversity and their habitats. It is difficult to protect intellectual genres and varieties only with museums, folk dance teams and personal efforts. It is necessary to protect and maintain the environments in which they emerged and developed as a whole.

States need a constant diversity of ideas in order to continue their intellectual breeding work. Local ideas and even their deformed forms are the raw material for the diversity required for breeding programs. This resource, whose importance is not appreciated except by sociologists, is slowly drying up, and local intellectual varieties are decreasing and disappearing from year to year.

Intellectual varieties that have survived and adapted to the conditions of the environment in which they emerged and developed for thousands of years are very important. However, most of the time the yield levels are not as high as the breeding and engineered varieties. Varieties that are generally bred by foreigners, which provide what is desired in the short term, quickly replace local and national varieties of ideas, and local varieties that are not utilized disappear over time. However, in order to sustain intellectual breeding programs and develop new ideas that are resistant to changing world conditions and emerging problems such as terrorism, it is necessary to protect the raw material resources of local diversity.

Developed countries maintain their rule by using people against people and ideas against ideas in critical regions, especially in this geography.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fikir çeşitliliğini korumakla asayiş ve milli güvenlik arasında bir çelişki var mıdır?  Fikirsel çeşitlilik, insan ve toplumların geleceğinde önemli bir yer tutar. Ülkemizin fikirsel zenginliklerinin değerini iyi kavramak, bu zenginliklere sahip çıkmak ve bunları uzun süreçte korumak, milli güvenlik açısından önemlidir. Çünkü ülke milli güvenliği, er geç beşeri potansiyele dayalıdır.

Anadolu’nun dünyanın en eski uygarlık merkezlerinden biri olmasında önemli etkenlerden biri, medeniyet üretmeye uygun fikirlerin tür ve çeşitlilik bakımından burada doğal olarak bulunmasıdır. Yani Anadolu medeniyetlerinin ortaya çıkmasında bu coğrafyadaki fikirsel çeşitliliğin rolü yüksektir. Batılılar, fikir ıslah ve inşaa çalışmalarında bu coğrafyadan derlenen fikirsel çeşitlilikleri kullanmışlardır? Çünkü ıslah ya da inşaa çalışmalarıyla üretilmeye çalışılan yeni yüksek vasıflı fikirler için gerekli genler, bu fikirlerin anayurtlarındaki köklerinden ya da akrabalarından gelir. Bu bakımdan fikir beşiği Anadolu, dünyanın uzun vadedeki güvencesidir.

Genel olarak bir ülkedeki tüm fikir türleri, hem o ülkenin, hem de dünyanın zenginliklerinden sayılır. Ayrıca bu fikirlerin değişik çeşitleri ve “yabani” akrabaları da önemlidir. Çünkü yerel çeşitler ve “yabani” türler, stratejik değeri olan fikirlerin gen rezervi durumundadır. Dolayısıyla fikirsel çeşitliliğin korunması bir nevi sigortadır. Bu coğrafyanın dünya açısından en büyük önemi, sakladığı fikirsel zenginlikleridir, en önemli doğal kaynağı da, madenleri ve petrolleri değil, bu fikirlerin taşıdığı genlerdir.   Kaynak: Ömer Özkaya. Fikirsel Çeşitlilik. 16 Haziran 2016. Güneş gazetesi.

Fikirsel zenginlikler konusunda belki de en önemli husus, çeşitliliklerin ve bunların yaşam alanlarının korunmasının uzun vadede olan değeridir. Fikirsel tür ve çeşitlerin, sadece müzelerle, halk oyunları ekipleriyle ve şahsi çabalarla korunması zordur. Bunların ortaya çıkıp geliştikleri ortamları bir bütün olarak korumak ve devam ettirmek gerekir.

Devletlerin fikir ıslah çalışmalarını sürdürebilmeleri için sürekli olarak fikir çeşitliliklerine ihtiyaçları vardır. Yerel fikirler ile bunların deforme olmuş halleri dahi, ıslah proğramları için gerekli çeşitliliğin hammadde kaynağıdır. Toplumbilimciler dışında önemi pek takdir edilmeyen bu kaynak, yavaş yavaş kurumakta, yerel fikri çeşitler yıldan yıla azalıp ortadan kalkmaktadır.

Ortaya çıkıp geliştikleri çevrenin koşullarına binlerce yıl boyunca dayanıp uyum sağlamış fikirsel çeşitler, oldukça önemlidir. Ancak çoğu zaman verim düzeyleri, ıslah ve dizayn edilmiş çeşitler kadar yüksek değildir. Kısa vadede arzulananın alınmasını sağlayan ve genellikle yabancılarca ıslah edilmiş çeşitler, hızla yerel ve milli fikir çeşitlerinin yerini almakta, faydalanılmayan yerel çeşitler ise zamanla kaybolmaktadır. Oysa fikri ıslah programlarının sürdürülebilmesi, değişen dünya şartlarına ve terör gibi ortaya çıkan sorunlara karşı dirençli yeni fikirlerin geliştirilebilmesi için, yerel çeşitliliğin hammadde kaynaklarının korunması gereklidir.

Gelişmiş ülkeler, başta bu coğrafya olmak üzere, kritik bölgelerde, insanları insanlara karşı, fikirleri fikirlere karşı kullanarak hükümlerini sürdürüyorlar.

 

 

Turkey and Humanity

The articles of Celal Tahir, one of our living and groundbreaking thinkers, which examine the threats and opportunities that Turkey may face in the context of humanity, humanity and globalization, guide to new expansions.

• Celal Tahir. The Place of Turks in the World in the Age of Globalization http://yenidunyagundemi.com/kose-yazilari/kuresellesme-cagindaki-dunyada-turklerin-yeri-1176.html

• Celal Tahir. What Corona Thinks About: Conspiracies in the Modern World http://yenidunyagundemi.com/kose-yazilari/coronanin-dusundurdukleri-modern-dunyada-komplolar-1219.html

• Celal Tahir. Ill Humanity http://yenidunyagundemi.com/kose-yazilari/hasta-edilen-insanlik-1201.html

Celal Tahir, one of our living thinkers, takes the functioning of our mental structure, which he determined from the book Turkish Contemplation History by Hilmi Ziya Ülken, to a further stage. The issue mentioned by Hilmi Ziya Ülken is very important. “This harmonious duality based on monism is the collective philosophy of the Turks. Just as Iran’s national (collective) philosophy was a combative duality. As we have seen above, although its roots are rooted in the old Turkish cosmogony from the Chinese and Sumerian ways, Iran’s particular social conditions and life have transformed the harmonious dualism that emerged from monism there into an indisputable combative dualism. (History of Turkish Contemplation / Hilmi Ziya Ülken, YKY 3rd Edition: Istanbul, March 2007 p.30)

Celal Tahir, on the other hand, wrote an article based on this determination, and as a result of his analysis with the concepts of meta-synthesis, ancient dialectics and harmony, he reached the conclusion that “Turks have the potential to be among the main actors of the globalization era”. Source: Celal Tahir. The Place of Turks in the World in the Age of Globalization http://yenidunyagundemi.com/kose-yazilari/kuresellesme-cagindaki-dunyada-turklerin-yeri-1176.html

The fluidity of contact with water explains the Turks being a nomadic tribe, the Turkish states being an umbrella state, the adaptability of the Turks, creating a synthesis and transforming both themselves and other tribes. West represents settled societies and space, Turks represent nomadism and time. (Celal Tahir)

Rene Guenon examines the deeper causes of all this under the title of “Abel and Cain” in his work “The Sovereignty of Quantity and the Signs of the Age”. “In nomadic societies, time-related arts such as music, performed with the human voice and/or instrument, were predominantly developed. On the other hand, in sedentary societies, arts such as painting and architecture developed predominantly in connection with the space.“ Source: Celal Tahir. From Elif-Ba to Alfa-Beta http://yenidunyagundemi.com/haber/elifbadan_alfabetaya_-1914.html

The Place of Turks in the World in the Age of Globalization

by Celal Tahir, Turkish scholar-writer

25.12.2019

Muslim-Turks should/will transform their own culture to a certain extent by synthesizing European/World culture. This should happen when Muslim Turks aspire to reform the destructive-destructive aspects of modern Western civilization with the method of reform. With the correction of these destructive aspects, Western civilization and the world human community can move towards the direction preached by the divinely originated essential principles as much as possible. The candidate nation to do this is Muslim-Turks, and the country is Turkey, and the state is the Republic of Turkey. Rather, it is the Turkish diaspora. In this case, European/World culture will also be synthesized and transformed to a certain extent. As a result, it is possible to develop a new European/World culture under the umbrella of Muslim-Turks.

This is a job that Turks have done and succeeded many times in history. This is one of the most important pillars that allows the Turkish diaspora to be possible.

GLOBALIZATION IS A REALITY

In other words, globalization is not just a policy of choice of certain groups, groups and gatherings in the world, it is the general course of the world. And from this aspect, it is inherently present in modern capitalist Western civilization from the very beginning. This is the main feature that distinguishes the western civilization from other civilizations known on earth. Western civilization has tended to surround and dominate the earth first physically with geographical discoveries etc. Of course, if the issue is limited to this, it can be thought that it is similar to the universal empire claim goals and efforts of Alexander the Great, Rome, the Ottoman Empire, and Genghis Khan, but it is not limited to this.

Because the modern western civilization, with the utopias and ideologies it has developed over its metaphysical background based on Protestantism and deism, also destroys and destroys the mentality and mental world of the humanity of the earth. And after this destruction, it significantly determines and defines the mentality of the earth’s humanity. In this way, it dominates other social structures by physical force and beyond that, by transforming their minds. and it maintains this dominance in various ways until today. This is globalism itself. What is happening today is the idea of ​​shelving the nation-state model, which aims to break up traditional state structures and seems to fulfill this goal, by the dominant groups of the dominant modern civilization.Because traditional state and social structures have been significantly disbanded or transformed. The Ottomans crumble; replaced by a destabilized Balkans, Caucasus, Middle East and North Africa.

The main reason for the conflicts and chaos in these places is the inability to replace the Ottomans. Ancient China transforms especially after Mao’s Communism. India evolves into another medium through direct colonialism. The tribes and races of Africa and the new world, namely Australia, New Zealand, North and South America, were enslaved and eliminated and transformed. At this stage of the process, the dominant elements of the earth are now aiming to move towards the goal of a single World. Therefore, at this point, the nation-state model, which was necessary and functional for them before, has lost its validity. It is desired to be replaced by ancient Athenian-type city-states. This is the root of the conflict in this area.

Globalization has evolved into another medium, both real and objective. Because, for example, communication is largely outside the control of states. It is therefore not possible to talk about a postal service and monopoly as in the past. Today, many states have to be content with only watching, listening and recording electronic communication and correspondence.

It is also possible to replace the dollar with a universal currency. This nationality and non-religious money will be, should be. This may not be the current cryptocurrency bitcoin. However, a virtual currency, which has another international validity instead of the dollar, is one of the developments in the near future. This is the sign of globalization, it is fundamental and it is itself. In this case, the feature of the states’ right to print money, which is one of the signs of monetary sovereignty, seems to be eroded step by step.

Therefore, the majority of the world’s states will either keep up with this course of the world or some of them will gradually erode and wither away. In fact, many countries are not states, they are just countries. It is possible to predict that they will act as a sub-unit of the UN, with their transformation in terms of form and nature. After such a transformation, the UN will be one step closer/closer to its goal of a single world state.

THE WORLD IS ON THE THRESHOLD OF A TRANSFORMATION PROCESS, MAYBE INSIDE

The processes that the world has been through in the last ten years are different from the periods of change and transformation seen in the modern world almost every hundred years. Today’s world aims and tends to make a leap beyond the industrial revolution. Yes, there are conflicts and transformations in the current international relations regime. However, this situation can make sense when considered in connection with the leap trend in the world system. Because, far beyond the technological inventions that enabled the industrial revolution to take place, technological developments have been and continue to be experienced. By supporting these technological developments, the modern world will experience a comprehensive transformation process in the social and cultural fields, starting with the technological and economic fields. This is the main agenda of the dominant world groups.

However, the visible and ongoing agenda of our world concerns the countries and people of the world who are outside of this first agenda. The dominant world groups aim to bring a significant part of Asia and Africa out of history and to open the gap between them, by realizing a digital revolution in the next twenty or thirty years.

THE WORLD IS ON THE LIMIT OF AN AGE THAT WILL PUSH THE LIMITS OF DREAMS

The dominant groups of the world are preparing for a technological, economic, cultural and social transformation similar to the industrial revolution and its social consequences, and are preparing the world for it. If they make a leap at this point, the people of the world will be divided into several categories. In the top category, there will be the elite group dominated by the white man and the countries and states where this elite group has settled, maybe a few intermediate layers in between and countries that have fallen out of history.

The dominant groups of the world have an expectation from the Islamic world and Turkey at this point. This expectation is that they do not take an objection rhetoric and an actual attitude against these developments. Because this technological, economic and social leap and transformation, which today’s civilization thinks of, whose philosophical-metaphysical background is Deism, contains aspects and elements that are not compatible with the divine order. Therefore, it is not and will not be possible for the divine religion and its members to remain indifferent to and approve of these developments. This is the reason for the increasing and diversifying operations towards the Islamic world and Turkey, which is the natural leader of the Islamic world. The difference of this from general, actual, religious, political, economic reasons and considerations should also be sought here.

These transformations to be experienced will appear as a complete dystopian development and leap. Because the rulers of the earth, who promised some utopias to humanity about four hundred years ago, have now given up on utopias, their ideals and visions of heaven, and they have given up on their promises of heaven. For this reason, thinkers and preachers walking around pretending to be false prophets do not seem to exist anymore. Here is the reason why such great thinkers have dwindled in the last fifty years and should be sought here.

TURKS HAVE THE POTENTIAL TO BE AMONG THE MAJOR ACTORS OF THE GLOBALIZATION AGE

Turks have an envy, which is also in the form of organization, establishing many states in history and their abilities. This is to adapt to the geographies where the Turks established a state, and to reach a higher synthesis with other peoples and tribes there. It acts as an umbrella in the states they established, and in the upper synthesis reached, everyone continues to exist in other tribes, but they transform from the old state to another upper state. This is true for Turks. Everyone trades with each other, but it’s not just about shopping. A base is built by synthesis in context. The ability to achieve such a synthesis is like a prominent and prominent trademark among Turks. This also has a connection with the existence of the ancient dialectical conception of the Turks. This issue, also mentioned by Hilmi Ziya Ülken, is very important.“This harmonious duality based on monism is the collective philosophy of the Turks. Just as Iran’s national (collective) philosophy was a combative duality. As we have seen above, although its roots are rooted in the old Turkish cosmogony from the Chinese and Sumerian ways, Iran’s particular social conditions and life have transformed the harmonious dualism that emerged from monism there into an indisputable combative dualism. (History of Turkish Contemplation / Hilmi Ziya Ülken, YKY 3rd Edition: Istanbul, March 2007 p.30)” (History of Turkish Contemplation / Hilmi Ziya Ülken, YKY 3rd Edition: Istanbul, March 2007 p.30)” (History of Turkish Contemplation / Hilmi Ziya Ülken, YKY 3rd Edition: Istanbul, March 2007 p.30)

The dialectical understanding of the Turks is clearly differentiated by the dialectic of ancient Iran, which considers opposites to be opposites and always in conflict with each other. It overlaps with the understanding of Iran’s dialectic and modern western dialectics. Is there a connection and connection with Iran’s being with the West against the Ottoman Empire? This should also be looked into. The dialectical understanding and understanding of the Turks, which comprehend the contrasts as a harmony, is the background of the emergence of this understanding of the state. It is the background of being able to gather under one umbrella administration in very different geographies and tribes. The Turks were not largely assimilated, but they adapted. They were in contact with other tribes. This synthesis is an understanding and culture. All the elements that make up this synthesis undergo a transformation.

Because Turks are dependent on the state, not the land. They keep the place they go to and establish a state. Not being tied to the land is directly related to the nomadic nature of the Turks. Because of this nature, Turks come into contact with settled tribes and become in harmony with them. Often they do not assimilate. In fact, this is the capture of a new civilizational stance, at a higher point of synthesis, when considered helically.

GLOBALIZATION AND THE TURKISH DIASPORA

Today, it can be said that Euro-World Turkishness and Islamism continue a kind of semi-nomadic life peculiar to today’s world. The first and especially the second generation has not returned. And it is now clear that there is no widespread reversal. Today, the third or even the fifth generation lives in Germany. In fact, these generations have one foot in Germany and the world, and one foot in their homeland, Turkey. Yes, their statements have one foot in Europe and the other in Turkey. In fact, there are many people doing business in Europe and Turkey. This situation continues in the fifth generation as well. It can be said that they are trying to maintain their semi-nomadic life, especially in European Turkishness and Islam, by groping in modern Western civilization. The concept of homeland is also important in this context for Turks. Turanian tribes pursue a kind of conquest-opening policy.And they occupy the new land not only by war but by many cultural means. They do not destroy the tribes of this land. They give and receive things by mingling with them. This is not just about shopping. A high culture is built. This is the feature of the Turks to form an upper civilization by intertwining with various tribes and nations. It has to do with the ability to adapt. It is the ability to reach a synthesis by adapting to this new homeland.

With their historical existence, the Turks have almost made the world their home. When they develop ideas-projects about today’s world, it will be possible for them to become a global actor.

Because the Modern Western Civilization is a civilization that emerged after decades of sectarian and religious wars in continental Europe and can always create itself by inventing the other. And despite all the considerations and theoretical debates, it is not a pluralist and multiple structure. The existence of Turks and other minorities in Europe and Turks and more Algerians in France is an issue. Will it be able to solve this situation within the framework of the European Union project of Continental Europe? This is highly doubtful, and the future of the EU is also doubtful. At this point, the issue and project of the Turkish diaspora gains importance. If Turkey, with its historical traits and characteristics, can present a project in front of humanity on a global scale, where humanity can live together, it will be very beneficial for Europe and will be a center of attraction.

EUROPEAN AND WORLD TURKISH IN A GLOBALIZATION WORLD

European Turkishness will be another form of Turkishness. European Turkishness will/has differentiated from Turkish Turkishness. This is just like the differentiation of Ottoman Turkishness from Central-Asian Turkishness and the differentiation of Anatolian Islam, which was shaped around it, from Rumelian Islam.

There is a serious power and burden on European Islam at the moment. European Turkishness and Muslimness, world Turkishness and Islamism will be the work of the 2, 3 or even 5th generation Turks and Muslims, especially Muslim-Turks.

Muslim-Turks should/will transform their own culture to a certain extent by synthesizing European/World culture. This should happen when Muslim Turks aspire to reform the destructive-destructive aspects of modern Western civilization with the method of reform. With the correction of these destructive aspects, Western civilization and the world human community can move towards the direction preached by the divinely originated essential principles as much as possible. The candidate nation to do this is Muslim-Turks, and the country is Turkey, and the state is the Republic of Turkey. Rather, it is the Turkish diaspora. In this case, European/World culture will also be synthesized and transformed to a certain extent. As a result, it is possible to develop a new European/World culture under the umbrella of Muslim-Turks.

This is a job that Turks have done and succeeded many times in history. This is one of the most important pillars that allows the Turkish diaspora to be possible.

 

Living Turkish Scholars: Prof Dr Erol Göka

Prof. Dr. Erol Göka was born in 1959 in Denizli. Father of five children. From the School of Medicine. A scientist who grew up in Turkey’s scientific and intellectual life from Ankara. He specialized in a field of medicine that studies the human spirit. This field is ‘Psychiatry’, which was included in the ‘Asabiye’ at first, but later separated from there together with neurology and became a separate specialization branch.

Prof. Dr. Erol Göka is an intellectual, worker for ideas.

He is a scientist who takes the fields of morality, identity, society, people and religion of Turkey as his own issues. It is possible to see a methodology that always illuminates in his writings and works. It is a connoisseur’s pen that produces ideas mostly in the field of psychiatry.

He is a teacher with his own theories. In addition to his many scientific and academic activities such as newspaper articles, conferences, and symposiums, the teacher, who added the publication of the latest book ‘Heart’ to his many books, is now living the most productive periods of his life.

He is a name that permeates his writings and exists in Turkey’s intellectual and cultural life with his diagnoses, determinations, analyzes and theories. There is a constant effort of writing and ideas.

He is one of the rare names given two awards by the Turkish Writers’ Union for his work.

He is the owner of the views that drip from the retort of the window of experience and ideas.

Source: http://www.erolgoka.net/3347-2/

Islam today?

By A.Tarık Çelenk, Turkish Writer

  • September 23, 2020

Islam today?

When we were young, our elders used to describe the reason for the collapse of the Ottoman Empire as alienation from Islam. No matter what anyone says, the crisis of the Islamic world, which started with the stagnation of the Ottoman Empire, continues to deepen today. Although this crisis is understood with its military and political appearance at first, it feels like a civilization crisis inside to our bones.

The sad thing is that some of the material and spiritual leaders of the Islamic world continue to pretend to be dead, deny, takfir or heroism (hamaset) in the face of this situation. They almost do not care about the lost human resources and future generations. Unfortunately, they continue to be respected by the majority of the society. Such sources still complain that the Shari’a is not fully implemented, that the Islamic caliphate and state have not been fully established, or that most of the people cannot become their followers. Physical and social realities do not prefer to confront unless they threaten the power of such environments. What happens is to the values ​​and future of the Islamic world.

However, from the time of the Prophet A.S. to the 16th century, there were many good things to be said about humanity and conscience in the Islamic world. In the Islamic world, the richness of thought belonging to those centuries and the information architecture that will establish thinking no longer exist. The raw provincial and tribal culture, which has developed since the modern era in Islamic sociology, manifested itself especially in the dominant umera and ulama. Most of the Islamic countries in the world, which have energy resources and riches, are struggling in the fields of education, human rights and thought. The social ground continues to look for evil in the other instead of holding a mirror to itself.

The Muslim intelligentsia, which led the field of thought until the 16th century, had some movements from the 19th century until today, but it was not enough. At least, we have difficulties in producing the appropriate intelligentsia that will follow and codify the West, let alone being followed, today, which follows the theories of knowledge from us.

We need to see that the source of all practical troubles is doctrinal. The problem with the basic doctrine is in the information architecture of the relations & positioning between Revelation and reason or in other words Beyan (Quran and sunnah), Burhan (Determinal-Physical/mathematical world) and Irfan (discovery-spiritual saving); belief, thought and practice is manifested in practice as not being able to be defined correctly.

I think it would be more conscientious to try to understand the alienation of the young generation, who see the most practices of today’s umera and ulama and who want to associate themselves with the current developed world, from the understanding of corporate religion, instead of the understanding that they already have discord in their hearts and they have gone astray. The content of this article is about the historical consequence of these pursuits.

In order to facilitate the reader’s work, the topics are continued with subheadings, interesting confrontations and examples from daily practices. It has been tried to give references and references without being too tight. I particularly recommend this article to young people who like to think and question, to conscientious religious people and to readers who have corporate religion questions.

Only Fiqh & Kalam and Islam

“After all this, (O mankind), if you are in doubt about the truth of what We have revealed to you, ask those who read the revealed texts in previous ages!” Dolphin 10/94

Unfortunately, the commentators and researchers of the Islamic world, who preferred to stay on the borders of fiqh [1] and kalam, were not very interested in archeology, although in the holy books, the last holy book being the Qur’an, extraordinary events in the ancient period were often emphasized. They accepted this field as a colonial science when there were Rum 9 and Umran 82, leaving the field dangerously to spiritualists and UFO researchers.

I visited the son of a well-known Naqsh sheikh who took refuge in our country from the Syrian civil war with a friend of mine. He was a madrasa scholar. His and his family’s literary and large library was impressive. From the floor to himself, “Can there be life or life in space?” When I asked him, first of all, he showed me his Kurdish and Arabic books consisting of the fields of fiqh and kalam that covered the walls of the whole hall. He threw it away, saying, “There is no such thing in these books, since there is no such thing.”

It was years ago. He was in ecopolitical activity. An elder from the Old Rightist community, who was prominent in foundation activities, was influenced by Ecopolitics studies, but he had some hesitations in his mind. He had asked me: Tariq, you are doing good things, but where is Islam in that? should you explain?

According to Seyit Kutba, because Greek philosophy and logic, Iranian thought and mythology, Jewish superstitions and Christian metaphysics were mixed in the Qur’an over time, “true Islam” was moved away. Today, most of the views in the Islamic world are in this center. At the same time, ignoring the ancient common heritage of humanity and squeezing religion between the patterns of a Salafist understanding strengthens the understanding. Are we going to ignore the legacy of the messengers (nabis) of Allah, who gave messages in different disciplines, exceeding hundreds of thousands other than the last Prophet, even if they were degenerated?

Why do we not care about the ideas of Muslim philosophers?

“In this new phase that mankind has come to, it has gained vitality and urgency to find and mobilize that perfect mind and reasoning power that does not separate science from wisdom and faith (p.10).” Roger Garaudy

Rene Geunon (1886-1951) was, to me, the Ghazali of the 20th Century. After receiving a good education, the French philosopher settled in Egypt after experiencing Catholic, occult, spiritual and Far East experiences and became attached to Abdurrahman Eliş El-kebir, the sheikh of the Şazeliye sect, he died there too.

The accumulation of truth-seeking in Geunon, his experiences in the physics and metaphysical world, his answers on different subjects from Theosophy to Blavatsky, from Atlantis to the symbolism of the Cross, his criticisms from the ancient world to the post-modern world, and his decision on Islamic mysticism were an invaluable treasure for the answers to our basic questions. “The Sovereignty of Quantity and Signs of the Age” was important to me. Sacrificing the last copy I have, I sent the book to a friend of mine, who is the manager of one of the foundations, which claims to live Islam completely. When I called him excitedly and asked about his impression of the book. “I did not even look at this book because there is no Islam in this book.” I think he understood akaid, fiqh, kalam and mysticism from Islam. It happened to my book. In a way, this situation was also a description of our understanding of Islam.

No one cared that Garaudy studied philosophy at the Sorbonne, earned a doctorate from the USSR Academy of Sciences, and became a world-class philosopher. It was important for political Islam that only a heavy cannon had joined the ranks.

In fact, what matters is Rene Geunon‘s theosophical, occultist and philosopher; It was Roger Garaudy’s belief and submission to the God of the last scripture, in the light of his own experiences, as a materialist philosopher. That was the main point to understand. However, there was so much need for a correct understanding of these experiences in the Islamic world.

Is everything as we know it?

In the same way, a friend of mine sent a message accusing the Shia sect of takfir (blaming it with blasphemy). I reminded him that Caferi Sadik, the important mujtahid imam of the Shia, is an important link in the Naqshbandi chain. Caferi Sadik was deeply involved in the subject of esotericism, and was considered an authority on dream interpretation and spiritual hierarchy explanations. He was in the first founding circle of both Nakshi and Shiite. His son Ismail was also the founder of the esoteric Ismaili sect of Shia. I also expressed the similarities of our current understanding of Sufism with the issues of Seyitlik, the spiritual realm management hierarchy (owner of time-polarity-gavsity) and innocence, which are an integral part of Kurdish Naqshbandiyya.

In this sense, we can say that the Sunni populist understanding of Sufism and the understanding of the innocent imam and mujtahid that Shia has built since Caferi Sadik quite overlap.

Sheikh Esad Erbili is generally known as a member of the lineage of the Erenköy Naqshbandi community and as someone who was persecuted in the Menemen case. Not many people wonder about his depth of negotiation with European occultism, his unique perspective in the course and his duties in the Second Constitutional Monarchy. Elmalılı Hamdi Yazır, who lived in the same period, can only interpret the true religion, the Qur’an, and the II. He comes to the fore with Abdülhamit’s fatwa. Not many people know and wonder that Elmalılı Efendi first learned French to interpret and then published a translation of P. Janet’s history of philosophy.

Influence of Pagan Symbols

We were discussing the individuation and liberalization of Christianity in the West with Sara, an American, from whom I tried to take academic language and philosophy courses [2] . Of course, when discussing Christianity, we could not discuss the influence of paganism [3] . The subject was based on the Muslim Red Crescent and the widespread moon symbolism on the flags of nation states. This worried me a little.

A familiar symbol that comes to mind when evaluating the influence of paganism in Judaism and Islam; The most prominent goddess in the pagan-pagan culture of pre-Islamic Arab societies (ignorance period) was the Moon goddess [4] . It was understandable that tribal-nomadic nations such as the Arabs produced goddesses such as the moon and the sun during the pagan period. In fact, even the states that became Muslims along with Islam attributed their cosmology to holiness this month. NSare used in symbols. This metaphorical approach was an interesting approach to understanding the cultural effects of paganism that have reached us today, focusing on the Islamic world.

It is still a matter of debate whether the history of humanity developed with a linear acceleration or whether it progressed intellectually on the remnants of superior civilizations. Nothing before the 7th century BC has been clarified. For this, it seems that there is a need for the development of underwater archeology or the discovery of new “Göbekli Tepes”.

Are Awliyas and Philosophers Cure for All Troubles?

In our history, we know that the people who are known as spiritualists from time to time are on the side of many decision makers from Sultan Avcı Mehmet to Abdülaziz and Abdülhamit. However, the patronage of these individuals could not stop the rapid collapse of the Ottoman Empire in the physical realm.

We assume that the majority of the society, including us, the sheikhs and people of adequacy, have open spiritual lives, and that they can sometimes be aware of the invisible world at the level of direct observation. For this reason, we take their opinions and suggestions very seriously in our daily life and career life. Although it may be considered reasonable for this business to stay around, it is no longer reasonable for competent religious decision makers to make binding guidance on international relations, recent history and political agenda issues, including security.

Since our childhood, we have always sought morality and truth. But where; We searched for it in ideologies, right-wing, nationalism, Islamism, prayer, sheikhs, dervish lodges, intellectuals, philosophers or philosophy.

When we became disillusioned with ideologies, we turned to religion, became Islamist, and it didn’t work. This remained rather dry, we went in search of the perfect man and the way. We have benefited from them in terms of morality and maturity. We saw that they also exhibit serious human weaknesses in some aspects, we turned to intellectuals and philosophers. With al-Ghazali‘s irony, the philosophers’ inconsistency on fundamental issues of existence was clear. However, there were also very suitable roadmaps and methods for questioning compatible with human dignity and “how we should think”.

Problems of Our Sufism

It is a separate discussion topic how much the spiritual belief, pleasure or resilience of the people of gnosis or Sufism have caused other determinal reality and philosophy to be neglected. It is stated that the awe of the intuitive observation made by the true Sufis through discovery will prevent interference in someone else’s or other’s business. However, unfortunately, this is not the case in the popular cult understanding.

Years ago, a dervish whom we visited frequently when we were at university stated that his sheikh would declare his Mahdiness as soon as possible and that the Antichrist would appear soon. The only condition for transcending the gate of spirituality was the sheikh, who was represented in his person, and his unconditional surrender to his own Naqshbandi gate. Under these circumstances, a group of fellow cadets who believed in him invited their regiment commanders to join the Mahdi, and when the commander offered them to leave the place and to save themselves with a small disciplinary penalty, they refused. They were expelled from military students and remained without a scholarship. The same dervish and an ex-military student who was expelled from among them saved an Armenian uncle who was about to commit suicide on the Yedikule train tracks and later brought him back to life as a dervish. Years later, the authorized dervish declared his independence and indirectly declared his Messiahship.

Although it is difficult to explain the institutional aspect of Sufism in the life of the Prophet, the moral individual practices in his life are quite congruent. The institutional understanding of Sufism, which emerged a few centuries after the Hijrah, did not find much response in the Arab temperament and sociology, but it was highly adopted in Turkish, Persian, Indian and Kurdish societies.

In the initiation [5] , which is based on the vocal- Qadiri and silent- Nakshi dhikr tradition, Hz. Ebubekir-silent and Hz. It is claimed that the spiritual hierarchy was shaped by the basic sect structures, which are connected to the lineages extending to Ali-vocally, and the cosmological hierarchy (polarity-gavslik) doctrine of Imam Cafer Sadik, one of the founders of Shiism.

It is undeniable that Sufi and cult structures have served the moral maturation of people, the consolidation of social infrastructure, culture, art and aesthetics in the Islamic world for centuries. However, the messianic-apocalyptic dilemmas that fell over time, the beliefs of the renewer of religion (disputed hadith) sent once in a century, and the practical identification of the Sheikh as the Shiite innocent imam have always remained as question marks.

It is undeniable that the development of Sufi methodology, rituals and institutions were influenced by ancient cultures such as Shaman, Mazdek, Indian and Egyptian throughout the process. Contrary to the predecessors, this situation is a situation that should not be denied in terms of the oneness of humanity and the ancient heritage of the Prophet, but only to be understood. The subject is a subject that needs to be understood in detail. For the purpose of this article, as in the first practical example given above, the problem is that of discovery, intuition, spiritual intoxication, or intuition, of setting the correct boundary to physical or social reality.

While Catholic sects established universities such as Georgetown or Yale, which were founded by Jesuits or Franciscans, and high schools such as Saint Joseph or Saint Benoit, sects and foundations in the Islamic world did not gain the ability to establish such institutions.

In the Middle Ages, the libraries of the monasteries affiliated to the Vatican had rich bibliographies ranging from pagan to Islamic sources. These laid the groundwork for the Renaissance and the schools in question. However, we cannot say that the libraries of the madrasahs, which constitute the sources of shariah education of the sects, have a richness and tolerance in this context.

Our experiences of sheikhs and lodges, the reality we live in, have provided us with tangible and livable clues about the existence of an other world far beyond our perceptions. This situation has led us to the misconception that these competent people can also have the common sense of guiding in technical and social fields.

The developments experienced in recent years, the dilemmas of the sects on issues such as the problem of conscience, the ignorance of some of the lessons such as murakaba, their inability to raise mature people and their politicization have started to make their place in the existence equation a matter of debate. [6]

Pursuing the Answers of the Ulema?

What is the meaning of life? What are the differences between non existence and nothingness? What is truth, is it possible that truth to break down? What are the limits of individual will? How can we make sense of eternal will? In the Islamic world, does religion consist entirely of sharia, mysticism and kalam? Is it possible to distinguish between zahir and esoteric? Where are the movements and methods such as occultism, spiritualism, mysticism (spiritualism), esotericism, mysticism, heterodoxy (internalism) in religion or do they lead to truth (in my opinion, tawhid)? What is the right balance in terms of reason, transmission and intuition (discovery)?

With another example, are all kinds of events in the reality of life, from birth to death, in scientific cause-effect relationships (property-witness-public realm)[7] or as angels responsible for all natural events (malakut-unseen-order realm)? we will define. More importantly, how can the relationship between these two realms be established in the knowledge model?

With a simpler modeling; We left a glass of water in the sun and micro-organisms grew in it in 1-2 days. In the reproduction of these micro-organisms; Are only cause-effect relationships, determinal laws valid? Is the freedom of our own will completely free in the universal will, as Mutazilah says? What is the role of the metaphysical realm-angels in ending the life of living things with cause-effect relationships such as death? Will man’s adventure of changing nature end when he is enslaved by the biotechnological world-digital revolution invented by man, how can the nature of creation return to its essence? How could the issue of faith/belief be preserved in the digital universe of the future with the understanding of mysticism and fiqh adorned with the logic of the predecessor town madrasah? Most clergy, environmental problems, Why do such matters not deal with the wounds of the consciences of others or others?

The lack of interest in the answers to all these questions leads us to the point that the epistemology of knowledge and belief in the Islamic world is not yet fully understood or desired to be solved.

Do you deal with this type of mortal business?

For years, I have thought about why British researchers, especially from the 18th century, travel from Antarctica to the North Pole and even examine microorganisms. Except for a few people, no one has been curious about the microorganisms in Antarctica or even the archaeological remains in Anatolia. It is not possible to attribute this difference in vision to the fact that it is only due to the Greek understanding of cosmology and physics on which Europe is based.

The clergy and opinion leaders, who were limited to Medieval Fiqh and Theology, and who grew up in some of today’s madrasas with some predecessor sauce, seem to be incapable of conveying the Islamic world and thought in a global sense. In this sense, this tradition is not formed when the next one surpasses the previous one, but when the previous one blocks the next. While expressing this, adding that I defend the tradition of Fiqh, Kalam and Sufism outside of the Salafist understanding; In this mental framework, what is outside of us in the universe (in space) and challenging matters such as ancient history, archeology, philosophy will never come into the field of view of this understanding of Islam and will continue to leave plenty of questions.

Awareness of Former Muslims

As it is known, the search for answers to the above-mentioned questions on the axis of existence goes back to the 8th century in the Islamic world. In time, Christian and Jewish thinkers also benefited from the path opened by the efforts of the thinkers of the Islamic world.

A fundamental question was how the texts of the holy book, the Qur’an, and the hadiths, which had not yet recovered in the inter-tribal political turmoil, should be understood in different cultures in the new conquering geographies. Because it would not be easy to manage this geography where Hermetic Egypt-Harran, Gnostic (lore) Sassanid-Iran, Ancient Jewish, Hellenistic and Syriac-Chaldean cultures were intertwined.

The discussion that the verses of the Qur’an and hadith discourse can only be understood within the framework of Arab tribal culture, language, grammar, and syntax carries us from these days to those days.

When looked at, the grandchildren of Muawiya and Yazid were not as cruel as they were. As the Umayyads and Abbasids spread, they implemented the policy of Roman peace (Pax Romana). While settling in new geographies, they respected the established culture and values, based on generating consent. In the meantime, they have always regarded the beliefs and cultures of the Shia opponents as an administrative threat. In this respect, they often sought remedies against Sassanid gnosticism or manicheism. Their governments could not accept them as partners.

In this sense, it was quite reasonable for the caliph Me’mun to prefer the Mutezile sect. It is not known whether it was after Me’mun met Aristotle in his dream, but the rulers always encouraged those who tried to build an information system and a methodology of thought around the ideas and models of Aristotle, the model of Greek reason and logic manifested in an evidential (determinal-cause-effect) way.

The Effort to Islamize Ancient Knowledge

Aside from the interests and incentives of those in power, there was an urgent need for an epistemology to model the existence-based relationship between Reason, Revelation and even Knowledge in the light of the Qur’an and hadiths. Emphasizing mind and matter, Aristotle‘s works were the most suitable for translations and commentaries on Beytül-hikme.

Aristotle‘s classifications of physics and metaphysics and his understanding of logic seemed indispensable for Muslim philosophers and their successors who tried to build a theory of knowledge and method for the relationship between Reason and Revelation.

Aristotle‘s assumption of the eternity of matter challenged Muslim and later Christian and Jewish philosophers. From time to time, this is the eternity of the soul or unity in existence (a different understanding of pantheism), the claim that the creation of the World is not the basis of faith [8] , the theory of eternal creation [9], or accepting the universe as something that takes its existence from God rather than assuming it as essence [10].– although it was tried to overcome it with existence from existence, it was not very convincing for the people of the Book (monotheistic religions). In fact, al-Ghazali accused the philosophers not of the method they applied and their view of pure determinism, but of the unfoundedness of their conception of the Realm of Being, which was the basis of their views. These were issues such as the eternity of the world, that Allah will not deal with individuals, and that the resurrection will be with the soul, not the body. In addition, Ghazali examines nature through observation. He considered philosophers superior to theologians in terms of classification and logic of sciences. In this direction, over time, theology in madrasas intertwined with philosophy.

Farabi, El Kindi and Ibn Rushd (Averos) were very successful in the commentary of Aristotle. So much so that Thomas Aquinas, who approached the knowledge dilemma in Catholic Christian theology through Aristotle. He was greatly influenced by Avicenna and Ibn Rushd despite his opposition. Although he was excommunicated for a while, he was later declared a saint. A similar influence and process was seen in the Jewish philosopher Meymunides‘ construction of Jewish knowledge theology in Andalusia. In addition to Aristotle‘s rational knowledge theories, ancient Harran hermeticism also had profound effects on the gnostic and metaphysical approaches of these Islamic philosophers.

Especially since the beginning of the 20th century, Muslim philosophers have made efforts to Islamize the secular knowledge of the modern era. They focused on the necessity of constructing a new information system by understanding and codifying the determinism of the West. Raci Faruki[11], who especially took on the issue of Islamization of knowledge, should be mentioned here. We can mention BİSAV (Science and Art Foundation), which dealt with this issue institutionally in Turkey, which was later closed, and ISAR, whose activities continue.

Greek Isn’t Just Greek

Beyond these discussions, we must admit that the perception of the world and existence of the ancient Greek philosophers has never evolved on its own. It was highly influenced by the ancient Egypt, Harran[12] and Sassanid-Indian culture, especially via Alexandria, through wars or maritime trade. At the beginning of these is the belief-assumption of the eternity of the world or matter[13]. The influence of the hermetic Egyptian tradition is also evident in prominent Greek thinkers, such as Plato, Thales, and Pythagoras, who partially advocated gnostic-gnostic views.

There are basic reflections of mythology and epics in the formation of Greek thought. First of all, there was chaos in the universe in Greek mythology, Gaia, the God born from Chaos, gives birth to other Gods. This approach, in a way, forms the basis of a rational conception of the world based on eternal matter, cause and effect relationships.

Transition from Mythology to Physics

With the Miletus school, the transition from Greek mythology to Greek thought began. We can also call this the transition from Cosmogony (the meaning of universe creation) to Cosmology (the study of the working universe) or from linking natural events to mystical forces to cause-effect relationships – causality – to the laws of physics. We can say that Greek mythology is still in the Western world of culture, art and belief even today.

He attributes natural events, mythological or pagan belief to a hierarchical order, spirituality, entirely to mystical powers. Miletus school, on the other hand, put this hierarchical order aside and adopts an egalitarian cause and effect relations attributed to causation. The political components that made up the Miletus school were autonomous city-states governed by democracy. The Spartans were absent in this component.

However, we must also accept that the foundations of today’s Western modernity, profane (non-religious) and technical world were laid with the ancient Hellenic rationalism led by Aristotle. Muslim philosophers who gave importance to rational reality such as Andalusia-focused Ibn Rushd, Razi and Farabi also contributed to this.

Roger Bacon (d.1292), who is considered one of the first pioneers of experimental science, was greatly influenced by the English Franciscan philosopher Andalusian thought and guided by the principles he gained from Andalusia [15]. As we stated from the University of Paris, he was spreading the Andalusian point of view to Europe with Thomas Aquinas. He was doing this with his robe and headdress, which would later be used in universities. Roger Bacon [16] advocated trying to understand nature and adapting to it.

Look What These Heretics Do In The Dark Middle Ages

Western historians called the Middle Ages the Dark Ages in the 19th century, but in contradiction, the monasteries and monks of the medieval Papacy were like the basins of an intellectual ancient library. This resource formed the basis of the Renaissance movement when it received the support of families who organized the finance and banking system, such as the Medici families of the west. As of today, unfortunately, we cannot often talk about the ancient library resources of madrasahs or the believers who financed them.

However, another Bacon who would come after him, Francis Bacon (d.1626), would not have been so merciful in his view of nature. The British philosopher F. Bacon, who had important effects on the formation of the Enlightenment paradigm, was dreaming of a society that would constitute the last line of human domination over nature. In fact, the English philosopher and mathematician Newton‘s (d.1727) understanding of physics modeled with pure mathematics without any reason was reinforcing the Enlightenment, or in other words the profane (non-religious) age. Metaphysics would no longer be talked about as a subject matter, but as a question of knowledge after this time.

Islamic Philosophers Were Not Against the Spiritual Realm

Contrary to popular belief, Islamic philosophers, based on Aristotle‘s material-centered and physics-based world design, also made models in the sense of metaphysical wisdom such as the universal mind, inspiration, and spirit. In fact, Ibn Sina was accused of going to extremes in this area.

Under the influence of Avicenna, Fahreddin Razi and his follower Siraceddin al-Urmevi (d.1283) developed knowledge models that balance without denying the understanding of Transplantation, Reason and Irfani (mystical) knowledge. The thesis of Ibn Bace, who followed the path of Farabi, is interesting that the bliss achieved through the mysticism of Ghazali is actually pleasure, and that real happiness can be reached with the mind. Later, Ibn Khaldun also followed the path and methods of Farabi and Ibn Bace.

One of the well-known fundamental questions is whether we have a tradition of thought. The Hellenistic tradition of thought was formed and continued as a school. Thales (ca.6th century) Miletus school, Plato’s Symposium (Feast) or Aristotle‘s High School. In our case, it is like Toledo in Andalusia or Beytül-hikme in Baghdad. We cannot say that this tradition ended with the looting of Andalusia by the Catholics and Baghdad by the Mongols.

The existence of philosophy in the Ottoman thought tradition and madrasas within the framework of an Islamic search for existence and classification continued until the 16th century. Here we can remind names such as Davut Kayserili, Kadı Siracettin, Kınalızade Ali, Taşköprülüzade Ahmet.

I wish Fatih could be understood

Mehmet the Conqueror had created independent discussion platforms on the philosophy-theology-mysticism relationship called tehafüt[17]. We can see that Fatih was highly influenced by Ibn Rushd.

Katip Çelebi (d.1657), one of the Ottoman scholars of the 17th century, points out some negative attitudes towards Philosophy in the Ottoman Empire. According to Kâtip Çelebi, real scholars who reconciled religion and philosophy gained fame in the period from the foundation of the Ottoman Empire to the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent (1520-1566). However, on the other hand, Fatih[18] had built eight madrasahs called Medâris-i Semâniye , and had the teaching of Haşiye-i Tecrid and Şerh-i Mevâkıf recorded in his charter. However, in later periods, these courses were abolished in madrasahs[19]. While evaluating madrasas, we should not lose sight of their dependence on the political and social structures of their time.

Katip Celebi has extremely worked and tried

Katip Çelebi stated that there was a negative point of view towards mental sciences in the early periods of Islam, but that it should not be concluded that they are against religion based on this idea, and that in later periods, the importance of each science was realized and the tradition of philosophy and the religious sciences were combined with a methodological integrity and originality. He states that great scholars have been brought together. Gazzali, Fahreddin Razi, Îcî, Şîrâzî, Kudbuddîn Râzî, Taftezânî, Cürcânî and Devvânî are some of these great scholars. This understanding, which preserves the parallelism between religious sciences and philosophical sciences in the Ottoman education system, was decisive until the period of Kanuni, but later, by some religious scholars, mental sciences were excluded from the education system by saying “these lessons are philosophical sciences”. These efforts were largely successful and indifference to these sciences arose among the Ottoman ulama (Katip Çelebi, 1993: 9; Kutluer, 2000: 81). However, in his work, Katip Çelebî emphasizes that providing a methodological integrity based on “burhan” between religious and philosophical sciences is of vital importance in overcoming the bottleneck in the field of thought, science and education in the country (Kutluer, 2000: 81-82). Therefore, according to Katip Çelebî, the reason for the intellectual crisis experienced at that time was the departure from the requirements of the harmony that should be between mental and transmitted sciences (Kutluer, 2005b: 217).

Please Let’s Not Forget Jabiri in Our Age

Muhammad Abid al-Jabrii (d. 2010), an important recent Islamic thinker, says that if the Islamic world had not abandoned the tradition of Ibn Rushd and continued, it would not have experienced the current crisis. According to Jabiri, the West created the paradigm with Ibn Rushd and rebuilt the principles of the theory of knowledge, while the Islamic world prefers the viewpoint of Avicenna and Ghazali and determines that it is experiencing the current crisis. However, Jabiri never advocated the construction of an unconventional theory of knowledge – epistemology. He just advocated breaking this method, the “predecessor Arab mind”. Moreover, he argues that the cultural heritage of humanity, which has been ignored by the classical fiqh and kalam tradition, should be embraced without hesitation. The emphasis of Ibn Rushd on understanding or believing the relationship between the Unseen (invisible) and Shahada (“apparent”) realms from their own and independent perspectives is important. Because Ibn Rushd criticized Ibn Sina and his followers very harshly for explaining the world of the Unseen by using philosophy as a method. Ibn Rushd advocated keeping philosophy independent of religion. In this sense, Ibn Rushd stated that the Aristotelian philosophy of Being fell short of explaining creation and God in the absence of the concepts of time and motion.

Ghazali similarly argued that the methods of philosophers were incapable and baseless in explaining religious truths. The most important common point of al-Ghazali and Ibn Rushd was the unequivocal consensus on applying to Revelation where all the possibilities of the mind were used and its power was exhausted.

Considering Jabiri’s point of view, the superiority of the Andalusian philosophical tradition was that philosophy was founded on the discipline of mathematics and medicine, which was studied for a certain period of time. In the East, philosophy was based on the tradition of kalam. We should not neglect to mention the Ikhwan Safa school of thought/platform [20] , which started its activities in secret in Basra during this period (Xth century) . The Ikhwan movement categorized the spiritual realm as well as the material realm and modeled the relationship between them from the outward to the inward. They were accused of Shiism and Ismailism because of their similarities with the Shiite Ismaili sect, which also greatly influenced Sufism. Avicenna and Ghazali were greatly influenced by this movement.

Instead of Results

Since the 16th century, the Islamic world has not been able to produce Averroes, Farabis and Ghazali who will rebuild Islamic thought. Perhaps the political, social and economic grounds, or more importantly, the mentality, in which people like them could come to life, could never be formed.

Although the efforts of spiritual leaders and intellectuals such as Shah Veliyullah Dehlevi, Said Nursi, Elmalı Hamdi Yazır and Ferit Kam were noted in history, these and similar ones could not produce an original thesis beyond being a sincere effort.

The general consensus is that the development and competence in Islamic thought ended with the fall of Andalusia. R. Garaudy attributes this to the injustices, ill-treatment of others, and intimidation of Islamic intellectuals by the ruling caliphs under the influence of conservative Maliki fuqaha. Thus, the social structure remained unprotected, and the Almoravid and Catholic occupations were successful.

One of the dilemmas of the Islamic world is that Aristotelian logic and philosophical understanding have not been overcome. There are no ambiguities [21] , transitions or gray areas in the Aristotelian realm of ambiguity. Everything is either white or black. In a way, Aristotelian logic is philosophical Daltonism-color blindness. [22]

Ibn Khaldun said that geography is destiny, perhaps he said it incompletely. The organizational form of political administration stands before us as another issue that determines the destiny. While the Islamic world ruled with Kalam, Fiqh and Sufism for centuries, it could not develop a moral philosophy along with them, and it always neglected the conscience.

Aristotle‘s controversial definition of Metaphysics disappeared, as we have noted, since physics was defined by mathematical modelling. There was now a mechanical understanding of the universe and the flow of life. Along with Einstein, Heisenberg, and the philosopher Bergson, the mechanical and mathematical model of the universe was transitioning to the ever-changing Quantum universe model, in which subatomic particles were replaced. Inevitably, this new definition was taking its place again, as Bergson put it, “Metaphysics”.

Even in Darülfünun, the first university model established in the early 1900s in the Ottoman Empire, unfortunately, the Ptolemy (2nd Century) theorem, which defended the thesis that the Earth remained fixed, was taught, not the Galileo theorem (16th century) that the Earth rotates around its axis. It is rumored that even today, in some of our madrasas, the law of slavery is taught in volumes. Unfortunately, we cannot say that there are many scholars who can interpret and codify the tradition, especially in our country and in the Islamic world in general.

Today’s understanding of Kalam and Fiqh is that history is frozen. It is about the lack of continuity regarding the past and the future. In this sense, provincial Salafism has relatively spread into the understanding of Sufism and sects. However, this was not the case in philosophy and mysticism during the Islamic renaissance period in Andalusia and Baghdad.

Islamism in the world failed to experience democracy. While some ulema described democracy as blasphemy and preferred to keep silent and use it in practice, an intellectual and conceptual connection with democracy was never dreamed of. Islamism has practically become a second-hand instrument of the new paradigm of modernity, in which brutal power struggles are unprincipled, in which physics and nature are reduced to a mathematical model. The decline and reform processes led by the Ottoman Empire for the last 200 years were never considered as an intellectual, conscientious and moral problem. Apart from the viewpoint of some scholars regarding the struggle for fiqh, Islam has always been viewed as a concrete power struggle in the world and in the relevant countries. Religions, communities and sects that became Islamist aspire to domination. They broke with tradition without realizing it.

It is one of the fundamental mistakes that the progress or regression in the Islamic world is indexed entirely according to the dominance of military and political power. The focus of the idea of ​​reform in thought has locked us in our own dilemma. The fact that the reform efforts in our universe of thought are based on refusal, denial or persuading the other has created a separate dilemma.

Prof. Ahmet Kuru states, in his book that Muslim merchants supported Muslim scholars and philosophers until the 11th century, but after the state became centralized, the merchants lost their autonomy, so that the ulema remained completely dependent on the state, which was the reason for the decline in intellectual and commercial life [23]. In this sense, it becomes very difficult to say that the wealthy and ulama of the Islamic world are true bourgeois and intellectuals.

As a summary of the article, it may be appropriate to list the following determinations for those who feel addressed;

  • Islamic information architecture (epistemology) studies, which were striving until the 15th century, should be continued and improved.
  • Accordingly, the Islamic thought methodology and the construction of a new paradigm for all humanity should be established.
  • By enriching Kalam, Fiqh and Sufism with this infrastructure, a moral philosophy and a definition of Conscience should be developed for all humanity and creatures.
  • All religious education institutions should be updated so that they are open to all kinds of philosophical movements from the ancient period to the post-modern period and have the ability to comment.
  • Policies that would give the impression of recruiting followers to relevant political movements or communities from these institutions that would be open to universal competition standards should be avoided. These structures should be left autonomous and no world-class expenditure should be avoided.

It will take much longer to reproduce the issues in question, to elaborate them in academic language or to translate them into a book. This article has been written to tinker with consciences and minds, even if only with the titles and related summaries.

Photo: Masjid Pogung Dalangan

[1] Fiqh was once the name of all sciences. With the description of Imam Azam, it was knowing what was for and against a person.

[2] Larry Siedentop – inventing “Individual” The Origins of Western Liberalism

[3] Paganism is a form of belief that has its origins in the ancient nature religions of the world and is the general name of these religions. People who belong to these religions are   called pagans. (wikipedia)

[4] AL- Deity, Lunar Godness

[5] Spiritual savings-transfer

[6] http://faraszade.com/turk-tasavvufunun-bugunku-meselesi/

[7] Necmeddin-i Dâye, who, like Ibnu’l-Arabi, said that the outward of the world is property and the inward a kingdom, defined the kingdom as “the thing that makes things come into being” and by citing the verse that means “The kingdom of everything is in His hand” (Yasin 36/83). He stated that the truth of things is the attribute of trusteeship of Allah Almighty and that everything is permanent with it.

[8] According to one view, it is not possible to find a clear text in the Qur’an and Sunnah that the universe was created out of nothing/afterward. This result was obtained by interpreting some verses and hadiths. The Qur’an clearly states that the creator of the world is Allah, which both philosophers and theologians accept.

[9] IR Ibn Rushd, like philosophers argue that there are realms with God at the same time. Universe IR initial perpetrator (Allah) is actual. So seeing that I first offender (God) is eternal in this case his action should be sworn in.

[10] Ahmet Yaşar Ocak, “Life of Thought (14th-17th Centuries)”, p.189. Sheikh Bedreddin Varidat represents mysticism that has become philosophical with his work. In his work, he approaches the subjects with mystical interpretations on the basic issues of Islamic philosophy and kalam, such as Allah, prophecy, the hereafter, heaven, hell, spirit, angel, and the nature of the universe, with rational philosopher attitudes. According to him, God and the universe are identical. The universe consists of God’s manifestation in the material world; is eternal and eternal. What is called the soul is nothing but the ability of the human body to live. The concepts of Heaven and Hell should not be understood as things that are in the material world, as it is thought, and Angel is a name given to various natural forces. Ocak, “Life of Thought (14th-17th Centuries)”, p. 190.

[11] He was born on January 21, 1921 in Jaffa, Palestine. He completed his primary and secondary education at Saint Joseph College. He earned a master’s degree in philosophy from Indiana universities in 1949 and Harvard in 1951. He completed his doctoral thesis on “Metaphysics and Epistemology of Value” at Indiana University in 1952. Later, he studied at Azhar University for three years in the field of shari’a sciences. T of eşebbüs in other important international results in diameter International Institute of Islamic Thought in 1981, was the provider. Fârûkī played a leading role in determining the research programs of this institute, which became a major center of Islamic studies in North America, especially towards the “Islamization of knowledge”. 

[12]  Harran has come to the forefront with the works of many scholars in philosophical schools in the region, which had a deep-rooted cultural structure such as Pagan, Sin, Star-Planet Cult, Sabianism, Gnosticism and Daysanism before the Islamic faith.

[13] In their book The Hiram Key, Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas describe that Ancient Egypt had a very important place in the origins of Freemasonry. According to the authors, the most important idea inherited from Ancient Egypt to modern masons is the idea of ​​a “universe that exists by itself and evolves by chance”. The authors explain these great mistakes of the Egyptians as follows: “The ancient Egyptians believed that matter had always existed; for them it was illogical to think that a Creator could make something out of absolutely nothing.”

In their view, matter had a power within itself, this world was formed by the birth of order out of chaos… This chaotic state was called “Nun” and just like the Sumerians’ definition… it was a dark, sunless, watery depth, this depth itself triggered the beginning of order. had ordered. This hidden power within the substance of chaos was not conscious of its own existence; it was a possibility, a potential combined with the randomness of disorder.

[14] The seventh grandson of Adam, known as King Toth in Egypt, Hermes in Ancient Greece, and the Prophet Idris in Islam, has left significant influences on these cultures and religions for thousands of years.

[15] Islam in Andalusia, Timaş publications R. Garaudy

[16] According to Rager Bacon’s understanding, there are obstacles to truth. He argued that these obstacles were causes of ignorance. He  expressed this in his Opus Majus . These obstacles can be listed as follows:

  • devotion to authority
  • scholastic tradition
  • Lack of education
  • Attitudes of people to hide their ignorance.

Bacon also argues that loyalty to authority and overconfidence are the greatest dangers to scientific knowledge.

[17] The tradition of Ottoman thought is a combination of philosophy, theology and mysticism. The fact that Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror had Molla Câmî dictated a treatise evaluating the views of philosophers, theologians and mystics, whom he described as “groups seeking the truth”, shows the existence of these three sciences in Ottoman thought (Öngören, 2007: 542).

[18] As a remarkable point, Fatih Sultan Mehmet carried 4 books that he always used and always used with him in his cönk (handbag) that he always carried with him for a lifetime. These books are in the Nur-u Osmaniyye Library in their original form.

  1. İbn-i Sina – el- İşarat = Founder and top text of the Evil Eye method.
  2. Gazzali – Tehafüt-ü Felasife = Strong Ash’ari criticism text to the evil eye method.
  3. Sühreverdi – Wisdom-i Israk = Wisdom-i Israk, in which the tradition of Israkiyye, which proposes to combine observation and theoretical tradition, is explained.
  4. Konevi – Miftah’ul Gayb = Miftah’ul Gayb, the peak text of the akbari tradition, which reinterprets the theoretical tradition by taking the tradition of observation as its center.

Mevlana represents the heart of Konya, Urmevi represents the mind and Konevi represents the conscience.

[19] After the establishment of the Süleymaniye madrasahs, from 1557 to 1908, until the IInd Constitutional Monarchy period,  the madrasahs went through periods of stagnation, decline and collapse. However, in Medresetü’l-Vaizîn, a specialized madrasa established after the Tanzimat Reform Era and established to train preachers, in addition to courses such as tafsir, hadith, fiqh, theology, usûl-i fiqh, philosophy, logic, psychology Ethics, metaphysics, history of philosophy, Islamic philosophy courses were also included, these courses were given by Mehmet Ali Aynî.[20] This group used all kinds of religious, philosophical, and scientific knowledge it could reach, with an unbiased approach. For them, the Torah and the Bible are as important as the Qur’an in being the basis of their thoughts. In religious knowledge, Mr. Prophet or Hz. Just as the word of Ali is important, the words of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle in philosophy, of Pythagoras and Euclid in mathematics and geometry, and of Ptolemy in geography are of great importance. – Islamic Encyclopedia Ikhwan-i Safa 

[21] Orientalist Thomas Bauer ‘s thesis is that Western modernity’s “obsession” with certainty is increasingly destroying the culture of ambivalence; In this process, Islam solidified by being “theologized”. Bauer argues that, ultimately, whether Salafist, fundamentalist or reformist, Islamism and Western modernism’s understandings of Islam become similar.

[22] See A.M. Al-Meraire Aristotle‘s Prisoners, Epistemic Institute Press, Los Angeles, 1984

[23] Islam, Authoritarianism, and Underdevelopment: A Global and Historical Comparison  (Cambridge University Press, 2019) greek

Culture and History Conversations (72) Epic of Gilgamesh with Ismail Gezgin

Kültür ve Tarih Sohbetleri (72):


Culture and History Conversations (72)
Epic of Gilgamesh
with Ismail Gezgin

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouIGsOCRU2Q

translated by Özgür Demirel

edited by Eva Stamoulou Oral

synchronized by Ümid Gurbanov

 

 

Özdemir: Hello, good evening. Tonight we have convened again for the 72th Medyascope.TV culture and history conversation. We have something of an extra today, Mr. İsmail (Gezgin) is here as our guest for the third time. Since he is a resident of Izmir, whenever he happens to be in Istanbul, we make sure to bring him around, something we are grateful that he never declines. So, here we are, together for the second time this week on this Thursday evening. Tonight, we will discuss Mr. Ismail’s book about Gilgamesh, despite being an older one which is out of print and is planned to be re-printed as far as I know, while trying not to really keep the talk strictly around it. But before anything else, sir, welcome to our program.

Gezgin: Thank you. Sorry for having disrupted your schedule by the way. From Monday to Thursday.

Özdemir: No worries. You might say I am around on a Sunday and we’d be more than happy to do this by then.

Gezgin: Thank you.

Sağsöz: By all means, sir.

Gezgin: Thanks.

Özdemir: So, sir, as far as I know you wrote a book on Gilgamesh and recently you organized a presentation about it in Izmir as well. The Epic of Gilgamesh is the first written book, or text should I say?
Gezgin: Yeah, text fits better, –or even a literary piece.

Özdemir: Literary piece.

Gezgin: Yes.

Özdemir: So, if you wouldn’t mind, let’s start off from that point.

Gezgin: Okay. This kind of material, or in other words, physical relics of culture, or written sources exhibit utmost importance for getting a grasp of the past. I, from a different point of view, am inclined to assess the contents of these pieces as archaeological findings as well. So, this writing, or the written texts themselves, although not a book itself at all but a series of texts inscribed on tablets, comprehensive enough to compose a book, are widely regarded as the first literary one, the Gilgamesh text. But before delving into Gilgamesh itself, I would find it more beneficial to discuss how such texts carry information over, from the past to the modern day. And this Gilgamesh text, claimed to be an epic, or a legend or even a myth by some, of which I think rather asa myth  – and I could not care less about how it is categorized – its content, what it delivers to us is what needs attention – along with other myths are neglected, underestimated, especially in this part of the world. Because wherever we may roam and visit, people are keen to listen to a story and see them that way; however, these texts are pivotal in what it is to be human from a historical perspective and boldly providing answers to the question since they are of written form. So, to rewind back to the start of it, this is a story of homo sapiens sapiens. As you know the human being is 4 million years old as a species, myths are the answers to the questions of the true progenitor of modern day humans, as acclaimed by anthropologists, homo sapiens, such as “Who am I?” trying to find a place on the surface of the earth and within life, as well as making a sense of it. We are talking about human as an egocentric, kind of a narcissist entity, or at least that is how human interprets itself. Interestingly, myths like Gilgamesh are texts of tragedy and collapse of the human. However, the actual tragedy is the desperation of self-discovery of the human, starting from homo sapiens, archeologically. Try to imagine for a second how it is like for an organism, along with billions of others, having to understand itself, construct an identity and position itself with its very own intellect and earthly experiences. Eventually, it has come to the conclusion, as part of an even bigger myth, that human being is “the honourable being. It has felt powerful enough to place itself on such a pedestal as a result of interactions with the world, nature and all other organisms and social comparisons with the latter. We have to talk about the language used at this point since such written texts have conveyed those stories to us. Language is very important as the human look for the question of “Who am I?” and the answers to it within the very language. Actually, what we call language is the realm of existence for the meaning. So not having a language might as well mean not having an entity, you being non-existent. Even asking this ancient question and searching for the answers would be impossible. The answers to the question of “Who am I?” are those that have emanated from the mythical stories about two or three hundred thousand years old. And that inevitably calls for the disappointment of people looking to hear a lovely story. It is not hard to speak of a few nice things while telling the story, it is no problem, however what makes this text, and others such as that of Homer, special is that these are texts that provide answers to the questions asked with the motivation of self-positioning such as “Who am I?” “What is human?” or “What is life?” Since these texts were composed by a different grammar, by a mediation of a different symbolic language, the answers are not delivered directly. So it becomes crucial to acquire that specific information by learning that specific language and through the use of philological methodologies. One of your previous guests, Bilgin Saydam posits a very nice definition for homo sapiens and homo sapiens sapiens. He defines homo sapiens as the human who knows, and the homo sapiens sapiens as the one who knows that it knows. Knowing was the tragedy of homo sapiens, and turning into the one that knows it knows just doubled the tragedy it suffered and made it our problem, as well as our tragedy. In this regard, we are against a story of homo sapiens sapiens because it is one of the human that knows it knows. So, what does the human know? That it is mortal – what Freud calls death instinct, what the missing piece story by Lacan is all about. You live with a sense of emptiness within your stomach, don’t you? A feeling that if you did something particular everything would fall into place, however, no matter what you do that feeling about the pointlessness of life eventually appears again. And this is all the tragedy about homo sapiens sapiens. Because homo sapiens sapiens is the human species that, having comprehended and created the conscience of it, is fully aware of the knowledge of death. That, at the same time, acts as the point of origin that motivates it to move away and on from the thought, the instinct of death. As a result, you have to accept homo sapiens sapiens, as the sour one, playing the leading role of this tragedy that centers around itself. We, as every single individual of the homo sapiens sapiens species, are all within this tragedy. That is why people tend to live like an immortal or on a quest for a meaning of life that would comfort them. Because this thought of vanishing, disappearing completely upsets them. They cannot “cure” this of which the story of its search, and a fruitless one at that, we will be discussing in minutes and that subsequently leads them to an urge to make sense out of life, to maintain inner peace against this very information of certain death. Therefore, the ultimate tragedy of the human is being the human that is on the hunt for answers to him/herself or to life itself. I call the human being as an animal of sense – it needs that. Because it is aware of such a dangerous knowledge that, without that meaning, confronting that danger would not be that easy.

Özdemir: We may make our way into the epic itself through this point of story of desperation. A story of desperation that comprises setting sail on a quest to find a cure for death, having realized its existence, and losing the hard-found cure to a snake. I assume this tale of becoming aware of death and confronting it overlaps with what you have been telling us, right?

Gezgin: Absolutely. As I said earlier, this is the tragedy of homo sapiens sapiens. Gilgamesh means the all-knowing/all-seeing human in Sumerian. I do not really know who coined the term “homo sapiens” however it has been a marvellous coincidence. Gilgamesh is not a subjective tale. It is the tale of the human who knows that it knows, of the one that has seen it all and comprehended it all. Let’s put it that way. What we call “meaning” seemed to have been decided in a global sense as this: yes, this life is fleeting, you will pass away only to wake up to an immortal one – which is beyond death. Now that is a metaphor. You will be immortal, however, you need to die first. That brings me to the idea of comparing it against the narrative of expelling from heaven. As you know there we have the Forbidden Tree and its fruit. Actually that tree is the tree of knowing the unknown. Actually, the story of homo sapiens sapiens unveils itself in that too. They are told that once you eat the fruit you will know it all and they eat it. The moment they start knowing, they are expelled from heaven and sentenced to a mortal life. There is no death in heaven, only on earth. So this part of the tale is a tale of homo sapiens sapiens. I will be rewriting this book changing the title to Gilgamesh: A Homo Sapiens Sapiens Tale. So, these tales bear resemblances to each other. And that is why Gilgamesh’s meaning as “the all-knowing, all-seeing man” is not by chance. I cannot really recall who called it “homo sapiens” however I doubt whoever it is knew about this. I suppose it was meant to underline the intelligence of our ancestors. Gilgamesh is the one expelled from heaven so to speak. He knows he is mortal, the story revolves around it anyway.

Özdemir: He is thrown to earth.

Gezgin: Yes, he is.

Özdemir: Enkidu comes to mind right away.

Gezgin: Let me summarize the tale, if you’d like, now, which is actually a long one and set our talk upon that. It is not difficult at all to read this epic which has various translations. I, for one, find what the story means to tell more appealing – the story itself is quite entertaining already but I like the former more. Gilgamesh is a king in a Mesopotamian town named Uruk whose father was a king as well and his mother  a goddess – two thirds immortal, one third mortal, son of a goddess who can know and see it all for he is mortal from the very beginning. For us to be able to arrive at the final point we are looking for, I would like to derive a comparative explanation of this against another myth. So, our king is nice and successful, has amassed wealth and improved the city itself who is a formidable against his enemies, nevertheless, with one major shortcoming which is his desire to sleep with brides on their wedding nights claiming that it is a “lord’s right.” That, of course, creates discontent among the populace. The text details it as such: mothers shy away from people, girls refrain from marriage – a disturbance that indeed stresses out common folk. On the other hand, the annoyance is impossible to tackle since he is the son of a goddess, a demi-god they are subject to. Eventually people cry out to the gods saying, “He is what you gave us, deliver us from him.” The gods heed such plea and send out his counterpart to rival him. The goddess of birth grabs a handful of mud and having given it a shape, throws it into the thick of the forest and it turns out to be Enkidu. Enkidu actually is familiar to us from other stories, an uncivilized hero living among animals who can speak to them, dine with them, play with them, who bears an enormous strength at the same time since he is created to oppose Gilgamesh. A trapper takes notice of his existence in the forest, seeing that his traps are being uprooted by something which cannot be an animal. So, he decides to go into hiding to figure out to figure out what it might be, only to discover it is a gigantic being that he would be foolish to fight. Then, he rushes back to his home to tell what he has seen to his elderly father. His father replies that they were expecting such a thing anyway, a godsent to challenge Gilgamesh, and advises his son to go tell Gilgamesh about him himself. “When you tell him,” he says, “Gilgamesh will order you to fetch him and that is when you will say that it would be impossible for you alone to bring such a monstrous being around and ask him for one of his beautiful concubines to lure him out” laying out all plans necessary. Meanwhile Gilgamesh happens to have a series of dreams three nights in a row which he talks about to his goddess mother, Ninsumun. She responds to her son calling it a blessing, interpreting it as the gods sending him a brother, claiming the dreams are benevolent and compassionate and Gilgamesh begins to wait for his brother. When the trapper arrives before Gilgamesh, telling him about the being in the forest, exaggeratedly so, claiming that it is a very muscular one who might even pin him down, Gilgamesh responds with all curiosity, commanding the trapper to bring it to him. The trapper, expressing his inability to do so, suggests Gilgamesh allows one of his concubines to go with him which Gilgamesh agrees to and they take their leave. Closely following the trapper’s father’s tactics, the party arrives at the watering hole to hide and wait. Enkidu shows up at the savannah with his company of animals, to drink water and that is when the trapper shoves the concubine into the open. The concubine immediately takes off her clothes because there is no other way to make contact with Enkidu. Enkidu, seeing a woman for the first time in his life, starts making love with the concubine. Not in a mutual way, we should say, since concubine is not there out of her free will. Their intercourse ensues for 7 days and 6 nights. When Enkidu pauses to rest, in line with the old trapper’s orders, the woman lays out a delicious meal, along with beverages, such as beer – a proof of the drink’s history, by the way. She also takes out fine clothing that she has brought along, cleaning and grooming Enkidu, massaging him with oils and perfumes. Then they dine.

Özdemir: Which is civilizing him.

Gezgin: Yes, indeed, she makes a “human” out of him. So, when Enkidu goes back to his friends, his fellows fail to recognize him. He cannot even communicate with them, his language being broken, having distanced itself from the language of nature. Frustrated, he asks the concubine what she has done to him to which the woman replies that it was impossible for him to live there any longer and that he should come with her. With no other solution viable, they leave. About to enter town, they notice commotion. Curious about what is going on, Enkidu starts asking around. One replies that there was a wedding again, so Gilgamesh turned up at the door as usual to mate with the bride, hence the bustle and crying. Enkidu reacts by saying “I am here to put an end to this. I am the strongest of the nature. This is impossible, is it a jungle over here?” So, he rushes to the house where the wedding is, obstructs Gilgamesh and starts a brawl. Having fought for hours, at the moment Enkidu is about to pin Gilgamesh down, they happen to share feelings of mutual affection and benignity. Gilgamesh realizes who his opponent is and says, “You must be my brother, because I am very well aware of a brother to be sent by the gods.” So, they become friends, or relatives, or even lovers, maybe. Then, Gilgamesh takes his brother to their mother who confirms that he indeed is so. Gilgamesh, having united with such a powerful brother, a lover, becomes even more arrogant and boastful and sets his mind to commit even greater things, determined to make his mark on this world. Looking for a cause to go after, he suggests slaying a monster called Humbaba. Enkidu, coming from the wild and knowing what Humbaba is, disagrees and refrains from undertaking such quest. Gilgamesh does not waive the idea, tries to persuade his brother emboldened by his conviction about their combined might. Even the elders of the town try to intervene for the fact that nobody lived to tell his encounter with the beast. Hearing it breathe means death.

Özdemir: The warden of the cedar tree.

Gezgin: The warden of the cedar tree. The warden of the cedar forest, to be precise. Placed there by the gods themselves. Fixated, the duo set off fully equipped by the craftsmen. They go through plenty of adventures in between I will be skipping now. Those interested might check out the book, or that of Bottéro you can still find in print. Arriving at the cedar forest, Gilgamesh, starting to feel anxious, says, “Here we are, partner. I am worried of bruising my ego should I feel like running after seeing that monster though.” “If that looks likely, you must let that happen by working me up, making sure I stand my ground,” he adds. “I would dread living with such embarrassment.” Humbaba, aware of the intruders, does not care about them enough to show himself. Enkidu comes up with the idea of chopping down the trees, his precious belongings. The idea works out just fine, Humbaba appears before them. As Gilgamesh predicted, he feels the urge to run away when Enkidu says, “Don’t run away, my friend, remember how strong you are, who your mother and father are, what your accomplishments are.” Gilgamesh, upon hearing this, mans up and advances upon Humbaba. The monster gets scared this time asking why they were doing this and begs for his life. Such a reaction softens Gilgamesh’s heart, almost giving up his quest where Enkidu, this time, pushes on to slay the monster telling his brother that their lives would be at stake if the roles were reversed. So they kill the monster, the gods watching them from the heavens all the while. Inanna, the Eastern counterpart of the goddess we know as Aphrodite, in awe of the glory of Gilgamesh, appears before him on the way back home telling him that they needed to marry and bear his child. Gilgamesh, after singing her praises for quite some time at first, tells her that he knew how she devastated her lovers once she was done with them. “You were once in love with a horse,” he says, “and when you were done with him, you just reined him in, shoed him and kept him in a stable to tame him. You fell in love with a gardener and turned him into a mole in the end,” and so forth. “Based on these,” he continues, “I cannot be your husband,” not looking to give up his life for her. As expected Inanna fills with rage, ascends back to heavens where the gods congregate and asks for the Bull of Heaven they deploy in wars to destroy the twosome. Unable to convince her otherwise, they yield the bull to her. The Bull of Heaven is a menacing one since he is also the husband of the queen of the underworld, who is also Inanna’s sister. His involvement could simply end all life on earth. Unexpectedly so, the brothers succeed in slaying the Bull of Heaven too. Upon his death, Ereshkigal, the queen of the Underworld, makes threats about unleashing the undead which would wreak havoc on all life on earth. The gods, so as to teach a lesson to those two friends who overstepped their boundaries, convene and decide to murder Enkidu. Enkidu, almost like a live coverage, watches that convention in his dream as it happens. He wakes up right away promptly awakening his friend too. “My friend,” he says, “the gods will kill me!” Gilgamesh draws his sword saying that he need not worry while he is around. However, Enkidu is taken ill, bed-ridden for the next 7 days and eventually passes away. Gilgamesh, the all-knowing, all-seeing human, faces off death for the first time. He observes his hardy friend lying dead, with no signs of life, gone for good. Uruk’s elders come together to commemorate him by holding the burial ceremony he deserved. Because, as the same tradition persists even today, they claim the deceased would suffer fire and brimstone without a proper burial. Gilgamesh refuses to give him away for burial saying, “I love my friend more than you can imagine, he may be dead but he shall stay my side.” Nevertheless, as Enkidu’s complexion and body he adored decomposes, wishing not to remember him in that form, he settles with the idea of giving him for burial in exchange for a statue of him. The idea of death takes root within Gilgamesh. “Will that happen to my body as well?” he asks himself. “I am the child of a queen, my father was a king whereas Enkidu had none, I cannot imagine that at all.” Unable to bear the thought any longer, he starts looking for a way out. He consults all sages, all oracles he can find asking them whether they have seen a mortal, a human, becoming immortal. They say, “Yes, there was the tale of an ancient one.” “Who is he?” he asks. “Utnapishtim,” they reply. He enquires “Where does he live?” “In the land of Dilmun,” they respond. “And where is that Dilmun?” he goes on. “Beyond the Waters of Death,” he hears, “and it is impossible for you to get past there because you are alive.” Gilgamesh, already with his mind set, concludes by saying, “I will find it.” He embarks upon his journey and has a range of adventures. He comes across Scorpion Men who sympathize with him after hearing his story and point in the direction of an oracle named Siduri, one that could show him the way to Utnapishtim. Having travelled across lands where the sun does not rise, walking in utter darkness, he finally makes it to the land of Siduri. Siduri possesses a character close to that of Dionysus of Western culture. She tells him where the Waters of Death is and also that he needs to find the ferryman there to sail across. “He might or might not let you on board, the latter being possible too for you are alive,” she adds. Gilgamesh finds the ferryman and the two start a heated argument on taking Gilgamesh across the waters at the end of which he breaks the punting pole of the ferryman out of anger, having been refused. And as the two calm down and come to their senses, Gilgamesh shares his story with the ferryman. He tells him that he is Gilgamesh, who is a shadow of his former self because of the arduous search he is on, worn out and weakened.

Özdemir: Odysseus comes to mind.

Gezgin: Definitely. It is one of the versions of Western origin. He also loses his way and tries to find it and so on. It is an interesting story, too. Upon hearing his tale, the ferryman admits he might take Gilgamesh on board had he not broken the pole. “Yet, here it is in pieces, what can I do now?” he says. Gilgamesh offers to get him a pole for his ferry boat. “One pole would not suffice,” the ferryman responds, after a moment of calculation. “120 poles of a certain length may.” Gilgamesh hastens into the woods, cuts down trees and fashions them into 120 punting poles of identical measures, allowing the pair to set sail. They happen to have a fortunate ride, poles keep breaking only to be replaced by the next one. The last pole breaks right after the landfall, along with their spirits since jumping into the water to swim ashore is out of the question. Gilgamesh, out of desperation, somehow acts like the pole with one last effort and they make it to the shore. Meanwhile, Utnapishtim, the immortal one, and his wife watch what happens in awe. He witnesses the usual ferry boat that connects him to the other end of the waters but there is someone on the boat who is not supposed to be there, one that is alive. Soon as Gilgamesh steps out of the boat, they enquire after the man. Gilgamesh lays out his story, when he is interrupted to be told that he is nothing like the Gilgamesh they knew to exist. Gilgamesh further details what he has gone through all this time eventually disclosing that he is on a quest of immortality saying “I do not want to die like my friend Enkidu did.” Feeling for him, they claim what he asks for is impossible; however, seeing how relentless Gilgamesh is, Utnapishtim responds, “If you can resist slumber, there may be a chance.” Gilgamesh, accepting whatever it takes without a second thought, falls asleep right away. Utnapishtim tells his wife to bake a bread for every day he stays asleep, “for he will claim not to have slept when we wake him up” he asserts. So the wife starts baking breads, one for each day, and on the 7th day, our hero is still asleep. Utnapishtim pokes Gilgamesh to wake him up. Gilgamesh comes back to his senses and says, “Oh, my friend, thank you for poking me because I almost fell asleep.” They object and tell him how he was sleeping for the last 7 days, showing the loaves of baked bread which prove that time had passed as each looked different from the other. Our guy, demoralized and lost, stands there perplexed, having lost the challenge. He grows curious about how Utnapishtim became immortal and kindly asks him about his story. Utnapishtim says that for one to become immortal gods needed to gather. “Whereas there is no reason for such a gathering when it comes to you,” he adds. “I was a king once. There were so many people on earth and they had grown so disrespectful and negligent of their gods that the gods came together to decide upon the fate of humans by exterminating them. And one of the gods was Enki (Ea), god of knowledge, revealed himself to me, since I never disobeyed the gods and was their faithful servant, in a dream commanding me to build an ark of a size he dictated, to collect a couple of each animal and seeds from each plant inside to finally shut its door closed with me and my family on board and start waiting.” “I was ridiculed,” he goes on, “as I was building an ark as I was commanded where there was no water to begin with.” “But as soon as I built the ark, collected the animals and seeds and shut all of us, including my family, inside, a great storm and flood broke out that raged on for 40 days and 40 nights” – or “for 20 days and 20 nights” as different texts propose different durations – “to such an extent that even the dirt burst with water. The whole world was submerged in a short while and there were no living things out of the ark – all dead,” he says. “We swayed back and forth for 40 days. Eventually I sent out a raven, it came back. I sent out a swallow and it came back. Finally, I sent out a dove and it never came back,” he continues. “That is when I understood the dove had found a place to land, meaning the waters had retreated. Our ark was anchored to the mountain of Nisir, so I opened the doors, released the animals which spread all around and repopulated the earth. I sacrificed animals, placed offerings and prayed to the gods for letting me survive and sparing my life. Not being particularly fond of what they observed as a result, they congregated and, taking pity on me, blessed me with immortality unanimously and concluded to never create a flood again. So, only through this, I was made immortal.” Gilgamesh feels even more miserable after hearing the story and gets on with preparations to go back. Utnapishtim’s wife, overwhelmed with compassion, asks her husband for something to gift to Gilgamesh. Utnapishtim speaks to him saying, “We were not able to grant you immortality but, if you can find it, there is the plant of eternal youth. Let me tell about it so you can go pick it if you’d like.” They tell him in which sea the plant is, ordering the ferryman to take him there before dismissing him from his usual duty since he brought along a guest he was not supposed to.

Özdemir: A severance there, huh.

Gezgin: Yeah, due to violating the rules. So, they set out again to the sea where that thorn is found – it is a deep sea and the plant was a thorny one, and a very piercing one at that, quite hard to handle. Gilgamesh, convinced of his closing death, says, “I am prepared to die trying to pluck that thorny plant if I have to, I have no qualms.” He has stones in the boat so he can dive and go deep in the sea. He binds them to his feet and sinks, finds the plant and plucks it, not caring about its thorns ripping through his hands. He lets the stones loose after that and rises to the surface. Quite satisfied with his accomplishment, despite failing at immortality, he owns the plant of rejuvenation, daydreaming of sharing bits of the plant with elders in Uruk even, he plans to head back to his hometown with the plant in his bag. The ferryman leaves him at the shore, exchanging their wishes of goodbye, they part ways. On his way back home, after days and months left behind, Gilgamesh reaches a lake where he realizes that he has not had some water and bathed for quite some time and he decides to take this chance to unwind and jumps into the water. While he is bathing, he notices his leather bag wriggling as he constantly keeps watch of his clothes. Figuring out that there is something alive in the bag, he darts to the shore and before he can even make it to the bag, a serpent with the plant of rejuvenation in its jaws disappears into the depths of the water in an instant. Gilgamesh, having exhausted his last glimmer of hope, defeated, arrives back at his lands. Registering what an adventure, an experience of significance he had experienced, he rounds up all the scholars and wise men of the community to tell them his tale. Scribes and clerks inscribed his tale on the tablets and stones of the city walls so that such a story is not forgotten. So, this is it. The story has so much in it, I do not know where to start exactly. But, first of all, I suppose we need to reiterate that this is not a subjective story of the king of Uruk, Gilgamesh, who allegedly actually lived due to his name being mentioned on the list of kings, or an account of a private life or a memoir. The story is about a protagonist, in parallel with the king’s name meaning the all-knowing, the all-seeing one, who represents an individual of the human species of homo sapiens sapiens. It is about any one of us, to be precise, we all know, we all know that we know, we are all-knowing and all-seeing and what we see is death, that’s what it is about.

Sağsöz: Should we go back to square one?

Gezgin: However you wish.

Özdemir: We can even start from the end of it, since the story is so…

Sağsöz: I see it is composed of episodes. For example, Enkidu and Gilgamesh, they are like twins. The text mentions them as identical, possessing identical strength, they wrestle, for instance, and both get exhausted since their powers cancel out each other. From another angle, Enkidu apparently is the embodiment of nature whereas Gilgamesh represents culture and civilization, we may start from here.

Gezgin: Yes, this is one of the aspects that can be discerned at first sight. If we can assume the two having lived on different timelines, one could be identified as a human model of prehistoric times unaware of what civilization is, surviving within nature and what it offers him along with other creatures, to an extent that he is subject to laws of nature since he does not produce anything. You know we attribute the history of humankind to a time stretching back approximately 4 million years. Actually, humankind spent most of this time without living through anything significant. Actually, this is the life of Enkidu; friend or foe to other creatures, somehow the human lived on. Gilgamesh is more of symbol of culture here. Enkidu being “humanized” is fundamental here. To become human, he eats like humans, what civilization forces on him, he makes love, in a more civilized manner. That is something interesting here. There are metaphors implying that love destructs brutal power. Pay attention, I am not mentioning this outright, I am saying there are metaphors. Let me exemplify to clear it up. You may know the story of the Palestinian princess and-

Sağsöz: Samson.

Özdemir: Delilah and Samson.

Gezgin: Delilah and Samson. Samson drew power from his hair. The Palestinian Delilah is a princess, or a woman, who is curious about where he gets his power from and is in love with Samson at the same time. One night, she intoxicates him and extracts his secret about which he says “I get my power from my hair.” Then Delilah shaves the head of the man she loves turning him into not much more than a toy – the next day, Samson having lost all his power. Consequently, while torturing him, they bind him to the pillars of the temple, you may have seen that scene in the movie. Under the influence of all the remorse and repentance, Samson beseeches God to grant him his strength back to which God responds and Samson brings down the temple with all his returned might. There is another one about (prophet) David I used to hear in my childhood. David was a blacksmith and used his hands to work with iron, not an anvil and hammer, or a hearth. One day, after having intercourse with one of his concubines, or servants, when he tries to bend the iron with his hands he finds out that he can no longer do it. He has lost his power. On the other hand, the same story can be associated with the original sin, the ancient myth. Adam knowing Eve or them eating the fruit of knowing the unknown is considered as an association by psychoanalysts. Those two human beings attempt a godly affair, the creation of a human, eventually being expelled from Eden. This kind of metaphors exist, I suppose we could find more if we looked for them thoroughly. Also getting dressed is a very important aspect. We easily associate getting dressed with the level of civilization. We are dictated this way by the modern world, from cartoons to comics. For example, we are told that Indians are less civilized and we come to such a conclusion via their garments. A piece of cloth to cover genitals is depicted, and nothing else. We understand that’s how they roam around. When it comes to food, although it would be hard to comb through all of these, but, Lévi-Strauss had a study on cooking where he roughly meant to convey that the level of cooking and food preparation are parallel to the level of civilization. Because the modern or civilized human is the human that has set itself apart from food. The civilized human is no longer the human being that consumes the food acquired from nature right away. The civilized human is supposed to rinse it, chop it, cook it, use pots and pans first. Food is what differentiates what is consumed by Enkidu from that consumed by Gilgamesh. So, once he did that there was no going back. It is somewhat the same about perfume too. There is a part I skipped within the myth. By the way, the Epic of Gilgamesh consists of 11 tablets. And there is a 12th tablet that makes it a total of 12 tablets. That 12th tablet is not an integral part of the myth as a whole, by the way. Around the time Gilgamesh and Enkidu were together, Gilgamesh comes across a beautiful tree. To regain favor with the goddess Inanna, he wants to carve a throne out of it. While handling the tree, he mistakenly drops it into a pit that connects to the Underworld. Swayed by his grief and sorrow, Enkidu consoles Gilgamesh by saying, “Worry no more, my friend, I will go down and get it back for you.” About to descend, Gilgamesh advises him, “Do not wear perfume. Do not wear clothes. If you wear those, they’ll understand you are alive. Do not put on accessories you like. Do not hug, embrace, kiss or touch your beloved lost ones.” This is the primal, the oldest form of Dante’s Divine Comedy. In the next scene, we see Enkidu returned, having brought back the halub tree from the pit. Gilgamesh asks a flurry of questions curious of how deceased ones were doing such as one who did not have any children, another one who did not receive a burial and so on. Enkidu replies giving examples of one strolling through the desert, another one living a luxurious afterlife, and so forth. He also gives details about a hero killed in battle fighting valiantly being awarded a comfortable life there along with the suffering of another who had not received a proper burial. With regards to life vs. death and nature vs. culture dialectics, garments, perfumes, scents, foods, bathing – we can count bathing among these too. Should somebody not bathe and start stinking, what we call that human is a curious thing: “animal.” “You stink like an animal.” You may press even further with this. You tend to categorize such a person out of the boundaries of humanity. Speaking of which, the human is the only creature that loathes its own smell. Humans always want to smell like flowers, not like a skunk or a goat, always like a flower. Another interesting point there. During the age of reptiles, flowers are asserted, by scientists, to have played such a crucial role in the emergence of mammals that some claim humans have been returning the favor by trying to smell like them or growing them, attributing importance to them, using them as envoys of pleasant things in their lives. Very intriguing connections there.

Sağsöz: Humans try to veil nature by culture, scents, etc.

Gezgin: Absolutely, absolutely. Because, as you know, the human has problems with hair as well.

Sağsöz: Shaves it.

Gezgin: You cannot come across a male with body hair in Ancient Greece. Not talking about women, wax was already being used in those times. However, when you visit a museum, you cannot see a hairy male, no such thing exists. They are all glabrous, bathhouses would employ waxers back then. Smell, hair are reminders of the evolutionary process humankind went through. On the other hand, bathing, not practiced collectively, became a part of human’s life along with civilization and that is not to say humans did not bathe pre-civilization. However, it is certain that humans did not bathe as frequently as we did. The first thing in the morning or right before bed is bathing. Why? Because we are living in such an isolated and sealed-off manner against our nature that we stink. Wild creatures do not stink in nature. You could easily figure this out from stray cats or dogs not smelling much while those living in your houses do. That’s why we prefer shampoos with perfumes for them. In the wild, they lie, roll around, pick dirt and dust from the ground and then they just shake off to get rid off all bodily oils and sweat – something they cannot do behind walls. Same goes for the human. Covered with clothing, generally indoors, add all the exhaust fumes, etc. of metropolitan life to that, you are practically obliged to bathe. So this is closely related to the level of civilization, to being human.

Özdemir: At the end of the story, no hope remains. There is acceptance, yet no salvation, no deliverance. The later stages of mythology promise salvation after life, subsequent to death, at the very least. With this one, philosophically, a state of acceptance and living with what there is prevails. I think this text is unique in this context compared to others.

Gezgin: Yes. Interestingly so, for the human to hold on to life and keep on with its struggle, it needs to exist and face this very truth somehow. This text actually forces you to do so. And in spite of such knowledge, we have to demonstrate the sentiment that we are blessed with a body and a lifetime we need to carry on till the end, only then can we live this life. You had shared a video of Luc Ferry – while I am not very fond of him, we can place it into this. He says in the video, “Recognizing the realities of the human that knows it knows and maintaining its life within that recognition can result in a good life.” I have seen other philosophers sharing similar ideas. They relay the thought that it is only when you are able to position yourself within life having faced all the reality about it, you may feel happy or free or to have pursued a good life. However, should that face-off conclude in favor of death, we end up with melancholia. That is when you feel like you have one foot in the grave, with suicidal tendencies, with your life hanging by a thread. I am not here to pontificate in a psychoanalyst manner. Therefore, the most important thing a human, as homo sapiens sapiens, has to know, in the face of this knowledge, is living on against this knowledge. Civilization may very well be a result of that. The doctrine of Enlightenment proposes that ancient people were primitive and they transformed into more advanced and civilized people over time. We now know that this isn’t true. We do not believe that ancient people were more primitive and lacking skill and every step of civilization gradually improved upon them. Humans, with regards to the period and natural causes they find themselves in, devise solutions to overcome their encounters along the way. And one of those solutions devised for the last 10- 12 millennia turns out to be civilization. This does not translate that survival was not possible before that, that humans were imprudent or incapable. Recently this is a matter of debate. No, they always were capable. We no longer posit that the brain and intellect of homo sapiens sapiens or homo sapiens are incapable of managing these. They could have done it, but they did not. Why, that we do not know. One day back in time something happened. Probably at some point when they were involved with this knowledge for too long, they said that they needed to change their lives. One of the most crucial motifs in this is the motif of the great flood. I had spared a portion of the book to it. Almost all cultures all over the globe mention a myth of a great flood. The Philippines have it, Norway has it, Altai Turks have it, Mesopotamia has it, Ancient Greece has it. Wherever you look, you’ll see this myth. Of course, the protagonists vary, the dimensions of the ark vary, the catastrophe itself varies depending on the culture such as that of ice or extreme heat. Anyway, it is pretty obvious that all cultures, all humans who went through similar stages around the globe came up with similar myths and similar meanings about the past. That’s what I am genuinely interested in. So as to be able to analyze such mythological narratives, psychoanalysis does not suffice, you would need to know about archaeology as well, making this task an arduous one. And all this is interlocked with the field of history of religions. While there are very bright individuals studying it, mythology is not a field that is very well organized, having the chairs it deserves; it is somewhat neglected. I suppose it is avoided since it involves the risky job of meddling with religions. So, here is how I see it. It is almost without question that once upon a time, something involving water happened in humans’ lives resulting in similar stories. Then you begin to think what might have happened inspecting the timeline of humankind, looking for traces or a speckle of reference there – and there you have it: the glacier melting. Before the program was on the air, you were talking about the Bosphorus being narrower before the Black Sea overflowed. The Black Sea being a lake once, large rivers pumping water into the Black Sea from the North Pole as the glaciers melted, many floods starting from the Black Sea, the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus being narrow streams back then cracking open to become straits because of the flooding waters and eventually forming the Marmara Sea between them; glaciers retreating towards the poles, global climate becoming more hospitable, the exposed terrain inspiring humans for agriculture, these more habitable conditions causing a population boom, humans inclining towards working the soil to gain more and more. Human demonstrate such traits. We all know the tale of Shahmaran told around city of Mardin. How homo sapiens sapiens tends to desire for more than what is enough. As the Shahmaran tale goes, having been saved by him, a snake gives his savior a gold coin every day. Before his last breath, the man reveals to his son the source of his wealth. “I had helped a snake once and it has given me a gold coin every day. After I am gone, keep visiting the snake to get your gold,” the man says. The son indeed goes to collect the reward every day as his father is on his deathbed unable to move. But one day the son comes up with the evil idea of slaying the snake to snatch all the gold in sum instead of having to visit it every day for a piece. In the encounter, the snake survives although it loses a part of its tail but kills the son by biting him. The man, having learned what’s gone down, devastated, manages to get out of his death bed to visit the snake and offers his apologies calling it a fault of their own and asks for the snake’s forgiveness to become friends again. The snake turns him down saying, “With your pain over your lost son and mine over my lost tail, we can never be friends again.” And they part ways. The human tasted the desire of acquiring more and more and started working the soil and farming. This is actually where what we call civilization originates. Developments such as the domestication of animals and settling down acted as turning points in the 4-million-year-old lifetime of mankind and they probably made use of the great floods to express those. The metaphor of the ark is interesting, too. Whoever boards it, is delivered. We are seeing a lot of social interaction repeating “We are on the same boat,” over and over these days, hashtags and so forth. The ark is, from the evolutionary standpoint, the collective process of evolution. Creatures live in groups all over the world, friends or foes. And regardless of what they are to one another, they still influence the evolutionary process of the other party. If a predator grows in strength, it proportionately bolsters the defence of the other. From this vantage point, we see that the ones that boarded the human-made ark are the animals and plants that agreed to live under the same roof with humans, or through the same evolutionary process undergone by humans. What happened to those that did not get on? They went extinct. Check out the metaphor, you don’t go aboard, you don’t exist. And that happened indeed. Today, animals, who had boarded the ark, are not endangered, yet those that did not face extinction. All plants that did not face extinction while those that did are safe from it. Of course, do not expect me to show you a cargo manifest – it is a metaphor. All creatures that did not cooperate with humans, who vastly expanded their habitat in exchange for theirs or simply killed them without a purpose, were gradually diminished in numbers or disappeared entirely. How about those aboard? There are numerous studies on them as well. The apple seed apparently lost its appetite to grow by itself, getting used to being cultivated by humans, or in other words, became a mere subject of civilization. And that means should one day humans lose civilization, their skills, everybody aboard that ark falls into danger. Yet, this metaphor of the ark is exactly this kind of metaphor: after the flood, humans settled down, domesticated animals, domesticated plants, started with agriculture. When you look at it that way our story seems to be taking a curious direction. It is a mistake to underestimate these stories. People love hearing nice ones, however, it is not only about a matter of a nice story but also of appealing information. If we cannot place it firmly, we will be unable to decipher these stories and they will remain in the past, the activities of the ancient. However, these stories disclose how a civilization is founded and how its dynamics are symbolized and constructed along with their phases as well as inspiring us to go on, educating us. Therefore, should our dynamics transform and we decide to move on from a farming culture, we will cease respecting these myths. Because these myths somehow are still relayed in cultures where farming culture is influential. I am also of the idea that these myths are alive – they make themselves be told. Let’s make up a myth right now and I believe we can work out something fascinating; however, I bet it would be doomed to fail. Because myths are supposed to serve a function. It should serve a function so that people feel the urge to tell it. One does not actually know he or she tells – it is not a conscious action due to the fact that myths themselves are not products of conscience anyway. They are surreal structures, no feet on the ground, do not constitute a mentality of space-time as we know it, exhibiting rather a metaphorical texture. That is why similar myths are constructed – people share similar experiences, at least that’s what I concur with – there are other theories as well. Myth is related to tongue – tongue, not as in the organ but the language. Myths used to be communicated orally in the beginning and were written down later on. Writing them down is kind of killing them, dulling them. Because while they are being told within their particular culture, myths find the opportunity to renew themselves, integrate fresh elements. For example, Conscience of Deli Dumrul by Mr. Bilgin Saydam is a very interesting piece of work. He has conducted a thorough analysis of Deli Dumrul, a pre-Islamic myth which lived on to incorporate Islamic elements and characters eventually turning out to be an Islamic one. Thus, I reckon virtually all myths were put together during that particular breaking point. All myths, narratives, were sown during the Neolithic period when humans settled down, introduced domestication and agriculture. If we were to conduct a deep analysis like Mr. Saydam did, we would be able to deduct the phases societies went through from their particular myths. Since the same culture persists, we keep on telling these myths. Everybody is so interested in it. You do not benefit in any way by knowing the story of Gilgamesh. Yet, you can observe how appealing it is to people, how eager they are to hear it. I receive very positive feedback on it.

Sağsöz: It has ties to urbanization then. Mesopotamia harbors the first city-states. Ur, Uruk, where the Epic of Gilgamesh takes place. Since civilization and urbanization are more or less the same. This story taking place around these lands is-

Gezgin: No coincidence. Sure.

Sağsöz: No coincidence.

Gezgin: Gordon Childe, the Marxist archaeologist, mentions the theories that there are three major revolutions. The Neolithic revolution, agriculture, domestication of animals and establishment of settlements. Urbanization that took place in Mesopotamia where Uruk, of which Gilgamesh was a king, is located. And the third one being the Industrial Revolution. These are major breaking points of the last 10 – 12 millennia in regard of human life. The villages of the Neolithic period, in 4,000-5,000 years, slowly emerge as large cities thanks to surplus products stemming from commerce, contact and interactions of people, sailing technologies enabling distant voyages where more area can be exploited. Imagine a small village which consumes what it produces. However, when it is a city the size of Uruk, the yield is so much that by selling the surplus to the whole Mediterranean, it becomes possible to make profit out of the whole region. That is when citizens of Uruk feel more fortunate, more loyal or powerful enough to subjugate others. These actually are the developments that augmented the breaking points of civilization. So within the same text, you observe the great flood, the human that was on the brink of death after the flood, Gilgamesh, and his quests, all the while him being the king of a city, pointing out urbanization. What is the focal point of this story? The great flood. When would you tell about the great flood? In the Neolithic period because it was preceded by it. Glaciers had melted prior to it. 4,000 to 5,000 years passed and the very same story is being told by the Urbanization Revolution. It goes, “Once upon a time, gods wanted to exterminate mankind, and left them for dead under flooding water. But how did they still survive? By commanding a king named Utnapishtim, an individual they took pity on, to build an ark which also tells us that the technology to build ships was available by then, likely to be towards 4.000 BC. We can safely assume they are advanced enough to breeze through waters. This is critical in outlining where this story commences and until which point it goes on. I did not study what is the most recent within the story yet I think the writing itself is the most recent of all. Although being Sumerian originally, the text was written in Akkadian of which the oldest examples could be dated to 3.000 BC. It was passed on in Akkadian, then Hittite. It looks likely that-

Özdemir: Quite the sacred text it seems.

Gezgin: Of course it is. Had it been a subjective story of a man, nobody would care about it that much. However, it is the story of the all-knowing and all-seeing, of homo sapiens sapiens, of all of us. We still fail to face that feeling there. In a way, it is still concerned with how to reach the crux of immortality as an outcome of civilization. A book by Harari which was a sensation in Turkey as well, Homo Deus mentions the deification of the human. Robotization of human mechanisms, biology in the future to attain some kind of immortality. Or the idea of the post-human. Narcissist technology of upgrading the human from its human qualities to render it immortal. The human holds an ambition to become a god. Heaven, or the land of Dilmun, is a metaphor of this. In antiquity, becoming immortal was becoming a god. Herodotus puts it by saying “mortals and immortals.” Homer calls out “Us, the mortals” and “the immortals did that,” etc. The very basic line dividing god from human is immortality, and mortality thereto. Humans worship with the prospect of reaching it after death. Why were so many temples constructed? Those tombs, pyramids? There is another motif worth mentioning here. The road to Dilmun, heaven, is only through a sea and a ferryman. We know this story, Charon of Ancient Greece. Michelangelo depicted him on the wall of the Sistine Chapel. How he carries souls of the deceased to the other side.

Özdemir: … who is also paid for that.

Gezgin: Charon does not work for free. One is required to put something in his mouth or by his side as a gift. For Ancient Greece, if you cannot travel across, you turn into an undead at this side, a threat against the living. So, whoever is left behind must act appropriately during your passing for their own good as well as to save you from anguish in that eternal afterlife. The same definition of the Underworld or Afterlife could be noted within the Odysseus texts too. When Odysseus is lost, Circe the sorceress tells him that only one person knows the way back to his homeland. “Who is it, tell me!” exclaims Odysseus to which she replies “Tiresias.” “Where can I find him?” he asks. Circe says, “He is dead – in Tartarus now.” He asks, “What can I do then? How can I get there?” Circe comes up with an idea: “Take a goat with you because whomever goes alive cannot come back alive, you would need to abandon something else in your place. Leave the goat there and you could get out alive.” Odysseus descends to the Underworld, finds Tiresias while encountering many there. He sees Tantalus for example, the one condemned by Zeus for eternity. Tied to a tree in a heavenly setting, where there are ripe fruits and wonderful waters flow, whenever Tantalus bows down to quench his thirst, waters retreat; whenever he stretches to pick a fruit, branches arch back. For all eternity. The punishment of Sisyphus? Condemned by Zeus yet again, trying to push the boulder up the mountain only to do it all over again as the boulder rolls back down. You know about him; his punishment is a practice imposed on officers in government offices known as the Sisyphus punishment. We can figure out what a similar fiction it is we observe. With Persians, Avesta, Zoroastrianism says that the afterlife is split into three: Purgatory, Heaven and Hell, divided by a river in between over which there is the bridge Chinvat. In Ancient Egypt, for example, a water to be crossed fills the gap between this life and the afterlife. That’s why, in pharaohs’ tombs, they place – we have a fly over here who is a fan of mythology, sticking with me all along.

Özdemir: Visited me a few minutes ago.

Gezgin: They place boats in pharaohs’ tombs so they can sail across to the realm of the immortal to become gods. We are against an intriguing mesh of stories to be analyzed. We need to sift through them in fine detail and such a task shall never end. Because with every sifting, we will come across what human is and how it described itself. Humans asked the questions of “What is human?” and “Who am I?” and answered them accordingly. “This is what you are because Zeus created you.” “Today you are here, you will pass away someday when Charon will take you across to the place Hades will be waiting for you.” This world is always regarded as a fleeting one. Very few beliefs do not speak of the concept of the other side. The metaphor is common with almost all religions: “This world is a temporary one, we will pass away onto the afterlife one day to become immortal.” Yet, another metaphor follows that goes “I promise you immortality but you have to die first.” Because death is a bitter truth for a human. I shared a video of Lacan the other day, I guess I had seen it, Murat Erşen having shared it and so did I having seen it. He says “Death. Will you be able to endure knowing everything about yourself? Therefore, there is death.” So thrilling. Such an important question this is. Who can genuinely endure knowing everything about herself or himself? That’s what homo sapiens sapiens dared and ended up knowing so much it would prefer it did not. The realization of being mortal made a crushing impact on it. It is trying to get rid of it now.

Özdemir: Like Gilgamesh.

Gezgin: Like Gilgamesh, for instance. So interesting.

Özdemir: So we have made kind of an introduction to the Epic of Gilgamesh as the origin of the yarn ball of mythology. Now that we are nearing the end of our program, let’s hear what else you have to say as closing words, sir.

Gezgin: Conclusively, I can say that Gilgamesh and other myths alike deserve the interest they are attracting. They need to be handled and analyzed bearing in mind that they are archaeological pieces with information from the past acting as metaphorical expressions and narratives and from as many various disciplines as possible, such as philosophers, psychologists, archaeologists, anthropologists. Because we can only each access them from our individual perspective only. For example, what we talked about here, about this story and whatnot, is a section from my point of view. I would like to talk about this briefly if we have the time for it.

Özdemir: Sure.

Gezgin: A story closely resembling this story could be found in Ancient Greek mythology. Gilgamesh has a story about his birth, too. It takes place in a land ruled by a king named Enmekar. The king has a daughter and no sons. He lives in concern for who will be ruling after him. One day, an oracle comes to speak to him and says, “I got bad news for you, my king. You have no sons and not only that but also the son of your daughter will grow up to overthrow you by killing you.” The king asks the oracle what he could do about it and ultimately decides to build a tower to lock her up there. Quite like the story of the Maiden’s Tower, like the hundreds out there. The king places a sentry beside the tower ordering him “not to allow even a male fly inside.” Still the destiny holds. One day as he tries to overhear what’s going on inside, the sentry figures out the cries of a baby. He barges in to see that the daughter has given birth to a baby boy. How he was conceived is a mystery, that part of the story is lost. Fearing the wrath of the king, he decides to get rid of the baby by swaddling him and throwing out the window. An eagle takes notice of something in the air, grabbing the baby by his swaddle and drops him onto a field of a garden. he gardener seeing an eagle swooping down leaving something on the ground goes there to see what it is only to figure out that it is a baby. Desiring to have children but having none, they claim the baby as a blessing from the gods. They name the baby Gilgamesh, so that he becomes the all-knowing, the all-seeing. They raise him. Gilgamesh, determined to know and see it all, discloses his intention to depart so as to know and see it all and garner experience. While making his entrance to the city of Uruk, people marvel at his appearance, a gigantic and muscular body and so on. They propose him to be their king since the previous one is deceased, eventually crowning him. This is the story in fragments. Let me tell another one that sounds like it to complement it. This is the story of Oedipus. King Laius, living in Thebes, is told by oracles that he will have a son who will kill him in the end and marry his mother. Indeed a son is born and King Laius orders his aides to abandon him in the forest so that wild animals tear him apart relieving them of the trouble – the horrific trouble prophesized of killing his father and marrying his mother. However, the king’s plan is thwarted. Oedipus grows up in a foster family likewise. One day, an impertinent oracle foretells the same prophecy: “It is in your destiny that you will murder your father and marry your mother.” Upon hearing this, Oedipus decides to leave his home since he thinks they are his actual parents trying to refrain from acting as foretold. He starts his journey to Thebes and on the way, near a bridge, he comes across his real father yet, naturally, he does not recognize him, neither does the king. Tensions arise between the two about who may cross the bridge first and their quarrel results in the death of the king. Continuing his march towards Thebes, the Sphinx, a beast asking riddles to those who trespass and slaying those who answer incorrectly, appears before Oedipus. The Sphinx is wreaking havoc in Thebes by then. Oedipus answers all its questions correctly and it throws itself off the cliffs to end its life. So, the news spreads across the town of Thebes: the king somehow ended up dead, as did the Sphinx thanks to a hero. The folk gather at the gates waiting for the arrival of the hero and upon Oedipus’s kingly image, offer him the throne and the queen as the king is dead and his wife remains a widow. Oedipus, thinking this is a strike of luck, unbeknownst to him, sits on the throne of his father and marries his actual mother. They even go as far as to have four children. One day, going through a time of misfortune, Oedipus consults the oracles about what is wrong in general. The oracles seek and reveal the truth to Oedipus: his wife is indeed his mother and the person he had killed was his father. As a consequence, Oedipus blinds himself for he thinks he should have seen what anybody could have seen. He deserts his home and dies on the road. Starting from Freud, a lot of psychiatrists have examined and tried to interpret this as one of the most significant myths that sustains the order of civilization, patriarchal order and incest, as well as the continuous production of culture thereof. In other words, it is construed that this story served a function for the community and that function helped establish the incest taboo within that community. Of course, I am going over this briefly, such an idea is supported by an entire corpus, whereas it has its critics too such as Deleuze who asserts that patriarchy is actually interpreting the story as such, positing its own explanations into it. We need to go over these stories both to better understand the culture we live in and – we are still asking the question of “what is human?” – and to have knowledge of how humans found answers to the question through the years, through ages – I think these stories are very crucial to these. I would also suggest for every other branch of science to be involved in them, using their own perspective and unique methodologies.

Özdemir: Thank you very much, sir. We have been talking for about 1.5 to 2 hours now. This has been a very fruitful conversation, inspiring me to take down notes of several revelations. I suppose we have made a program to be watched over and over. Thank you very much.

Gezgin: Thank you, too.

Sağsöz: Thank you, sir.

Özdemir: Thanks to Dilan and Ayşe for their efforts enabling this broadcast to be communicated to you at this hour of the day, too. Next Monday we will be hosting Hakan Kırkoğlu for our 73th broadcast titled “Sultan and his Munajjim” – looking forward to your audience again. Thank you again very much, sir. Have a nice evening.

Gezgin: Have a good one.

Sağsöz: Have a good one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Culture and History Conversations (57) 17th Century: The Age of Çelebis with Cemal Kafadar

Kültür ve Tarih Sohbetleri (57):


Culture and History Conversations (57)
17th Century: The Age of Çelebis
with Cemal Kafadar

translated by Hasan Aksakal

edited by Micah A. Hughes

synchronized by Ümid Gurbanov

 

http://medyascope.tv/2017/06/20/kultur-ve-tarih-sohbetleri-57-cemal-kafadar-ile-17-yuzyil-celebiler-cagi/

 

Özdemir: Good evening. Dear Cemal Kafadar, a professor from the History Department of Harvard University is joining us for the 57th programme of “Kültür ve Tarih Sohbetleri” [Culture and History Conversations] on Medyascope TV. I would like to thank him for joining us. First of all, welcome!

Kafadar: Glad to be here. Thank you!

Özdemir: You are not an outsider here. You have joined one or two other programmes here. Thank you for not rejecting these invitations.

Kafadar: On Medyascope! Indeed, I have special respect for Medyascope.

Özdemir: Thank you very much. There has continually been a project in the mind of Ozan and I: “Çelebis in the 17th century, the classical age of Ottomans.” We have looked forward to doing a series of programs on Kâtip Çelebi, Evliya Çelebi and Eremya Çelebi. It is a fortunate that the introduction to this series is beginning with you. I think this is the probably the best introduction. In this frame, I suppose since Ozan is the architect of this project, he has the right to ask the very first question. Let’s start from there. Let’s go!

Sağsöz: First of all, welcome!

Kafadar: I’m glad to be here; thank you.

Sağsöz: I would like to step back as far as possible so that I can then get inside. I’ll go to Iberia prior to Ottoman lands. In the beginning of the 17th century, Cervantes, around 1604 and 1609, publishes “Don Quixote”. The very first sentence at the introduction starts with “You, wandering reader!”, and then he explains the reason of writing his book. Here two concepts, “Wanderer” and “Reader” are crucial; and if we apply or search for these two in to the 17th century Ottoman World, there is a common feature among Eremya Çelebi, Kâtip Çelebi, and Evliya Çelebi which is strongly related to being a wanderer, being traveler, or being voyager. We all know Evliya Çelebi. Eremya Çelebi also has a work entitled “İstanbul Tarihi” [Istanbul in the 17th Century], and in it, he pictures Istanbul from the eye of a traveler or voyager. You have explained this from another perspective.

Kafadar: A cinematographic one.

Özdemir: You had mentioned it on “Kul Sohbetleri” [Servant Conversations]

Sağsöz: We already know Kâtip Çelebi via the most important geography books, “Cihannüma”. Starting from here, that is with being a “wanderer”, perhaps starting with “readership” by itself, or “being wanderer and reader” – what does it mean in the 17th century Ottoman World?

Kafadar: Interesting. I did not think of “wandering” as an active movement within a certain space; and ‘wanderer’ extends all the way up to Yusuf Atılgan’s “The Wandering Man”. It’s quite different from being a traveler. Its associations are very rich.

Yet, it has the dimension that you refer to – very well; aside from that, all three of these men abandon the lines or boundaries of their standard careers. Evliya Çelebi had never walked that line; so maybe these are the types that a scribe or a scholar of a madrasah would call “wanderer.” They work hard; they produce a lot; they travel, write, draw, and read. However, for example, Evliya Çelebi never had a profession. Being a muezzin (prayer caller), companionship etc – but it had an end. He was not interested in following a carrier path. We can say that he utilized them all for travelling or gaining experience.

Eremya Çelebi – whose family members as well as his social environment and the circle in Langa-Kumkapı were full of clerics – would have easily been a cleric if he had wished to do so. His intellectual capacity was ideal for it, but he never cared for it.

As for Kâtip Çelebi, he had advanced as a scribe for a bit, but as soon as he found an opportunity (meaning as soon as he came into his inheritance), he devoted himself to books and to his own work.

In this sense, none of these three follow the “career path” – in Cornell Fleischer’s phrase – that we frequently encounter in many of the 16th century’s classical, schematic forms. There are some career paths which were defined by laws, along some certain promotional lines, and a lot of brilliant people have taken them.

In the 17th century, there are some figures who escape intellectual life within madrasah circles. We have named two significant cases. Eremya Çelebi, who  –even though we cannot refer to madrasah– we can still compare it  the religious career of his own community and class. Too many parallels at this point.

These three çelebis, which I chose as symbolic representatives for the Age of Çelebis, and who also provide us a light to determine the spirit and tendency of the period, are indeed “wanderers” in a sense.

“Reader”? Yeah, what great readers! Their age is also an age of readership. In the broader context that I speak, I would like to call it, more broadly, “the Age of Çelebis, Women, and Journals”. Yet, when one needs to be shorter, more compact, clear, and nice, then “the Age of Çelebis” works well. The journal is one essential piece of the whole. What we call the journal brings different books and booklet materials together, but is also a part of the tradition of adding various useful information. It is a very old tradition. However, with time it has evolved. Let me keep it short. It represents a newly emerging culture of readership in the 17th century for non-elite, urban people who are also un-affiliated with the madrasah. In one sense, we can say this is sort of more democratic culture of readership.

When it is used this way, some people say, “Democracy has nothing to do with it; it’s a modern word”; however, it is not that simple. The word ‘’demos’’ goes back to Ancient Greece, of which the Ottomans were aware. I think we can use it as something that belongs to the ‘life’ of the word ‘Demos’.

What I mean here is that due to the culture of the journal, there are more journals written and there are significant differences when comparing to pre-17th century ones. Firstly, they did not have to be a unified piece. Which means twelve philosophy treatises and three logic (al-mantiq) treatises could be found back to back in the same journal. This is classic. The earliest editions of most of the journals we encounter at libraries look like this. However, in the 17th century – and sometimes earlier, too – often look like this: One booklet for prayers (duaname), three description of medicine, after that something along the line of “poems that I love most,” then a piece related to Selim I the Sultan, which would be taken from Imperial Chronicles. Right after that, there would be a collection of “humor,” then a piece from an interpretation of the Qur’an, a piece on an interpretation of a verse of the Qur’an that the author or journalist especially liked, and so on and so forth. This kind of journal culture emerged in the 17th century. This, I think, is an important side of a cultural world in transition parallel to the notion of the ‘çelebi’s [person of knowledge]. Let me stop here…

Özdemir: Actually, please continue; it is going great. This issue of the journal is quite important.

Kafadar: The mecmua, or journal, brings together differences both vertical and horizontal. Horizontally, it takes many things from different genres. Vertically, what I point out is that it puts difficult texts, which are only for the well-educated, next to very light humor collections based in daily life. It brings out both horizontal and vertical diversity. The volumes that came out of these journal compilations (gathering, collecting), I mean, unifying various kinds, are I think the most original – very important, very nice elements of the 17th century. This also signals that there were much more literate people in urban culture. For sure, it is impossible to compare to our time. Nevertheless, if the rates have risen from %1 to %5, which I think these stats are higher because there are so many schools around, is great. There are transmitting worlds among oral and written cultures, such as reading a book for many people at a time. Even if the entire journal is not read, there are many people who read most of it. Which means the standards of reading-writing may be quite different, but there is more material for the general readership of the 17th century. Et cetera, et cetera…

Özdemir: This is quite interesting. This is related to the spread of knowledge as well as its democratization and rising rates of literacy.

Kafadar: Yes.

Özdemir: It is also important because it gives the cultural infrastructure of the society. For example, almost all of the Çelebis are engaged with geography, right? Eremya Çelebi’s  “History of İstanbul- İstanbul in the 17th Century”, Kâtip Çelebi’s “Cihannüma”, or the story of Eremya Çelebi, in which he jumps into a small craft, and offers camera-like visions of the city for his readers. I just read it very recently; it’s stunning. He, so to say, tells the details of the landscape, and not just a simple description. Just like a camera lens shows us the landscape of a city, as you mentioned in “Kul Sohbetleri”. On the other hand, there we have Evliya Çelebi. I mean, it seems like there is a link between geography and intellectual life, doesn’t there?

Sağsöz: There is an expansion, I guess – an expansion of geography.

Kafadar: That is very true. 

Özdemir: What would you like to say about this?

Kafadar:  There is one more sentence I would like to say concerning journals – let me add it – and then continue… They are also interconnected to each other, in my mind at least. I hope I can clarify.

I just referred to “Demos”, let’s replace it “Cumhur” [public] instead, a much more familiar word. We come across it a lot in the 17th and 18th century texts. An old word, indeed. Even in the Rebellion of Edirne in 1703, Çalık Ahmed, one of the leading characters of the rebellion, says, “What is the need for a dynasty; we shall create a ‘public’ society!” As you can see, the term is placed in such a political claim.

Our Ottoman authors, while writing about countries without a dynasty or monarchy, such as the Netherlands, Venice, Dubrovnik, or even Poland, say “in some places, the ‘public’ (cumhur) sends its own representatives”. So they are aware of the role of the public in politics. There is a monarchy in Poland, but a Diet assembly, a parliament that makes decisions. For sure, a parliament is not created by a whole people; there are aristocrats, boyars, and the Diet assembly; all are extremely important in decision making.

On the issue of journals, I would say that journals were instruments that helped participating, actively and creatively, in the processes of having and producing knowledge – along with rising rates of literacy. The Çelebis’ relationship with these circles were far more intensive than those affiliated with madrasah scholars.

There is a relationship between the journal and the encyclopedia. The journal is an instrument that helps collect and unify information in a more encyclopedic way. For instance, Ali Ufkî names his work “Mecmua-i Sâz ü Söz” [Journal of Music and Lyrics]. We can think of it as an encyclopedia of music, as well. We can absolutely say that it is a book that brings an encyclopedic approach to the music culture of its time, and it is also suitable to be a journal.

Evliya Çelebi refers to his own book as a journal a few times. Evliya defines his book as “A Travel Book, History of A Traveler.” History, geography, travel book – they are all together, and it’s richer than that. Yet there are some journal-like features, and it seems like a journal indeed.

There are some journals that were written by Kâtip Çelebi. We know the notes he took were in classical journal format, classic of that time or that we call “classic” long after. So there is also this kind of relationship between these two types.

I said “encyclopedic knowledge.” An extremely important feature of the 17th century, which was especially debated in the European context – and Ann Blair, my colleague from Harvard, wrote a well-known book on this issue – is that similarly to our question in the present time, it was an age that people asked themselves questions like “So much knowledge in the world! How are we going to deal with it all?” I will follow up with geography. It is closely related to it.

In the 17th century, people in many parts of the world, including the Ottoman world, complained about it. Great discoveries had been made. In addition, even if it is not very clear, there was some uneasiness that old information was inadequate: “Return to classic texts. They are not shedding light on some things…” like a new quest, a new attitude appeared. Along with them, there is also the confusion of: “What shall we do with all that knowledge? How do we get them all together? How is this used and handled? How do we make it useful?”

This is extremely powerful in Kâtip Çelebi. His “Keşfü’z-Zunûn”, is an encyclopedic, gigantic effort, an incredible work that reaches beyond centuries. Modern works similar to it are published today, containing more themes than that. Kâtip Çelebi, even as a clerk, goes on a campaign with the army –I guess he was a clerk of the Kapıkulu Sipahileri, Sixth Troop. On his way to the campaign, he finds time in Aleppo and goes to the second-hand bookstores. “There are many books here. I should start making a list of them as soon as possible,” he says. And for the first time, thousands of thousands, thousands of works – all the works that were possible and accessible – he saved them, their names and summaries of them; he records them in Arabic, Turkish, Persian, and creates a monumental work.

On the question of preparing it, there is a lot of information about “how to make them useful.” In the 17th century, the form of books is changing, too. The notes that Kâtip Çelebi takes for “Süllemü’l-Vusul” (the most comprehensive biography in Islamic scholarship), and then those notes for the “Keşfü’z-Zunûn” are also very interesting. Obviously he was dealing with the worry of taking notes in a creative way: how does he put all those authors’ biographies into the “Keşfü’z-Zünûn”? Will the authors be listed chronologically or alphabetically? As knowledge accumulates, for sure, such problems emerge even more strongly.

In some of his works, Kâtip Çelebi cites sources with a footnote like a modern style footnote, which is created at the end of the 17th century. I mean, he shares the work and the page number that he writes about. I see only one instance of this, I should not exaggerate, but even that single instance is a tremendous thing. For us, it is something normal. He mentions it: like “Istanbul 1977, page 63”. It has a story. Indeed, there is no custom to refer to other texts in this way before the 17th century. Kâtip Çelebi is clearly part of that world.

I am coming to your question after this geographic tour. Georgraphy is the new big issue of that age. Geography is not only about “How far is Japan? How many people live there? What is their management style? Do they have a capital city? Do they have mountains and rivers?” like questions. At the same time, they have a calendar system. “Can we reconcile our calendar with that calendar system?” Another enormous encyclopedic activity of Kâtip Çelebi is the calendar work. The Chinese calendar, the Indian Calendar, the Islamic Hijri calendar, the Jewish calendar, as well as different calendars of various Christian churches; he is aware of these different calendars. He’s looking at their stories. He is also informed by his contemporaries. Kâtip Çelebi is a well-known, read and important writer. Let’s not acknowledge him as someone alone.

Özdemir: So, he is popular.

Kafadar:  He asks that famous question at the beginning of his book, “Mîzân-ül-Hakk”. He complains that shaikh al-Islams are now ignorant of geography, geometry, and science. Maybe he is unfair in a sense, but there is a reason behind that polemics. For example, “If you ask, how do they fast in the North Pole, how will they answer?”
The information and information processing problems brought to us by geographical discoveries are multidimensional. When we say geography; if we think it together with all these issues, it was confusing for all people. It is the same in Europe. Atlases emerge. Even if it is not very common, it is a very accepted kind of book among the Ottomans.

I would like to take this matter a little further, but if you have any other questions, we can continue. Geography has something to do with secular knowledge. I would also say that.

Sağsöz: There is a somewhat connected, yet slightly different point about this geography that you just mentioned. I would like to read two passages from Antoine Galland’s memoirs “Pendant Son Sejour a Constantinople16721673”. It may be a little bit long, but I think it fits here.

Kafadar: Galland is fantastic. So I hope this is something we can consider ‘encouraging’ in the future.

Sağsöz: What I will read was exciting to me as well. It’s from the second volume. “On the 18th of April, Tuesday, I visited Mehmed Çelebi in Istanbul.” –So there is also Mehmed Çelebi there. Yet another çelebi. We do not know who he’s, but there’s a person named Mehmed Çelebi.

“In regards to the old tradition that Turks still practice, he showed me copies of maps that were divided into two worlds and seven climates with the countries’ names written in Turkish. Honestly, this map seemed very correct to me. And I suspect that it has been copied from someone else’s map, someone among our geographers. The mistake I found on this map is –as I have also shown to this Turk- that Korea was drawn in the form of an island, where it is connected to the continent in the face of a recent discovery. Kaptan Paşa (the Head of Imperial Navy), had already sent two copies of the map to the Sublime Port for the Sultan’s interest. I saw four Italian marine maps in his home, other than this one, which were affixed to wooden surfaces and surrounded by golden nails. These were made in 1545 by a man named George Kalopadi in Crete. On a world map, I noticed that the person who drew Ceylon Island, which is called “Taprobana” here, was not aware of anything about it, size or shape, because he put this island beyond Cape Cemorin and shows it in a very similar form to the Maldives. On the same occasion, I saw a Turk named Hüseyin Efendi who wrote a history in Turkish.’’ He mentions Hezarfen Hüseyin Efendi.

“I found him a very handsome man. His height did not seem ugly at all, compared to normal size. On the same day, I saw a Turkish book titled “Ten of the Twelve, named Çelebi, betting on the religions and beliefs of the Turks, that is, the will of Mehmed the son of Pir Ali.”

I will read one more note, with your permission. “On the 15th of September, Friday. On the service of His Excellency Ambassador, I visited a Turkish historian named Hüseyin Efendi.’’ Once again, he mentions Hezarfen Hüseyin Efendi here. In fact, we can call him ‘çelebi’, right?

Kafadar: Absolutely.

Sağsöz:He lives near a mosque which is a so-called  church-mosque, since it is converted from a Greek church.”

Özdemir: …around Vefa neighborhood.

Sağsöz: “This mosque’s door is still decorated with old columns left. On behalf of the His Excellency, I asked for his friendship. Although he seemed ready for this companionship, I gave him a jacket and a satin jacket (that the Embassy provides) to gain more of his heart. I witness that he did not expect me to do anything like this. Since he told that he did nothing to deserve such a generous present from His Excellency, on behalf of the will of Ambassador, I told him that His Excellency ordered me to deliver his present. Additionally,  I also replied, ‘this gift is a appreciation in return to the history book that he wrote. Then he told me that he was not worthy of such a degree of appreciation, and that he never liked this work, and that he would not neglect to present a better version to the His Excellency’ one day as soon as he finishes and publishes it.

“Following day, 16th of September, Saturday, the same Hüseyin Efendi came to visit His Excellency. His Excellency showed him the portraits of the Sultan and the Grand Vizier. Hüseyin Efendi returned to his home with great gratitude and courtesy of the Ambassador who offered a meal.”

These two notes change one’s idea of that period. First, the matter of geography; maps are taken, maps are given.

Özdemir: Korea and the Maldives are available in great detail. Even the mistakes have been identified. It is shown as an island on the map.

Sağsöz: Yes, there are some mistakes about places. Another point is that the Ottoman çelebis, the Ottoman efendis, through these diplomats, must be in one-on-one communication with the outsid world. We were talking about it before you came. For example, this issue of “having a meal.” Where did they eat? Did they eat at a table? They probably ate at the French palace in Beyoğlu and had an intellectual conversation. Because, like Hezarfen Hüseyin Efendi, Galland, as far as we know prior to becoming diplomat, was an intellectual.

Of course, we know that Europe at that time was not equivalent to Europe today. How was their relationship with the outside world? It does not have to be Europe necessarily. What was the relationship between the Ottoman intellectuals and their contemporaries in India? There are actually a few questions here. Can we continue from here?

Kafadar: Excellent questions! Some of them are questions that we have been thinking about for a long time. We still have to change our presumptions about the 17th century. We must change them. “Being forced” sometimes sounds like a bad thing to the ears. There are many reasons for us to change these.
There is a shadow given by the long-standing dominance of the paradigm of rise, stagnation, and decline in the 17th and 18th centuries. We are trying to change that, there are scholars preoccupied with this. When we read it, and look at it closely, this change presents itself. For example, we have a student named Burcu Gürgen –greetings to her from here- who endeavors to complete her dissertation on Hezarfen Hüseyin Efendi. I hope it will be a brilliant dissertation. Various other studies are being carried out on the 17th century. Galland is an important point for them.

Galland is an interesting man. He’s not a diplomat, actually. He travels with a diplomatic mission to prepare a doctorate. His dissertation deals with some certain part of the debates in Greek Orthodox Church’s theology. And by this, he comes to this land as a young scholar. After that, when he learns the languages, when he enters the cultural life here and makes friends, which he does not expect at first, he goes to many other places. Actually, Galland is known in Europe especially as the discoverer and translator of the Arabian Nights. He is a man with many different dimensions.

We also know that Galland has some other Ottoman friends like Hezarfen Hüseyin Efendi, including many Muslim Ottomans. I was at the Marsigli Archives less than a month ago in Bologna. Count Marsigli, -almost at the same time with Galland, and partly little bit after Galland- is also a friend of Hezarfen Hüseyin. Hezarfen Hüseyin has a very good social network. He is extremely curious. The first inspiration of Hezarfen Hüseyin is Kâtip Çelebi. They have an environment, they read each other, they think, they convey their curiosity, enthusiasm and knowledge to younger generations.

Since 1983 I have had the opportunity to go to the Marsigli Archives several times and spend a few days. Spending time in the Marsigli Archives, you can find the following notes: “I met up with Captain X the other day, and he drew the types of the Ottoman ships”. Of course, this may have led them to a technological debate. One is also curious about the background and the end of that moment. Where does the conversation go? “Ok, you drew this, but this is where the zealot works, does it work?” We can find only a limited part of those talks in the text, but even that is so valuable in itself.

Geographical knowledge is especially important. They try to follow very closely in Istanbul, after a point. The translation of “Târîh-i Hind-i Garbî” (The History of West India) is long before Kâtip Çelebi’s time. However, with Kâtip Çelebi, I think, we can say that geography has become one of the main areas of interest, from the reasons I tried to explain.
He (Kâtip Çelebi) and the people around him. “Cihannümâ,” which is well known, is one of the books Müteferrika wants to print as soon as he starts
printing, because “Cihannümâ” had a great impact – as a concept. The appearance of the book as an object, such an idea, attracts the attention of people.

In the reign of Mehmed IV, I think in the 1660s, “Atlas Maior” (Great Atlas) was just printed and sent to Istanbul. It’s arrival as a gift was written in both Cronicles – we find the reflection both in the Cronicles and in writers, like Evliya Çelebi, who are not in court at the time.

Geography, from the reasons I just told you (to narrowly not regard it as geographical knowledge), is geared toward thinking minds that come up with new discoveries in many dimensions – what the new world looks like, what innovations, threats, possibilities, differences, etc.

We can add to that: For example, with new discoveries and new ways of trade, new consumer goods enter the lives of people. Everyday food items; such as tomatoes and coffee…

Coffee does not come from a discovery of a continent, but it is a very common item for consumption through the development of new commercial routes that are determining the age. “What does coffee do? How does it affect your body?” If it is new to you, you will deal with these questions. Even today, you know there is a lot of research on caffeine. Consumable items such as tomatoes, peppers, and potatoes all have initiated similar concerns, curiosities, questions, and fears.

Geography, with all these dimensions, is a very important field of knowledge in the 17th century. There are, for sure, geography enthusiasts in the madrasah. Astronomy is not a far field of science for madrasahs. As far as we know, even if the books are answering those questions directly… In the structured, established education system of the madrasah, there is no central place for geography at that time. Even more for astronomy, perhaps, made by astrologers (müneccims). I mean, it is a career line that is related to madrasah education but is outside of it. Of course, among the mariners, too. For example, Seydi Ali Reis is known for his adventures on his return from India, but at the same time, he is the author of a very important work of astronomy and geography.

Such fields of knowledge, by their very nature, find a more comfortable place outside of the madrasah. When the interest in geography in the 17th century experienced this explosion, it became closely related to the çelebis who developed their skills outside of the madrasah circles that I mentioned at the beginning.

Müneccimbaşı (The Leading Astrolog) Ahmed Dede Efendi is another extremely interesting character from that time. Even though Çelebi does not mention him, he is a famous historian as well as some other stuff. For example he (Münnecimbaşı) requests that Eremya Çelebi translate a book about the History of Armenia. Eremya Çelebi translates it for Münnecimbaşı.

In your example, Europeans like Galland and Hezarfen Hüseyin Efendi meet. Meanwhile, Müneccimbaşı and Eremya Çelebi meet as well. Maybe Eremya and Galland meets, too. Or, even if not Galland, maybe some other Frenchman… Different, new networks and possibilities of communication emerge within Ottoman society. Of course, there were some in the 16th century. But it emerges now in the frames of different interests, different ways.

What you read from Galland is so evocative… After Kâtip Çelebi, the scholarship in geography closely was followed by good pursuit. Hezarfen is an excellent case. Dımışki (the one from Damascus) is another good geographer. Bartınlı is another mapper. All of these are prominent figures on the road to late 17th and early 18th centuries – Ibrahim Müteferrika’s time. They follow it. We know this; the possibilities are not in the form of encountering only one European. For sailors these possibilities are not that difficult. On the sea, on the ships… Most of them speak the lingua franca for sure. “What language do they speak?” if one asks, the answer is now relatively easy.

Another issue is this: there was something beyond geography in what you read: encounters. Even in the paintings, this is coming in. I wish I had brought some paintings with me. It is known in that period both in Iran and in the Ottoman lands. Some of the scenes that depict the Europeans and the Ottomans socializing together are beginning to be drawn. I think at the end of the 17th century, or at the beginning of the 18th century at the latest. There are certainly such paintings in Iran at the end of 17th century. What I mean is not this: Of course diplomatic delegations always live with the people of the Palace. Before any other thing, they are necessarily living at the ceremonial level, but they also have something beyond it. I’m talking about a level here that goes far beyond it. As someone without any official authority, duty or any direct relation to palace, Hezarfen Hüseyin’s experiences… [are great].

The Ambassador’s delegations and the embassies are used for various receptions and encounters. We also know this from various examples.

A German scholar, Heidrun Wurm studied “Hezarfen Hüseyin’s relations with Europeans” and earned his doctorate in 1971. That work has never been translated and I have never met this colleague, but his work is rich. There one can find Count Marsigli and Galland, but this colleague discovered some others, too. Prior to Galland, there is Levinus Warner. Warner is the person who follows Kâtip Çelebi, but also the man who leads most of the famous Ottoman Writing Collection in Leiden. By the 17th century, we will find even more things.

Moreover, we started to get to know the ones who went abroad a little better, not just Evliya Çelebi. There are so many among Europeans as well. We sometimes categorize “travel literature” too easily, but I have to stop and remind myself: Some of the guys we call “traveler” are not travelers, in fact, they are prisoners.

Sağsöz: There is “Esirî” (The Prisoner author), right?

Kafadar: There are writers who read these as “travel books” after staying in captivity in the Ottoman side. Marsigli is captured in Ottoman Istanbul. For example, Marsigli is the first man to work on the currents, the fishes, and the winds patterns of the Bosphorus. He published his book in Rome in 1680. Most of the knowledge he uses comes from the Italians who were captured in Istanbul and who lived very close to the sea in Rumelihisarı and Yedikule. In fact this bondage is not dungeon life; they are under custody. He says that he wrote from the details he learned from conversations he had with them.

Özdemir: I want to share the connotations that you have told. It is generally something like this: “There was no Encyclopedist in Turkey. While there were Encyclopedists, there has never been such an effort in Turkey, or let’s say the Ottoman.” This came up to my mind repeatedly while listening to you. There is no systematic encyclopedia work, but the fact that the compiled and collected knowledge, the journal is very important in this respect. There was such an effort. I do not know how fair it is to make a comparison, but ultimately this effort is something that overlaps at different levels.
When it is said “historical,” it is taught by heart by categorizing and approaching things with a certain prejudice.

For example, what you talked about in your “Servant Conversations”; in the story of Murad IV and Evliya Çelebi, Murad the Sultan comes out of the bath and turns him over his shoulders. It is a true story. In these cases, we need to read everything we know so far from somewhat different perspectives. What would you like to say about this?

Kafadar: You are right. You summarized it perfectly. There is not much to say beyond giving examples. 17th and 18th centuries became “the dark centuries.” This darkness is not just in the sense of being unknown. In people’s imaginations, many dark things happened in those centuries. But for quite a while, many of our colleagues were trying to overcome these prejudices and these patterns. Whether it is in textbooks or in popular publications, it is much more difficult to reflect on the mediums, which often appear in public.

But if we take the case of Mehmet Genç; he has dedicated his life for the Ottoman bureaucracy of the 18th century, we can say that it is a very sophisticated century –at least for the financial bureaucracy- that the most important works have been accomplished. He is a very good example for us: “No, do not underestimate the 18th century.” Look, the notes held by the financial bureaucracy of the 18th century are, okay, very different from the 16th century, but not less than that, nor less developed than that.

On the contrary, they are dealing with many more questions and with much more interesting and new instruments. Moreover, these are not just bureaucratic notes. Projects like developing the “mukataa” system, creating the “gedik” system… Some of them were successful, some were unsuccessful. But, does not every economic measure seem so? We can see from the writings of Mehmet Genç that the age was full of innovations.

It unfortunately takes time to change the grand narrative with such works. I did notice this over time. It cannot be done by one or two articles. However, we now have an accumulation, and we can look at the issues through a very different lens. The infrastructure has been created, and depending on this, the reflection on a novel or cinema can be more influential than an article of a historian. Yet all of these are not the options of one good, one bad. All these feed off of each other. I know that a good novelist, a good cinema producer reads –at least at his/her best – what academic historians write. I’m not saying “they follow the historian.”
I should not give a name. I don’t want someone to say that ”he flattered one writer and criticized the other’”. I guess that these are the things that feed off of each other. So it happens. As a result, we are impressed by the films we watch, the novels we read, the works based on imagination. If I have not been interested in or paid no personal curiosity to cinema studies, I would not be able to see Eremya Çelebi’s notes as camera-like views. These are the kinds of exchange.
As we come to the 17th century… indeed you have expressed this very well. The question that we are having trouble with understanding is why Ottoman society and its cultural heritage, which are rich in depth, are continually and unnecessary compared with Europe, and yet not very well informed about Europe. “So many travelers came from Europe, and the Ottomans did not like travelling.” You just said something like this: “You may not be at the same standards, but you can overlap.” Let’s see how many people are gone. “category ‘none’” is a very bad category. Once you said “None”, there is no enthusiasm for more research, or a desire to know.
They say “there was no voyage in the 17th century. No change in the 17th century.” All that traditional discourse: “Everything is getting worse. We can save if we return to the old order, or we will be wretched.” Everything went bad because they could not manage to turn the old order. They had a concept of “Golden Age” in their minds. So they wanted to return to the Golden Age –that is the Age of Suleiman, to revive those institutions. That is to say, “the [lists of] ‘There was’- and ‘There was not’”

“There were no individuals in the Ottomans. Did any of the Ottoman Muslims go to international trade?” Come on, for God’s sake! And yet, there is a huge, dynamic, brilliant Europe, with all of these on top of each other, with those “there was’s”. So one may say this: “So why should I work on the 17th and 18th centuries, buddy?”

A traveler, two travelers, three travelers… We actually find it as we look closer. Once we used to say, “For the Ottomans, there was no ‘I’ narrative”. When I wrote the memoirs of that dervish, I said relatively reluctantly: “Not bad, see? I started to say there was this and there was that…”
After that, some grad students and colleagues both from Turkey, Europe and America began to find succession of different ‘I’ narratives. We began to think that the ‘I’ narratives, the first person narratives, came from different genres. There are as many kinds of materials we cannot handle at the moment –such as adventure and conversation, both developed in the 17th century.

Of course we have to study comparative history. I always take the side of comparisons. It is very natural to compare with Europe. Firstly, they are overlapping, very close geographies with which there is very close contact. Secondly, as European historiography is relatively advanced, the cases we have here that we can preemptively compare are easier. But we have made the comparison itself a fetish. It’s not just us. I’m also talking to my Indian history colleagues: “There is a scientific revolution there, there is capitalism, there is Renaissance, there is this and that. Do you have it? No.” So what then? It’s completely different. In fact, it is tempting to write the history in a way that narrows the opportunities for a useful comparison. Orientalism has thoroughly suppressed it in a complex way, bringing it to the desk of scholars. In Oriental societies, there is no this, there is no that, there is no those. What is absent? Those were the ones that exist in Europe; there is no modernity that comes with a certain urban life, bourgeoisie, capitalism, individual, Renaissance, and reform. We used to think that we overcame this. However it reappears with its “neo-” versions.

Or, sometimes we’re having a seminar with the students, we almost start celebrating ourselves: “OK, now that old paradigm is over. We will not look at the 17th century only in the framework of regression, pause. We will not just look at the axes of ‘None’s. Now they are overcome,” we say. Then I get on a plane, a very popular journal is writing an Ottoman history on the “weekend page” and I say “Oh my God” to myself.

Özdemir: And you say, “How are we going to fix these?”

Kafadar: “How are we going to fix these? What are we going to do?” Of course there is a risk of falling into Romanticism. Çelebis, journals, curiosity for geography… They follow Europe. One should also think and balance this side of the issue.

Firstly, the 17th century is not a pretty, nice, and calm century. For making an Age of Çelebis, all the features of ‘Çelebi’ness with its new definition… As is known, being a Çelebi means something like being a Şehzade (Prince) at first. It is used in various dynasties in the Ottoman Empire. But this new concept of Çelebi, which starts in the 16th century and develops within the 17th century, is even more difficult term to define. The term is used in religious sects, especially among Mevlevis. Even the earliest uses are there: There are examples like Hüsamettin Çelebi and Ulu Arif Çelebi. Then it is used in various dynasties of the Ottoman Empire – but in this sense “Çelebiness”, which started from the 16th century and matured in the 17th century – is also very tough on the one hand.

In a speech I delivered last December, I mentioned [the 17th century] that “The toughest, most falcon century of the Empire”, referring to İlber Ortaylı’s brilliant “The longest century” [of the 19th century]. It’s the toughest, most “çelebi century”. Çelebiness is not just knowledge to cope with the world, to deal with the world, and Kâtip Çelebi is aware of this –even the ships of Europeans and the geographical knowledge that Piri Reis had mentioned – are commonly known as the age of Kâtip Çelebi. Therefore he says: “Their knowledge of geography and the ships are quite superior.”

No matter how peaceful you are, war, as it is today, is a fact of the world. Kâtip Çelebi has to think about it as well. It is not about preoccupation with knowledge, with abstract knowledge, but also with practical aspects of it.

In what context is the book “The Grand Prix about the Sea Wars” written? The Venetians closed the Dardanelles to traffic and besieged the ships. There is no grain coming to Istanbul. A very hard and tough winter, much needed grain does not come to Istanbul, especially from Egypt. There are multiple difficulties. This is happening in the context of the Cretan Wars. On the one hand, there are various problems in the city. There are four (maybe five) major riots between 1648 and 1656.

Kâtip Çelebi writes in a very practical sense. When we talked about it before, I treated the information problem only as an information problem. But besides this, there is a practical side such as “how do we cope with these Venetian ships?” When Kâtip Çelebi is interested in this issue, it is a continually tough century. Jalali Revolts started at the end of the 16th century, and it is not clear if it is over at the beginning of the 17th century. It is best to say that it remains ongoing in different forms at that time. Urban revolts, especially between 1648 and 1656, are flourishing politics over the course of the “long’ 17th century”. There is a financial crisis. Kâtip Çelebi knows the financial bureaucracy very well. A small but very important book of reforms written by him; “Düstru’l-amel” (Political Theory) is on the subject.

I mean, one should not romanticize it. It was a tough century –with all its domestic and international political aspects. People like Kâtip Çelebi, from another perspective, feel that they cannot keep up with the needs of knowledge of the time. It is the same for Evliya Çelebi. Evliya Çelebi admires the hospital after strolling St. Stephan’s Cathedral (Stephansdom) and its mausoleum in Vienna. The display of brain surgery he saw there is very innovative and very important for him.

Özdemir: And there is a gravure of it.

Kafadar: Is there a gravure?

Özdemir: I guess a miniature of that scene. I had posted it on twitter.

Kafadar: I would love to see it.

Özdemir: I will send it to you. I believe a Western painter takes up that scene; very interesting work.

Kafadar: For example, while he (Evliya) is describing the library in Vienna, he suddenly jumps to the neglect of a library he sees in Alexandria. Directly, he also makes such a comparison: “The stem flows. He does not show honest care to books.”

Özdemir: So there is a quest.

Kafadar: Yeah. There is definitely a quest. There are Ottomans who are in a mood of “Hey, we are neither sufficient in material culture nor in the mechanisms of gathering and producing information.” Hezarfen Hüseyin is one of them. It turns in unexpected moments. For example: Silahtar. “The History of Silahtar” puts cases back to back… Those chronicles are treated unfair. I can say those histories have very important historical approach; even some of them have philosophy of history –such as Naima’s. It is certainly very sophisticated source, if you look closer without cliches like “This is someone who just describes case after case.”

As we come to Silahtar: when he traveled from Romania to the north of the Black Sea with the Ottoman Army – Evliya Çelebi also writes on the same topic – he writes on multi-floored stone houses and explains the material culture around them with a great admiration. Why would they not tell? They are not blind, nor are they stupid. One defines some things he sees. Maybe we were blind while assuming they were blind. But the things they see are not always innocent. So, it’s never something to be romanticized. These are the people who think, the people who are deep and refined. The writers, their readers, and the circles we talk about deserve to be given rights so that we read them seriously and deeply.

Sağsöz: Of course, we are giving a periodization here. Again, while talking about Antoine Galland, we were discussing “who was the sultan in 1672?” But the 17th century is so independent from the sultans… For example, we can count the sultans in the 15th or 16th century respectively – or the 16th century’s Golden Age. But in the 17th century there is no such thing. We do not know exactly who the sultan is, and there are no charismatic sultans as such. We mentioned a moment ago, in the narrative, it is also called the Age of Standstill. Can we talk a bit about this period of retrogression? Because your dissertation was on the Decline in the 16th century and your first book is on the foundation period of the Empire. Can we talk about this periodization? Where does the 18th century stand? Because we know the 19th century now was a long century.

Kafadar: A very good question. Let’s go from the particular to the general. 1672, the Period of Mehmed the Hunter (Mehmed IV) Can we use obscene words in this program?

Özdemir: You can use whatever you want. There is no RTÜK (The Supreme Board of Radio and Television) here.

Kafadar: I do not know the policy of Medyascope.tv. Mehmed the Hunter, as you know, was a hunter. If he is busy with hunting, some people must have dealt with government affairs. The phrase, “period of the Köprülüs” is already stated by Ahmed Vefik. Perhaps it is not a complete periodization in the sense that you ask. But this is an answer to why we do not know the Sultan in 1672. Because Mehmed the Hunter is not at the forefront so much, but it is, instead, the Köprülüs. Obviously, this is the Second Köprülü Period. Mehmed Pasha has already died and his son Fazıl Ahmed Pasha has replaced him. In that period after Murad IV, the sultans are consecutively making an impact. In the time of Mehmed the Hunter, there was a saying circulating among the people: “His father is addicted to vagina, he is addicted to hunting.” Because Evliya Çelebi wrote very well about Ibrahim the Mad. Evliya Çelebi has so sharp and critical observations: “He died while holding his penis” he says for Sultan Ibrahim. The writing of such words in a Sultan’s biography is real issue of bravery.

Özdemir: But Evliya Çelebi writes.

Kafadar:  Yes, this is Evliya Çelebi; he definitely writes. These are circulating around. As a biography of the Sultan, this never confronts us. However, it should. Evliya Çelebi narrates Sultan Ibrahim like this. A world he knows very well. Evliya Çelebi is Istanbul resident. Until the time of Sultan Ibrahim, he did not start his travels. Even at that time, he spends a lot of time in Istanbul. For a short period, he lived in the palace during the time of Murad IV. He had a grasp of it.

Özdemir: Namely, he saw the penis.

Kafadar: If he describes it like this, I guess people were talking about it too. Some say: “Sultan Ibrahim? He…”

Kafadar: “Mehmed the Hunter was stuck in hunting but his father is that”… It was such a world, unfortunately. Even if it is known in our discourse of history, it is put aside. Also, it is not the real history; it is fun, small, episodic… we will tell each other and laugh at it, then we will continue with “the real history.” However, this is simply “the real history.” The one is addicted to hunting, and the other is addicted to sex.

Sağsöz: You even think it is some sort of fetish, don’t you?

Kafadar: Yes, I think it is. I think calling Ibrahim the ‘Mad’ is not fair. Of course, this is waggish. I mean: The fetish issue is perceived very differently in different societies and times. Ibrahim the Mad lived in the wrong time.

I mean, it was such a time. The period of characters that I am talking about, that I am telling according to the people’s epithets, although the sayings are obscene, was naturally experienced differently from the 16th century. The Köprülüs gets on the stage as viziers. It takes a lot of time to build such a balance. In the first half of the 17th century, or until the Köprülüs, we see that the viziers were replaced very often. Whoever they are, successful or not, they were replaced very often. If we evaluate that period, this is a phenomenon that should be taken into account for a period of 50-60 years in itself.

If I come back to the question of periodization: I will give an example from a Monty Python movie. Periodization is always a slippery slope. It depends from where we look. Of course, the perspectives change over time. Even it shows differences within the same time. There is a character called Baron von Münchhausen, who the Germans have told us through funny stories. I will compare him with Nasreddin Hodja, but he is quite different. He is an 18th century character. Let’s call him the basic character in joke collections. They made a film about him. It’s a pretty good movie. One of the episodes takes place in the harem. The film begins in English as following: “The Age of Reason.”  It is slowly getting dark. The next scene: “Wednesday.” It’s already starting to show the armies. The armies will fight, everyone will destroy each other. With the term “the Age of Reason”, it makes a periodization by using the age of reason and makes a mockery with both. If “the Age of Reason” returns immediately to the armies, it will already have made an irony. And it also adds Wednesday. Actually, according to the rhythms we have in everyday life, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, this year, last year, this spring, etc. are more important. We give such big names and trivialize Wednesday, Thursday, all of them. “The Age of Reason” is like a fact that covers all. Oh! Descartes says “the Age of Reason.” However, people in there have never heard and will not hear Descartes in their lifetime. They’re trying to earn some money. “Wednesday” refers to this.

But we cannot historicize without doing it. Although some say “why is there a need for periodization? It is sufficient if we just mention the history of the subject we are dealing with,” it’s been repeatedly shown that this is not possible. In fact, when you say the Middle Age, the Modern Age, the 17th century, you make a periodization. Why do you not use Hijri calendar? You’re attributing something to that 17th century. A being… a state of being a unit.

I start my two-semester class, from the Middle Ages, actually from around the year 1000 – both from the year 1000 in Byzantine lands and from the year 1000 with Turks coming from Central Asia, also from the periods of some transformations in the Islamic world. Because nothing happened in 1550 – a year of which nothing happened. Of course, this is not true.

Özdemir: Nothing important happened.

Kafadar : Taking it from 1550, the end of the period is not clear. 1918? 1920? 1923? 1924? Many things can be taken into account, but it’s also in a small timeframe. Why do I bring it to 1550? Because the first coffee shop’s opened in Istanbul in 1550.

Özdemir: Yes, the most important development.

Kafadar: The emergence of a new urban community – I give this example laughingly; something else can be chosen instead of a coffee house – in that period, in the mid-16th century, not only in the Ottoman world but also in many places, a new urban community and some new features of it are beginning to emerge. Çelebi is a product and reflection of this, within the 17th century context. Of course, it is always dangerous to give exact dates, but we all know that in the second half of the 16th century, towards the end of it, there are great transformations and we have to talk about something new from then on. For example, Baki Tezcan put the name of “Second Empire” to his book. There are a lot of changes during that period.

Think about it: The timar and devshirme system, which form the basis of the Ottoman order. We do not have to talk about how central they are. They both start to disintegrate. This is not a sudden change, but their forms in 1550 and 1600, even in 1650 are very different. New institutions, new implementations, new mechanisms, new instruments have replaced them. Instead of devshirme, different human recruitment models are implemented.

Second: The dynastic shift is changing. If you are going to write a constitution for any monarchical system, there is no written constitution but let’s say “what did the Constitution of the Ottoman Empire look like in 1580 or 1620?”, how did power pass from one ruler to another, – this is the most fundamental issue for every regime; we are now doing it with elections – for example, “his men will go away, the men of the other will come, this part will go away as the other will not change.” This system is changing.

The state’s land and population census models, the method of the census, – we can say it depends on timar system, but it is an important mechanism in itself – change. It is a model that the Ottomans created and implemented very successfully in their own age, compared to all the neighboring and different states. We cannot say that those who did census or cadastral operations were only Ottomans. But it is a method that the Ottomans shone out among their contemporaries. This method is changing. We can give additional examples.

So, I do not think it’s necessary to determine a date for it. But in the second half of the 16th century, a great transformation begins. I think this is a transformation that takes place in an interaction with what is happening in the world. If no such thing as “the Military Revolution” occurred, perhaps this change in Timar and Devshirme did not take place, or maybe it would not happen radically.

I want to continue with educated people, but how much time do we have?

Özdemir: We have no time limit. The reflection of this sub-structure presumably sets the next period.

Kafadar: We can say that, because there is such a dimension. Moreover, they see a problem, a deficiency, an imperfection in the relationship of this emerging structure and the rest of the world that we just talked about. They are trying to take care of it. They are trying to think about new solutions for this. Or they cannot think. For example, Evliya Çelebi is not someone who is trying to produce new solutions. But neither is Kâtip Çelebi. He has some direct writings on the reforms. I think we can say that Evliya Çelebi also has some indirect writings. But aside from that, there are people who problematize this. “Where is the world, where are we? How can the Ottoman society’s various problems, their characteristics, be portrayed?”

Özdemir: So it’s actually today’s problems. The problems that we are also talking about, that we are worried about, comparing and contrasting today. There is no difference between them and us.

Kafadar: Right.

Sağsöz: There is also such a problem: the crisis at the beginning of the 16th century, sorry, the crisis at the beginning of the 17th century, the layouts presented to the Sultan, the ideas of collapse or depression probing “are we going backwards?” constitute a discourse that reaches our day. I remember Ismail Cem’s book, “The History of Underdevelopment in Turkey.” Even, this is a text that can be evaluated within the decline discourse. It stems from that.

Kafadar: You are absolutely right. Indeed, we can see a continuum of generations, from the decline writer Mustafa Ali of Gallipoli, who has been very active in the late 16th century, to our day. Of course, this idea is evolving. Mustafa Ali has no important observations about the West. Such a questioning had not started at that period. But starting from Kâtip Çelebi, the so-called questioning comes up in a serious way. We have already talked before: the Venice example. Or Evliya Çelebi’s Vienna example. In the middle of the 16th century, the Western issue, this consciousness of decline, begins more seriously to be part of the literature on decline. In the 18th century, it will even take much different forms. Again, because of very obvious reasons, it will almost become the only big issue in the 19th century.

After the industrial revolution of the 19th century, there is such an imbalance because of both military and economic reasons. Of course, it transforms the subject of “West” into “WEST”. But even if the role of the West evolves in this process, also the role of other things evolve, decline consciousness and the literature on decline keep going by referencing each other. For example, those who wrote at the beginning of the 17th century are aware of Mustafa Ali. Koçi Bey is aware of both Mustafa Ali, and “Kitab-ı Müstetab”, or similar literature. Provincial Treasurer Mehmed “the Blonde” Pasha makes direct quotations from Mustafa Ali. Even he does not call them quotations. It may be seen as plagiarism in today’s understanding, but I think it is not; it is a different understanding of source. We came to Provincial Treasurer Mehmed “the Blonde” Pasha. End of the 17th century, beginning of the 18th century. We can continue in this way.

I, particularly, read in my youth, such as the book of Ismail Cem, or the question in Niyazi Berkes’s book; “Why have we been hesitating for 200 years?” A question that is the continuation of the literature on decline, and we still ask it today. Some take it to 100 years ago, some to 200 years ago; some take it from Suleiman, some from Vienna (1683)… But this question is constantly on the agenda. Maybe we should learn to ask the question in different ways. If a question does not allow an answer, we can sometimes say “This question is not asked very well, should be asked in a different way.” This does not mean a total disregard, it’s something different.

The çelebi is an example of very creative – very brilliant and influential over generations – Ottoman man who deals with these questions in his own times and widens Ottoman thought’s horizon. For example, we cannot talk about educated persons – that is there are people named Çelebi – of the 15th and 16th centuries like this. In fact, there are very few thinkers from outside the madrasa, a thinker who has not received such a serious education does not come to my mind. But after Kâtip Çelebi, we cannot tell the story without taking someone like Kâtip Çelebi serious. We can describe the people who determine the horizon of Ottoman thought before Kâtip Çelebi as a community consisting of persons coming from the madrasa, the Palace, Enderun, and a mixture of these milieus. There is a change starting with Kâtip Çelebi. He gives us an example in the midst of these great transformations, both at that time, and later on, of the values attributed to the educated person- the word has also become an adjective, not only a name, a nickname, a title. “Çelebi, having an educated person attribute” is also used as an adjective – the point at which that development manifests in a mature manner, I think, is the period between the middle of the 17th century and the middle of the 18th century. After that, ‘Çelebi’ness, as educated personhood, does not mean the same thing when the word is used again.

Özdemir: We have been talking about one and half an hour… Thank you.

Sağsöz: Let’s mention the professor’s book.

Özdemir: It’s been a great conversation. Professor Cemal Kafadar’s book “A Rome of One’s Own” was just published by Metis Publishing Co. We got it and read it immediately. In fact, when we invited him for this program, the book had not been published yet. After that, I think that “Between Two Worlds” is also being prepared for publication by Metis Publishing. We also want to have you on the show to talk about it, too. We will end the show by taking his autograph. Thank you very much.

Kafadar: Thank you.

Sağsöz: Thank you so much.

Özdemir: It was so kind of you to join us. We wish you all a good night. We do not have live broadcasting next week; it’s because of a Festival day. We will have some rest. Yet, the following week in our 58th program, we will…

Sağsöz: We will talk about the Magna Carta. The original text is translated into Turkish by Dr. Fatih Durgun, who works on English political history. We will talk with him. It will be a great conversation.

Özdemir: Hope to see you in two weeks, goodbye.

My Dear Turkey

By Ms. Nino Beradze, Georgian writer

It is easy to notice the differences when you come to a foreign country. My Turkey, where I have lived for about 16 years, has now become a part of my life. The 16 years I spent with bitter and sweet, left a deep and tremendous mark on this country in my heart.

I worked in many jobs and even started my own business. Until the covit epidemic in 2019. I had to make a decision that wasn’t easy. I was going to either go to my hometown or to Europe. Then of course I decided and went to Europe. I had changed a country again, but this time, this country change, which was different from the others, created a huge void inside me.

The circumstances I was in caused me to leave, but a piece of my heart still remained in Turkey.

I certainly and certainly cannot denigrate Europe, because each country has its own standards and beauties. But I don’t think there is another country in this world with friendly people like Turkey.

When I came to Europe as a Georgian citizen, I first searched for a Turkish market. When I saw Turkish speakers on the streets, I followed them with joy.

In the first days when I stepped into Europe, I had traveled everywhere and thought that there were magnificent places with their nature, beauty and quality.

Everything was of the highest quality. But I don’t know why I realized that his energy seemed very cold and icy to me. But before I went to work in Turkey, when I had the chance to buy a bagel from the bagel shop opposite my house to have a snack on the way, I would take my bagel and rush to the tram so that when I got on the tram, I could not stand the fragrant smell from my bag and secretly ate it piece by piece. It turns out, how happy did those moments give me? Now, when I remember those days, we smile with pleasure and enthusiasm when telling my friends.

You can imagine that even though I came home from work so stressed and tired, I never understood the taste of the tea I brewed and drank on my balcony or on the windowsill in the evenings.

I would definitely prefer to sit on the small balcony of my house in the Capa District of Istanbul and drink a brewed tea or sahlep with my last breath, even if I was sitting in the nature with the sounds of chirping birds right now, sitting in its huge garden surrounded by the abundant greenery of Europe.

Not everyone can understand these feelings I’m experiencing because they need to love them by feeling in their deep hearts for them to understand.

Good luck to you my dear Turkey and please continue to stand tall no matter what, OK?

Books by Ms Nino Beradze: 

https://www.kitapyurdu.com/yazar/nino-beradze/210285.html