Leaving the Arabic Book Fair to see off İsmet Uçma

The sixth of the International Istanbul Arabic Book Fair, which has been held for 7 years, began on 9 October in Hall 9 of the Istanbul Expo Center. This fair organization, which began 7 years ago, paused for the first time last year because of the pandemic; apart from that, it has taken place regularly every year.

Organized jointly by the Press and Publication Union, the Turkish Publishers Association and the International Association of Arabic Book Publishers, the fair this year has about 250 publishers from 23 different countries. In terms of this number of participating publishers and the number of visitors to the fair in general, it is the largest Arabic fair held outside the Arab world.

In fact, with this characteristic it is also among the best in the ranking of fairs held in the Arab world. At least in terms of the diversity of books and ideas we can say it is better than all of them, because many books and publishers cannot take part in the larger fairs held in many important Arab countries. For the book, which in its essence requires a free environment, the most suitable environment right now is the Istanbul Book Fair.

The title chosen for the fair this year is "Take Wing with Knowledge." It proceeds from the idea that knowledge and thought give a person wings and set him free, and open new horizons to him in order to exceed his limits. Indeed, even where there is not a free environment, the book sows that spirit of freedom in a person, and however many prison doors one is shut behind, it teaches the possibility of tearing down those doors, those walls, one by one.

That the Arabic Book Fair is being held in Istanbul on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Arab Spring gains a distinct meaning. For Istanbul is a city where people who have fled the human rights violations and political oppression in the places where coups were staged against the Arab Spring have taken refuge and, here, nurture and keep alive their own countries' hopes of liberation.

A reality that has become even more visible thanks to the book fair is that Istanbul has become a very important center for the publishing of Arab thought and ideas. A significant part of Arab publishers now have branches in Istanbul. They have either moved entirely to Istanbul or also work separately here. For a reform of Arab-Islamic thought, or for the Nahda, Istanbul is not only an important source of inspiration but also forms an important center for this Nahda.

While all the well-known publishers of the Arab world take part in the fair, many authors also meet their readers with their talks and signing events. At the same time it forms a very busy meeting ground for important connections for the translation of publishers' books from Arabic to Turkish or from Turkish to Arabic. Since this fair began, hundreds of books have been translated and published reciprocally in this direction

. Thus, as the Secretary General of the Arab Publishers Association, Bashar Shabaro, said in his opening speech, the fair has already begun to serve as a bridge working as a two-way road between two worlds, two languages. In fact, in this regard it must also be noted here that our Ministry of Culture has offered encouragements, never before seen, to develop these processes, so that, thanks to the program that encourages the translation of Turkish authors' works not only between Arabic and Turkish but from Turkish into all languages, the number of works translated from Turkish into other languages has today reached the thousands.

Throughout the Fair, which continues until 17 October, there are also events such as seminars, signing days, and painting, photography and sculpture exhibitions.

İsmet Uçma: An intellectual, a wise friend...

A friend who died not long ago,

Gıyasettin Sim

on the occasion of whom I wrote, "The death of a friend turns out to be different from all other deaths." "Perhaps the most shattering herald of our own death. It takes a piece from your life and carries it away. An important piece. It takes away a piece not only of your life but of the meaning of life itself. If we say friend, it is not a figure of speech, not a lazy description. In the most expressive sense of the word... A friend is a witness to your life; sometimes you feel that you live what you live for him, for someone like him."

Not even a month has passed, yesterday we again laid precisely such a friend to the earth, brother İsmet. Many know him from politics. He was an Istanbul Member of Parliament in the 23rd-27th Terms and one of the founders of the AK Party.

But long before this capacity, brother İsmet was a true intellectual, a wise companion on the road and a man of the cause.

I first got to know him at

Bir Yayınları

, in 1983. I was a 17-year-old studying at the Siirt Imam-Hatip School, a youth with an addict's passion for books. In fact I used to drop by

Beyan Yayınları

.

At the side of

Ali Kemal Temizer

, I would often attend the conversations where he too was present.

As I got to know him in those days, he persevered to the end without any change in his line, his stance, his direction

. Then there was the

Birleşik Dağıtım

venture, and then what became his final decision,

İşaret Yayınları.

With his special interest and sensitivity toward studies on the Qur'an throughout his life, he had embraced reading, understanding and living the Qur'an as a way of life, a cause of existence.

İşaret Yayınları

published like a Qur'anic studies center on its own.

Muhammed Esed

's famous

Kur'ân Mesajı

he had translated through the meticulous work of the poet

Cahit Koytak

a

nd Ahmet Ertürk

and brought to the Turkish reader in a very high-quality edition. Later he published his other works too. T

hat the Qur'an be understood as a living, guiding guide free of innovation and superstition was the most central aim of his life.

With brother İsmet, there came a day when we also worked intensively under the roof of Parliament in the 25th and 26th Terms. In the General Assembly hall and in the corridors, besides the political agenda of course, the most important subject of our work again was publishing, the intellectual channels and agenda of Islam and Muslims. During this time, for example, we at one point did long work and planning on translating into Turkish the famous 30-volume Qur'anic commentary of the renowned Tunisian scholar

Tahir bin Aşur

,

El-Tahrir ve'l-Tenvir

. Other pursuits intervened and it was left half done, but it was something he cared about very much.

He was a Muslim in the full sense of the word, a muwahhid; may his place be paradise.