Fuat Sezgin: a sage of the place where two seas meet?

We continue to discuss the problematic of Orientalism and Occidentalism in the context of Professor Fuat Sezgin. Is Orientalism something that a Western scholar, man of letters, politician or ordinary person interested in the East or in Islam can put in parentheses whenever he wishes? Moreover, if even Fuat Sezgin can be caught in the vise of Orientalism when looking at the Islamic world from Frankfurt, should we not think that this vise deserves a different consideration?

Undoubtedly, Orientalists have a cultural, religious and historical background. Of course, it is not right to expect people with this background to abandon their own cultural origins entirely while trying to understand Islam or the East; this is in any case never possible for anyone.

Indeed, the hermeneutic and ontological principle of understanding, rather than requiring us to abandon our own horizon of meaning, foresees a fusion among the horizons each of us has, horizons that cling to our existentiality and that we cannot abandon. Meanwhile, if we required, in order to understand one another, that we abandon our own horizon of meaning and adopt the horizon of meaning of our interlocutor or of the culture we are trying to understand, we would have to require that no one be curious about anything of any other culture, for we would have condemned every effort of understanding and knowing from the outset by saying that every kind of curiosity and desire to know is also related to a will to establish power.

Fuat Sezgin's works draw attention in this sense by having established a very different relationship with Orientalism from those of other Muslim thinkers. It must not be forgotten that even while putting forward an alternative to the West-centered perception of the world, his works were supported by German institutes and scientific circles. In this respect, in a sense, his works can be entered in the ledger of Orientalist institutions. But instead of seeing it that way, we can also say that by doing precisely these works at the heart of Orientalism, he played the role of an exemplary and highly effective actor of intercultural dialogue.

Therefore, while what he did is on the one hand entered in the ledger of Orientalism, as it contributed to the body of knowledge of a Western scientific and research institution, that is, as belonging to a Western eye, in this way it develops Orientalism thoroughly in the positive sense, lending it depth and maturity.

Because the works he has done have a comparative dimension, he does not only present the history of Islamic science and technology; in order to bring out the difference, he also feeds very well its history in the West. In this way he supplies, from the opposite direction, the basic data necessary for a sort of Occidentalism.

Nevertheless, this contribution of Fuat Sezgin, while creating a separate self-confidence in those who have stationed themselves in opposition to Orientalism, can even, in the worst case, have an effect that feeds ethnocentrism itself.

Yet, because of this distinctive life story of Fuat Sezgin, it is possible to see him as belonging exclusively neither to Orientalism nor to Occidentalism. He is precisely the name of what finds voice when the two worlds, setting all their quarrels aside when the time comes, begin a deep conversation and feel the need in that conversation to recall their common past, their kindnesses to one another, their contributions, their indebtedness.

He is like a representative of the wisdom that one would expect to meet at the place where two seas join.

Each of them is God's sea, yet with different characteristics, not mixing with one another, but where they come to know one another a wholly different horizon emerges; a great deal can be said about the wisdom that forms there. Just as Professor Fuat Sezgin, who stands close to both seas and has the horizon of the place where the two seas join, can tell us a great deal today. It is possible to say that his life story, which forms in itself an extremely meaningful whole and which was completed by returning to where it began, is open to being enriched, expanded and multiplied by the efforts of understanding that come after him.

From this story we tried to underline in particular, with regard to cultural understanding, a perfect applied lesson-model of the prophetic mission of going and getting knowledge even if it is in China, without falling into the trap of ethnocentrism. But let us conclude by repeating the feature of his that must be emphasized first in every kind of examination: Carrying out scientific and intellectual endeavors with a puritan ethic, with the awe and seriousness of one performing worship.

Whatever motivates this is abundantly present in the personality and life story of Professor Fuat Sezgin. When you read this life story, it is impossible not to draw a striking lesson about precisely what we lack in our world of science, thought and academia.

Let us conclude by saying this: Whomever we talk about, we cannot be speaking of a perfect personality, science or thought. Of course Fuat Sezgin too has ideas, stances and actions that can be criticized. But even if we can regard him as a good occasion for discussing certain subjects, this shows that he is a value large enough.

NOTE: A broader and different version of this article appeared in issue 61 of the Turkish Academy of Sciences (TÜBA) Günce Magazine.