Reading in Ramadan: the Memoir Series of Beyan Publications

The way to be revived by Ramadan lies in stepping outside ourselves, in shedding the dungeon of our own selfhood. Even if we do nothing at all, Ramadan descends upon our lives in such a way that it leaves no one outside this atmosphere of mercy. But undoubtedly we must do something: welcome the Ramadan that comes to us with respect and affection, set it in its proper place, revive it. Only then does Ramadan revive us in another way.

As the month of the Qur'an, the activity that Ramadan brings to the fore most is undoubtedly "reading." Reading is in itself an important level of existence, one that has become identified with Muslim existence. That is why God's book begins with "Read." Read in the name of the Creator, in the name of your Lord who created man from a drop...

With this command, we understand the need to read the Qur'an, the book of the universe, Ramadan itself, ourselves, one another, and our Lord.

In Ramadan one needs to read the Qur'an a great deal, and as far as possible to make it an occasion for reading other books as well. I don't know about you, but the months of Ramadan are times when my reading speed and intensity rise considerably. Perhaps the book fairs in Istanbul and Ankara also further increase the interest in books. I look forward every time to the fair at Kocatepe, which has been held without interruption since the eighties. The Sultanahmet Book Fair has been held at Beyazıt for some time now. I don't know whether it gives the same excitement.

I don't easily recommend a book to people I don't know well, and certainly not to everyone collectively. There is no book that will be good for everyone at the same time. The book(s) that each person will need and be nourished by, according to their own level and their own interests, differ. Books that are guidance for some can increase the misguidance of others. For not only what is read but also how it is read is very important.

Perhaps it would be fitting to call this sharing an experience about readings. Whoever wishes will find and take something from this experience.

For example, there are memoirs or river-interview style books, numbering about ten, that Beyan Publications has published one after another; I don't remember exactly which one I acquired from which book fair. But I do know that I received some of them personally from the publisher's owner, Ali Kemal Temizer, the doyen of the publishing world who does his work with the greatest seriousness and love, during a visit to his office in Cağaloğlu. I had long wished to write about these works, which I see form, in total, a very beautiful, meaningful and valuable accumulation. They certainly fit, in every respect, the category of the most meaningful works that can be read in Ramadan. But more important is that these works constitute very solid sources for understanding Islamic thought and practice in Turkey.

To find and get to speak each of the significant figures of Islamic thought and life in the Republican period in Turkey, and to have memoirs written about them or by themselves, has certainly been a very valuable effort for understanding an era, for remembering it, and for taking stock of how we arrived at today. The life and memoirs of Halil Gönenç Hodja, of course, say things far beyond the biography of an ordinary person. Through what he lived, very important data are obtained both about the richness of the tradition of knowledge and gnosis in the East and about what ordeals this tradition went through in the Republic.

The memoir that Nezir Demircan based on long conversations with him has been a very important gain in this respect.

A work of the same kind was done for Sadreddin Öztoprak Hodja by his own son Siraceddin Öztoprak and made into a book under the title "Şark Medreselerinde Bir Ömür" (A Lifetime in the Eastern Madrasas).

Metin Önal Mengüşoğlu has written "Bilge Terzi M. Said Çekmegil" (The Wise Tailor M. Said Çekmegil), a man who grew up in Malatya but whose fame and influence far exceeded both Malatya and his own lifetime, and who had a special place in the struggle to ground Islamic thought on sounder foundations. Thanks to Mengüşoğlu's writing, with his superb literary style, the value of Said Çekmegil, already a treasure for Islamic accumulation, is as if recorded. In fact, it would now be fitting for Metin Önal Mengüşoğlu too to be written about, either by himself or by others, especially together with his heart-to-heart conversations with Murat Kapkıner.

Mehmet Çelen has written, again of the Malatya school, the famous M. Said Ertürk Hodja under the title "İlim ve Hareket Adamı" (A Man of Knowledge and Action). Zübeyir Yetik, one of the important men of thought and pen of the Islamic community, wrote his own memoir himself under the title "Geçmişten Notlar" (Notes from the Past).

Süleyman Arslantaş, a close friend of Ercüment Özkan and one of the leading names of the Islamic struggle especially in Ankara, gathered his life of struggle, spanning more than forty-five years, under the title "Ankara'da Kırkbeş Yıl" (Forty-Five Years in Ankara).

Who among those whose path led to Ankara in the seventies, eighties, even nineties did not stop by Saatçi Musa Abi, above the Batı Cinema? This watchmaker's shop, a regular stop for all the politicians of the Milli Nizam, Milli Selamet and Refah parties and the Anavatan Partisi, performed the role generally played by bookshops, and more, through his own personal distinction. His memoir would undoubtedly have a much more special place. He did not write it himself, but Asım Öz did this job very well by means of a river-interview. It is as if an archaeological excavation was carried out inside a shop, with Öz's questions and with the memoirs that Musa Abi generously shared.

Again an important man of struggle of the Malatya school, one of those who paid the heaviest price in the February 28 process, Ramazan Keskin Hodja's memoir was gathered by Şevket Başıbüyük under the title "Diz Çökmeyen Adam" (The Man Who Did Not Kneel).

One of the interesting books of the series is the memoir of Hasan Başpehlivan, one of the most senior bookseller-publishers of the Beyaz Saray Booksellers' Bazaar, centered on Beyaz Saray. Who did not go to Beyaz Saray in those years, which had virtually been the center of Islamic publishing until the early nineties? The book titled "Kağıt Kokulu Yıllar" (Years Smelling of Paper) has turned out to be a very interesting and meaningful documentary not so much about one person as about the social relations formed around this place.

One should not dwell too much on the past, and sanctifying the past with strange nostalgic approaches is meaningless anyway. When read well, these memoir books mostly awaken in a person a sense of praise and gratitude that must be rendered for the place we have reached from the hardships of the past. And of course they also awaken a feeling of thanks to the publisher Ali Kemal Temizer, who brought all these works into our intellectual life.