In memory of Prof. Dr. Sait Şimşek, the exegete of "The Qur'an, the Source of Life"

In the years I was in Konya, working at Selçuk University, I experienced many things that I count as blessings, made many friendships, and was present in many fine gatherings of conversation, trying to draw benefit from them. One of the matters I count as a great blessing is having met Sait Şimşek Hoca and having been present at his conversations, but if you asked me about one of the things I regret most, it would be that I could not attend his conversations more.

He was one of the unfailing regulars of our Tuesday conversations, which went on for years and brought together friends from theology, sociology, medicine, literature and the business world. He was not the one leading the conversations, but frankly, my eyes and ears were on him more than on anyone else in the gathering. His contribution to any subject, his approach to an issue, his explanation, were a matter of serious curiosity for me, because there was always something distinctively his own in his opening up of it. And in this opening up, do not misunderstand me, the most important dimension was that he preferred simplicity, plainness and the most straightforward. The Qur'an, revelation, was always his primary basic reference. The references that most people, following certain habits or fashions, resort to last, he resorted to first, and perhaps thereby brought home the fact that whatever speech follows is pounding water in a mortar.

In no conversation could you see him arguing or quarrelling with anyone. Truth could not be anyone's property for him, but he had a claim to truth on very fundamental matters and never compromised on it. But he had no concern or haste at all about forcing on others this claim to truth on which he did not compromise. This brought out one of his most important personal traits. The Hoca had neither haste nor hurry, nor any ambition to reach an office or a position.

He had devoted himself entirely to understanding the Qur'an, to understanding it for himself before making others adopt what he understood, to deepening in this understanding, and to living, to the extent he understood. When you wanted to benefit from what he understood, from the knowledge he had acquired, when you had a question to ask, once you asked and opened up this question, you felt that before you was an ocean-sea in the field of the Qur'an and the Islamic sciences. A reassuring guide who would never deceive you, who had no haste to make you accept his obsessive ideas, who did not try to sell you by force what he had with him, who demanded no fee, no return, no interest in exchange for what he told...

Of course, though I said guide, I would never want to attribute to him an understanding that he opposed throughout his life. When one says guide, he had a stance throughout his life against a culture of exaltation that, when the occasion arises, places a person's word above the Qur'an and the Messenger of God. Precisely for this reason, perhaps, he was not at all looked upon kindly by certain culturally tolerant circles; indeed he was excluded with things he never said attributed to him, and at best ignored. He was the target at precisely this point too of the circles we encounter from time to time, whom I call "ahl-i sunnah fetishists," whose beliefs and ways are leagues away from ahl al-sunnah. Yet his way of understanding the Qur'an and the Sunnah and of interpreting it categorically constitutes one of the best contemporary exemplary practices of ahl al-sunnah.

An answer he gave one day to those who criticized him from the standpoint of ahl al-sunnah actually showed in what a confusion of mind and religion he had to speak: They criticize us from the standpoint of ahl al-sunnah, and perhaps, without knowing it, they even count us closer to the Shia. Yet one of the most important matters separating the Shia from ahl al-sunnah is the belief in infallibility. The Shia diverge from ahl al-sunnah by regarding the 12 imams as infallible and nearly everything they say as being on the level of revelation. These people, let alone 12, regard hundreds of hocaefendis, sheikhs and murshids as infallible, and take nearly everything they say as indisputable revelation, and still they somehow never count as having deviated from ahl al-sunnah.

The Hoca was born in Mardin, completed Imam-Hatip High School in Diyarbakır and his higher education at the Erzurum Higher Islamic Institute, and after starting to work at Selçuk University in 1977 he completed his doctorate at the Ankara Faculty of Theology. But alongside this formal education process, he was also nourished by a strong madrasa tradition, and therefore he had a very good Arabic and command of the accumulated learning of the Islamic world. Although during the Republican period all conditions had been arranged so that no Islamic scholar would be raised, he took lessons from Halil Gönenç Hoca, one of the great scholars who overcame these barriers and was raised, and became his son-in-law. Even merely becoming acquainted with the biography of Halil Gönenç Hoca equips a person with a distinct awareness of what it means to read the Qur'an and pursue the Islamic sciences in Turkey. Resorting to the underground activities that the people had developed in their own way in order to study the forbidden Islamic sciences, and from there the journey of learning extending to Syria, where, though under French occupation, the Islamic sciences could be pursued more freely than in Turkey, leaves indelible marks and signposts in a person's mind and personality.

The Hoca was a wise man, conscious both of the history he lived in and of the history that had been lived, who knew his Lord well and therefore knew himself well. His having no haste or hurry about making anyone accept his theses, or about reaching somewhere or possessing something, was related to this wisdom. I had told an anecdote about him before. In another conference, in a session he was chairing, when an academic Professor speaker tried to gain an unfair advantage over someone who had no academic title but had trained himself outside the academy and was taking part in the discussion, by putting forward this difference, he made, with his usual calm but in the manner of a lesson, an intervention: When you research a couple of topics and solve a couple of problems, in academic life one receives the titles of doctor, associate professor or professor in turn. But when you receive these titles you do not become someone who has known everything in the field; you have known very little; perhaps you gain an official authorization to do scholarship in that field. It is also possible that without ever receiving these titles you do much more research and train yourself much more.

The Hoca had gathered his work on the Qur'an in several works. Finally, he completed in 2010 a 5-volume Qur'an commentary, on which he had worked for many years, and brought it to his readers. In my opinion and that of those who know the field, it is among the most beautiful commentaries produced in Turkish. Without prolonging the speech, without tiring the reader with details easily found elsewhere, presenting only the core of the matter, the title of his commentary also tells what kind of place he gave the Qur'an: "Hayat Kaynağı Kuran Tefsiri" (The Qur'an Commentary, Source of Life).

Prof. Dr. Sait Şimşek Hoca completed his journey in this world on the night of the 1st day of the Feast of Sacrifice and walked to the Truth. On the 2nd day, after the prayer performed at the Konya Meram Faculty of Theology Mosque, he was buried. See the coincidence: he had also laid to rest his wife Hikmet Hanım, the daughter of Halil Gönenç, exactly 18 years ago (2006) on the 2nd day of a Feast of Sacrifice as well.

The loss is great for Konya, for Turkey and for the Islamic world. I wish God's mercy upon him, condolences to all who loved him.

2. DEATH AND CONDOLENCES: We also lost on the 3rd day my wife's esteemed uncle Mustafa Ayyıldızoğlu, who had been in intensive care because of a traffic accident he had 2 days before the Feast. We thank all the friends who called, sent messages, and came to offer condolences.