REMEMBERING FUAT SEZGIN - AN OBITUARY

This article argues that the superiority of any civilisation over another depends on its scholars' contribution to the different areas of common human heritage. Western civilisation’s superiority seems to be due to its scholars' contribution not only to their history of science, culture and art but also of other civilisations as well. In this context, this article focuses on Western scholars' contribution to the knowledge of the East in general, and Islamic civilization in particular. The article examines the figure of the Turkish scholar Fuat Sezgin's Science and Technology in Islam and argues that Sezgin did not challenge Orientalism, in fact he worked within its frame of reference and methodology. In fact, Sezgin, at the same time, used Orientalist scholars' methodology, heavily benefited from their previous studies and appreciated their contributions to Islamic civilisation. The article concludes that the panorama presented by Sezgin in this work in the field of science and technique in Islam, can be also introduced in a similar way in relation to other fields and the result will not be different.

International Research Journal of Islamic Civilization, 2021

This article argues that the superiority of any civilisation over another depends on its scholars’ contribution to the different areas of common human heritage. Western civilisation superiority seems to be due to its scholars’ contribution not only to their history of science, culture and art but also of other civilisations as well. In this context, this article focuses on Western scholars’ contribution to the knowledge of the East in general, and Islamic civilization in particular. The article examines the figure of the Turkish scholar Fuat Sezgin’s Science and Technology in Islam and argues that Sezgin did not challenge Orientalism, in fact he worked within its frame of reference and methodology. In fact, Sezgin, at the same time, used Orientalist scholars’ methodology, heavily benefited from their previous studies and appreciated their contributions to Islamic civilisation. The article concludes that the panorama presented by Sezgin in this work in the field of science and technique in Islam, can be also introduced in a similar way in relation to other fields and the result will not be different.

Erciyes Medical Journal

Erciyes Medical Journal, 2019

Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin (1924–2018), a renowned Turkish orientalist and historian of science, was the founder and long-term director of the Institute of the History of the Arab-Islamic Sciences at J.W. Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany since 1982. With respect to medical sciences, he outlined the historical development of medical literature in Islamic civilizations by introducing the works and contributions of many medical authors of the Islamic Golden Age. Among them, the third (1970) and fourth (1971) volumes of his voluminous work Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums (History of Arabic Writings), a systematically organized bio-bibliographical reference on the history of science and technology in the Islamic world, are of particular importance. He also established Frankfurt’s (1983) and Istanbul’s (2008) Museum for the History of Science and Technology in Islam, bringing together nearly 800 ingenious replicas of historical scientific instruments and medical tools.

Erciyes Medical Journal, 2019

Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin (1924–2018), a renowned Turkish orientalist and historian of science, was the founder and long-term director of the Institute of the History of the Arab-Islamic Sciences at J.W. Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany since 1982. With respect to medical sciences, he outlined the historical development of medical literature in Islamic civilizations by introducing the works and contributions of many medical authors of the Islamic Golden Age. Among them, the third (1970) and fourth (1971) volumes of his voluminous work Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums (History of Arabic Writings), a systematically organized bio-bibliographical reference on the history of science and technology in the Islamic world, are of particular importance. He also established Frankfurt’s (1983) and Istanbul’s (2008) Museum for the History of Science and Technology in Islam, bringing together nearly 800 ingenious replicas of historical scientific instruments and medical tools.

Hazine, 2019

An Informal Guide to Fuat Sezgin's "Geschichte des Arabischen Schrifttums": How you can use Sezgin’s GAS to improve your German, learn about your field, and find Arabic manuscripts. So you want to learn German. Or more likely, you are required to learn German for your degree in Near Eastern Studies, Middle Eastern History, or Islamic Studies. If your graduate program is like mine, you might not receive course credit for taking German courses so you are largely left to acquire reading comprehension on your own. For those of you in this situation, I have put together a strategy for gaining German reading competency that is targeted for students in our field, especially for those focused on early and medieval Islamic history and thought. This strategy is hardly foolproof; rather, it is the result of the numerous mistakes I have made while studying German in graduate school…mistakes that I hope you can benefit from.

Intellectual History of the Islamicate World 10, no. 3 (2022)

Documents and the History of the Early Islamic World, 2014

has a Ph.D. in Egyptology from the University of Chicago and lives in Cairo. Her research interests are focused on connections between ancient and modern Egypt, with a particular emphasis on medicine, magic and daily life.

1987