"You who would overflow even if buried in hardships…" Had it not been for Akif as witness to the Çanakkale martyrs…

That the Independence March, whose 100th anniversary we are marking, today provides an occasion in the person of Mehmet Akif Ersoy to dwell on and rethink many of our important issues is undoubtedly closely related both to the power of the March's lyrics and to Akif's strong and deep personality.

Without a doubt, Akif as a whole personality is an exceptional figure who has words to say today to the Muslims of Türkiye, indeed to the Muslims of the whole world. The Independence March worked in words, in speech, with extreme power, a spirit and a philosophy capable of reviving a nation from its ashes, so much so that it became impossible to imagine a nation different from the one those words envisioned. After all, in the beginning was the word, and Akif drew his strength from his word, but behind this word too there was a sincerity, a consistency, a devotion that penetrated to the depths of hearts.

The 100th anniversary of the adoption of the Independence March fully deserves to be marked not only as the Year of the Independence March but also as a year of rethinking and understanding Akif. On this occasion a great many events are being held and planned. The Akif film, in which Yavuz Bingöl plays the lead role and whose every stage I followed with interest, has been completed, and is waiting to be released on 24 September, for example.

A number of journals have already come out with special Mehmet Akif issues or are preparing to. I have the journals Umran and Sebülurreşad in my hands, for example. Each of them works out an idea-world of Akif gradually and carefully, with very valuable contributions from very valuable academics, writers and thinkers. Through Mehmet Akif, the nature of our independence, what befell this country after the jihad he waged in words and in deed, the quality of Muslimhood, our relationship with traditions, with other races, with the notion of nation, and of course our understanding of the Qur'an and the Sunnah could be the subject of very productive debates, and without a doubt Akif's stance can constitute a very solid reference in all of these debates. Of course, as he always said on every occasion and as he showed with all his consistent and steadfast practice, the main reference, the chief reference, is always the Qur'an. But the interpretation he put forward, placing the Qur'an and the Sunnah at the center and making Islam speak to the understanding of the age, constitutes an important reference in our own history.

In one of the articles in Umran, Kamil Ergenç deals with those who disown Islamism by forgetting or making others forget Akif. Akif's presence is the strongest witness that Islamism is not an upstart, foreign, passing fancy. Abdullah Yıldız, for his part, addressing the effort of Akif, whom he describes as the "Poet of the Qur'an," pointing out that he wrote even his poetry like a translation of the Qur'an, to correctly understand and explain the basic concepts of the Qur'an, dwells on concepts such as patience, trust in God, destiny and determination. These are concepts that give all the keys to portraying the Muslim as a "Subject" resolved to change his age, but which, along with tradition, have had their meanings turned upside down, distorted, and turned into superstition.

In my previous column I had touched on some criticisms of Akif's poetry. It is always said that Akif squanders his poetry by putting it too much in the service of his didactic, instructive concerns. Yet a poetry that could be reduced to its didactic, instructive side would not have such wide aesthetic acceptance. That is contrary to the spirit of poetry, and even if such acceptance were to arise in a certain period, it would remain at a very periodic level. Yet those who belittle Akif's poetry in this respect are not in a position to see this part of the matter.

For example, the Victory of Çanakkale, the 106th anniversary of which we mark as of tomorrow, and which is one of the founding-birth-emergence events of this nation even after the Republic. How has the 'Çanakkale' of a country, over which a very heavy defeat had passed, a great state that collapsed, whose lands were torn to pieces and which experienced the occupation of most of them, including even its Anatolia, remained one of the important events of a breakthrough? Çanakkale is not a victory won during the War of Independence; it is an event that was won and over which this defeat and occupation then passed. Despite this, has anyone ever dwelt on the fact that it can be remembered with this epic quality?

I had asked this question before, and let me repeat today my answer, which was clear then too:

I have always thought that in this, the poetry of Mehmet Akif Ersoy is as important as the greatness of those noble martyrs of ours who ran to war with their hearts. Akif's poem dedicated to the Martyrs of Çanakkale has, just as it prevented Çanakkale from being forgotten in this country, built and revived the meaning of the struggle in that war. Akif's Çanakkale Martyrs is a magnificent text for those who want to see and gauge the power of a poem.

No matter how many martyrs there were in the war, no matter what great dramas were lived, had they not found their expression in this poem, we could not feel the Battle of Çanakkale today as a nation with this intensity.

The poem has unfolded the miracle of the word like a verse. It has depicted reality in such a way that even if you were inside reality, you might not live it so vividly and so feelingly. Every stanza of the Çanakkale poem is a separate miracle of speech. In each stanza it re-establishes the front, brings the martyr out again, and makes the martyr a martyr anew from where he lies.

When he says "You who, even if buried under the centuries, would overflow... Alas," he undoubtedly means the martyrs. But those martyrs, also undoubtedly, found the best way to overflow the centuries in Akif's poem.

This way is truly a miraculous way, just as Akif portrayed it. Because Akif was never even in Çanakkale during the war. Despite this, the martyrs of Çanakkale expressed themselves in Akif's poem.

To whom this miracle belongs is not known, but what is known is that to portray such an event, to stand against an occupation, to take one's place against it in the strongest way, the event does not need to be very close to us. Akif is a poet who brings what is distant close to us with his poetry.

On its 106th anniversary, I commemorate the martyrs of Çanakkale with mercy and gratitude, and I pray to God for mercy for the late Akif, who keeps them constantly alive with his poetry.