Click here for the invitation and program.

Prof. Dr. Gholamreza Aavani was born in February 1943 in the city of Semnan, Iran, as one of seven siblings within a large family. His father, Zeynelabidin, was a carpet merchant in the Semnan Bazaar and a part-time farmer who spent the rest of his time growing pomegranates and grapes. His mother, Kokab, was a homemaker who cared for her family and wove carpets in her spare time. Growing up in Semnan, surrounded by desert and known for its gentle yet resilient people, deeply shaped Professor Aavani’s outlook on life and taught him the virtue of contentment.

One of his first teachers, his uncle Dayi Molla Alireza, introduced young Gholamreza to examples of classical Persian literature such as Sa’di’s Gulistan and taught him Arabic. He was fortunate to complete his primary, secondary, and high school education in Semnan; for during the education he received there, he was nurtured by dedicated educators who instilled in him a lasting passion for knowledge. His parents were people who placed the utmost importance on education—not only for Gholamreza but also for his sisters—at a time when the education of girls was often neglected, and who did not allow their modest financial circumstances to hinder their children’s education. His sisters went on to pursue studies in law and philosophy. With his family’s support, Gholamreza too began learning English in Semnan, even though there were no schools offering formal English instruction at the time, and improved his English on his own with the help of a dictionary and newspaper clippings he managed to obtain. His determination and academic achievements earned him a prestigious state scholarship that opened the doors of the American University of Beirut.

His years at the American University of Beirut became one of the turning points in Gholamreza’s life, where he developed a serious interest in Western philosophy. It was there that he first met Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Nasr’s influence on Gholamreza was significant in terms of the inspiration he provided, particularly in fostering his interest in Islamic philosophy—especially the works of Ibn Sina and Suhrawardi al-Maqtul—and in Islamic Sufism.

After completing his studies in Beirut, Gholamreza enrolled in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Tehran in order to continue his philosophical education. There, he carried out his work under the supervision of Nasr and other leading philosophers such as Fardid. He completed his doctorate in philosophy in 1975, attaining the title of Assistant Professor, and later became Professor of Philosophy at Shahid Beheshti University. During his years of teaching at the university, he focused on Ancient Greek philosophy—particularly Plato and Aristotle—as well as the Philosophy of Art and Islamic Philosophy.

In 1985, he was appointed President of the Iranian Academy of Philosophy, founded in 1974 by Seyyed Hossein Nasr and later known as the Iranian Institute of Philosophy. Under Professor Aavani’s leadership, the Institute became one of the leading centres of Islamic and Western philosophy in the Middle East. Among the Institute’s aims were to serve as a research centre across the various branches of philosophy—such as logic, philosophy of mind, Islamic philosophy, and comparative philosophy—and to invest in matters such as the editing of early Islamic manuscripts, especially the works of Ibn Sina. In addition to providing those interested with a doctoral-level graduate program and various research opportunities, the Iranian Institute of Philosophy has hosted numerous international events to promote philosophical knowledge and has pioneered the delivery of free public lectures.

Professor Aavani has been a member of the Iranian Academy of Sciences since 2006. He has been honoured with many prestigious international awards, including the Distinguished Scholar Medal (2023) conferred upon him by Al-Farabi University in Kazakhstan and the Distinguished Sciences Medal awarded by the Iranian Academy of Sciences. He has served on the Board of Directors of the International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP) since 2008. In 2009, he founded the International Society for Islamic Philosophy, also within FISP. Professor Aavani has also served as a visiting faculty member at the Institute for Advanced Humanistic Studies (IAHS) in Beijing. Among his major works are “Rumi: A Philosophical Study” and “The Splendour of Wisdom: A Critical Engagement with Western Philosophy”.

Professor Aavani is grateful to his wife, Mrs. Parvaneh, who made all these achievements possible through her support and love. The couple has two children, Latifeh and Nariman, who inherited their passion for philosophy from their father. Latifeh specializes in the philosophy of law, while Nariman carries out studies on the comparative examination of Indian and Islamic philosophies.

Click here for the invitation and program.

Click here for the invitation and program.

Click here for the invitation and program.

His father, Seyyed Waliyullah Nasr, in addition to serving as a doctor to the royal family, also served as the head of the education system for a while and contributed to the transformation of the Iranian education system into a modern one. He was also instrumental in drafting the constitution in the 1906 parliament.

Ms. Nasr’s mother, Ms. Ashraf, who graduated from the only girls’ institute of the time and became one of the first modern educated women of Iran, came from the Tabātabāʾī family, to which some of Iran’s most important scholars belonged.

Seyyed Hussein Nasr, who had a very colorful childhood due to the intellectual environment of his family, was introduced to figures such as Firdawsī, Nizāmī, Sādī, Mawlānā and Hāfiz and their works at a very young age. In 1945, with the decision of his family, he went to the United States to complete his education. Nasr started his education at the Hightstown Peddie School in New Jersey and lost his father soon after. In 1950, he graduated with the “Honor” award given to the most successful students. In the same year, he was accepted to The Massachusetts Institute of Technology / M.I.T. on a scholarship and moved to Boston. While studying in the physics department of M.I.T., Nasr also studied advanced mathematics and studied science and philosophy by attending the lectures of the Italian philosopher and historian of science “Giorgio Santillana”. Nasr transferred to Harvard for his dissertation and completed his thesis in geology and geophysics, and worked in the fields of crystallography and oceanography. Very impressed by Giorgio de Santillana and his lectures, he switched to the history of science department and chose “Islamic Conception of Nature” as his thesis topic . In 1953, he began teaching at Harvard as an assistant to Richard N. Frye. He completed his thesis with the title “Conceptions of Nature in Islamic Thought“.

Despite being offered a lectureship at Harvard, Nasr decided to return to Iran in 1958 and served as the director of the library of the Faculty of Literature at the University of Tehran and as dean (1968-1972) and vice rector at the same university.

In 1972, he was appointed rector of Aryamehr Scientific and Technical University and served as rector until his illness in 1975. In 1973 he was elected to the Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy. In this Academy, of which he later became the president, he was involved in the training of doctoral students, seminars, conferences, journals and books. When the work of the Academy became internationalized, he was elected to the executive committee of the Fedaration International des Societes Philosophiquesfor 10 years. In addition to these activities, he was also the chairman of the Regional Council for Development , the Great Cultural Institute formed by Iran, Pakistan and Turkey, and frequently traveled to Turkey. In 1962 and 1965 he was a visiting professor at Harvard University and in 1964-65 he was a professor at the Aga Khan Chair in Islamic Studies at the American University of Beirut.

From 1958 until the 1979 Iranian Revolution, Nasr worked intensively, conducting seminars, conferences, television programs and serving on many academic boards. He wrote many articles and books, mainly in Persian and English, sometimes in Arabic and French. Nasr married Suzan Danisverî, the daughter of a prominent family like himself, who completed her education in America and England, and had two children, Sayyid Veli Reza and Leyli.

Seyyed Hossein Nasr was in London to represent his country at the Iranian Arts Exhibition in Tokyo when he received the news of the Iranian Revolution. After spending some time in London, he joined the Middle East Center at the University of Utah (March 1979). He then accepted an offer from Temple University and moved to Philadelphia.

Throughout his scholarly career, Nasr has carried out important studies on religion-science relations, philosophy of science and Islamic science. The Gifford lectures he gave at the University of Edinburgh in 1981 were published as a book in the same year under the title Knowledge and the Sacred. These conferences, held in Glasgow, Scotland, are considered a great honor for a thinker. In 1999, TheLibrary of Living Philosophers Series published an edition of Nasr, the first Muslim scholar to receive the Templeton Religion and Science Course award, which included a number of his works and focused on his understanding of science. Nasr has written a number of books and articles on the relationship between religion and science in general and Islam and science in particular. His 1964 doctoral dissertation An Introduction to Islamic Cosmological Doctrines is one of the first works written in the field of Islamic cosmology.

Published in 1968, Science and Civilization in Islam brought the concept of “Islamic Science” to the agenda. Discussing the meaning of science within the Islamic worldview, Nasr analyzes the achievements of the Islamic scientific tradition in fields such as medicine, astronomy, mathematics, algebra, chemistry, physics, geography and natural science. This work is based on primary sources and it remains an important concise work on the position of science in Islamic civilization.

An Annotated Bibliography of Islamic Science [Açıklamalı İslam Bilimi Bibliyografyası], which he compiled with William Chittick in three volumes, provides an extensive analysis of works on the history of Islamic science in Western languages.

Published in 1976, Islamic Science: An Illustrated Study is Nasr’s most important work in the field of Islamic science. This is one of the most important works to present Islamic science, its philosophical premises, history and development using visual materials, illustrations and diagrams. Nasr also discusses the relationship between Islam and science in his works Islamic
Life and Thought(1981), The Young Muslim’s Guide to the Modern World (1993) and The Islamic Intellectual History in Persia (1994).

Nasr is also one of the leading experts on the relationship between religion, science and the environmental crisis.
is one of the names. When The Encounter of Man and Nature: The Spiritual Crisis of Modern Man, published in 1968, was one of the first works to predict the devastating consequences of the environmental crisis. This study is a philosophical critique of the modern concept of nature, which is conceived as an ineffective element to be usurped and captured by modern science and technology.

As an important figure of the Traditionalist School, Nasr deals with science in both material and spiritual contexts. In this respect, in Knowledge and the Sacred, published in 1981, and The Need for a Sacred Science, published in 1993, he focuses on the revival of a ‘sacred science’ [scientia sacra] by emphasizing the intertwining of physics, rational and natural sciences under the umbrella of metaphysics.

Since 1984, Nasr, who continues his studies at the George Washington University Islam Chair, is considered one of the most important Muslim scholars of our time with more than fifty books and hundreds of articles in fields such as Religion, Philosophy, Sufism, Philosophy and History of Science, Comparative Religions, Islamic Art, Tradition, as well as the students he has trained by supervising master’s and doctoral theses. It has been the source and inspiration for many postgraduate studies in our country.

Those who are well acquainted with his work say that “we are facing a contemporary Mullah Sadra or Suhrawardi in the sense that the common perspective he uses on different disciplines, whether in his works on the philosophy of science or Islamic philosophy, is always the ‘Sufi perspective'”. Nasr says of his work on the systematics of thought:“My thought cannot be understood without knowing the role Sufism has played in my life, both philosophically and spiritually.”

Against critical views that define him philosophically as a “medievalist”, Nasr says that although he prefers medieval philosophers to modern philosophers, it would be more accurate to define him as a “Traditionalist” rather than this definition that confines him to a time period, and emphasizes that his understanding of philosophy should be based on “wisdom” and “irfân” in a traditional way.

According to Seyed Hussein Nasr, who is the editor and consultant of many works in the field of Islamic Art and one of the names who offers a new “reading” in this field, “Islamic Art is not only the earthly crystallization of the spirit of Revelation, but also a reflection of the heavenly truths on earth, a reflection such that with its help the Muslim journeys beyond his earthly surroundings to the Divine Glory itself, that is, to Haqq, the beginning and the end of this art.

Seyyed Hossein Nasr says, “Wherever I traveled intellectually, if I found a philosophy rooted in Divine Truth, I felt at home there. I soon realized that wherever the ‘Divine’ is to be found, in whatever form it manifests itself or in whatever language it says ‘I am’, that is my spiritual home.” Nasr describes the highest level of knowing God as follows: “Lâ Ilâhe illâllah”, the expression of faith in Islam. It means that there is no god but Allah. Every human being understands this sacred phrase according to his level of consciousness and comprehension. But at the highest level it means that there is no other truth than the Divine Truth. At the end of the path we realize that there is no us, there is no world, there is only God, and all other things are but manifestations of this one eternal Truth…”

• Born on March 27, 1946 in Beirut.
• She is married to Dr. Hassan Sharaf al-Din, who holds a PhD in Accountancy and is a Professor of Accountancy and Taxation at the Lebanese University and Islamic University.
• Children: Judge Rima, Dr. Rana, Dr. Nadin, Tala and Mohammed Omar.

Education

• – She completed her primary and secondary education for the first two years at the Man-i Dawud-i School, followed by 3 years at Islamic Goals (Khadija al-Kubra) and Raml Zeydani Girls’ School, where she received her primary (certificate) and secondary certificates.

• Hassan joined the “Teachers’ House” in Kuyu and during his studies he obtained two high school completion degrees in 1964 in the first and second divisions.

• Bachelor of Philosophy, Lebanese University, Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences, 1968 – 1969.
• Master’s Degree in Philosophy, Saint Joseph University, 1973.
• PhD in Islamic philosophy of the state, University of Saint Joseph, 1977.

Academic career and experiences:

• Founder of Dandara Education Center.
• April,2007 – April, Dean of the Graduate Institute of Literature, Humanities and Social Sciences of the Lebanese University.
• Since 2000 and until today, Professor of Sufi Studies and Islamic Philosophy at the Institute of Oriental Literature and the Institute of Religious Studies at Saint Joseph University (SJU) Beirut.
• 1978 – 2010. I did higher education (with the rank of lecturer). Lebanese University, Faculty of Arts and Human Sciences, Department of Philosophy.
• 1996 – 2002 and 2013 – present, lecturer on Sufism and Sufi orders, Higher Institute of Islamic Studies, Al-Maqasid, Beirut.
• 1998-1999 Member of the Scientific Council of the Lebanese University.
• 1998 – 1999, Member of the Supreme National Committee of UNESCO in Beirut.
• 1993-1998, Lebanese University, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Head of Philosophy Department.
• 1997, I joined the new curriculum committee on “Philosophy and Civilizations”, the Center for Educational Research and Development, and participated in the writing of the textbook for the same subject.
• 1973-1978: Chairman of the Lebanese University Faculty of Law.
• 1964-1973, taught in Lebanese public primary schools.

Cultural centers and associations:

• El-denderawi Family House , head of the “Dandara Cultural Center” located in Corniche Al Mazraa, Beirut.
• Member of the Board of Directors of the Lebanese Philosophical Society and Secretary of Arab Public Relations.
• Headquarters: Faculty of Religious Studies, Human Sciences Campus, Saint Joseph University, Beirut, founding member of the Gladic Reconciliation Association (Lebanese Friendship Meeting for Christian-Islamic Dialogue).
• Academic advisor and board member of “wake” (Mohamed Dimashkiiye Cultural Center) Association, Beirut.

Awards Received:

1. The “translator” prize was awarded on March 9, 2013 by MIAS LATINA – SPAIN in Spain for his work on the great teacher Mohiuddin Ibn Arabi.
2. On March 15, 2013, as part of the program honoring cultural figures in Lebanon and the Arab world, an honorary award for the cultural movement in Antelias.
3. Honorable mention at the Festival of Sufi Culture in Fez, from 12 to 19 April 2014, eighth session and title of the festival: “Following in the footsteps of Ibn ‘Arabi” (the honoring was on April 13).

Published books:

1. Sufi Dictionary [kelimenin sınırları içindeki bilgelik], Dandara Research Foundation, Beirut 1981.
2. Israa to the Prisoner Place, by Ibn Arabi, [inceleme ve sunum] Dandara Research Foundation, Beirut 1988.
3. Ibn Arabi and the Birth of a New Language, Dandara Educational Foundation, Beirut, 1991.
4. The Return of Al-Wasil, Dandara Research Foundation, Beirut 1994.
5. Scenes of the sacred mysteries and the reading of the divine lights by Ibn Arabi [Review and translation into Spanish], University of Murcia publications 1996. [Dr. Pablo Benito].
6. Abu Al-Ala Al-Maari, Between the Sea of Poetry and the Land of the People, Lebanese House of Thought, Beirut, 2003.
7. Taj Al-Arifin, Al-Junaid Al-Baghdadi, The Complete Works, Dar Al-Shorouk, Egypt, 2004.
8. Revival of the science of religion in the twenty-first century, rewriting the encyclopedia of al-Ghazali, Revival of the Revival of Religious Sciences, Dar Al-Shorouk, Egypt, 2004. Excerpts from this book have been translated into English:

9. Writing and the Creativity of Writing Creativity, An Eye for an Eye … A Contemporary Commentary on Abd al-Karim al-Jaili’s poem known as Ayniyyah, Dar Al-Buraq, Beirut, 2004.
10. Explanation of the secret scenes of the six Ajam girls Al-Nafees Al-Baghdadia, Damascus, French Institute, 2004, [Dr. Bakri Alaa Eldin].
11. Echoes of the White Paper, The White Paper, Book One: Genesis and Being, 2006. It is a book introducing the Dandarawi family. Dar Al Buraq in Beirut and the Al Sharq Library in Paris.
12. Women, Sufism and Life, Kanz Publishers, Lebanon, first edition 2017.
13. Al-Muwatta fi al-ilm al-makarim al-morhal, in the encyclopedia “Noble Science of Ethics between theory and practice – creating a new Islamic science”, (18 volumes)

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Michel Chodkiewicz was born in Paris in 1929 in a family of 6 children. His father is a magistrate.

He completed most of his studies in Paris and started traveling after graduating from university. In 1951, he married his current wife of Italian origin. While working and taking care of his family, he learned Arabic through his own efforts.

In 1956, he starts working for the famous French publishing house Seuil Publishing. In 1965, he was appointed to the management of the Scientific Publications Society, a subsidiary of Seuil Publishing. In 1970 he launched the popular science magazine La Recherche and in 1978 the history magazine L’Histoire. He became Seuil’s deputy general manager in 1977 and chairman of the board in 1979. From 1979 until 1989, when he retired, he worked as the general manager of the same publishing house. He maintained his connection with Seoul after his retirement until 2001.

Michel Chodkiewicz has 8 children, 22 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren with his wife of Italian origin.

He became acquainted with Ibn al-‘Arabī through his works translated by the Spanish researcher Asín Palacios. Michel Valsan, a Shāzelī sheikh of Romanian descent, whom he calls an example of an Akbarī successor, helped him understand Ibn al-ʿArabī’s teachings. These studies gave birth to a deep love for Allah and the Prophet.

Michel Chodkiewicz, who came into contact with Muslim society from his first trip to the Maghreb, deepened his research with his travels to countries such as Egypt, Turkey and Indonesia. These travels offer him the opportunity to explore Sufism. He became a Muslim through the teachings of Shaykh al-Akbar and his special relationship with him.

Parallel to his professional life as an editor, he continues his personal studies on Futûhât al-Makkiyya and Fusûsu’l Hikem. Because of this work outside the classical academic framework, in 1982 he became responsible for seminars on Sufism at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes, a social sciences institution. After his retirement, he was appointed director of L’Ecole des Hautes Etudes.

According to Michel Chodkiewicz, “Sufism is not the decoding of archaic Greek or the reconstruction of the Cult of Osiris! Sufism is alive. Therefore, merely deciphering manuscripts in a room is not enough for this study. It is necessary to look for the source of Sufism in the Qur’an: In other words, Sufism is Muslim and not a mixture of beliefs transplanted from outside.”

Michel Chodkiewicz’s main fields of study are the doctrine of Ibn al-‘Arabī and the history of wilayah in Muslim societies. Due to the lack of studies in this field, he has made it his main goal to solve the methodological problems.

In 1994, he led a symposium on “The History of Wali in Muslim Arab societies”. In this symposium, Europe witnesses for the first time a synthesized treatment of the history of wilayat and especially the works of Ibn al-‘Arabī, the pinnacle of the expression of the Islamic tradition.

In 1996, the renowned magazine Maghreb Horizons dedicated an issue to him with the title “Walāyah”. This issue testifies to the respect shown to Michel Chodkiewicz by the most important scholars and students of Sufism and the influence of the master’s work.

Michel Chodkiewicz’s contribution to the intellectual and spiritual legacy of Ibn al-‘Arabī is great. He brought to the fore the central role of the Qur’an and the Prophet’s model in the Akbarite doctrine from the very beginning: According to him, Shaykh al-Akbar’s teaching is not a theory; each of the fundamental concepts found in his works is a phenomenon that was personally experienced by both Ibn al-‘Arabī and the other shaykhs he mentions. This penetrating richness is reflected in Chodkiewicz’s great efforts in synthesizing and classifying the Akbarī corpus. Thus, the model proposed by Michel Chodkiewicz has been instrumental in illuminating the most complex aspects of guardianship in terms of its types, forms and functions.

According to Michel Chodkiewicz, Ibn al-‘Arabī’s doctrine is not only a Qur’anic thought; it is too intertwined with it to be separated from it. His studies have revealed that the structure of Ibn al-‘Arabī’s texts is determined by the structure of the Qur’an.

Chodkiewicz says: “I believe that I have shown that Ibn al-‘Arabī’s works, in content and even in structure, arrangement and order, can only be understood by reference to the Qur’ān. Therefore, it is not possible for someone who has not been thoroughly versed in the Qur’ān to understand these works. The reader who is Ibn al-‘Arabī’s interlocutor will be able to understand, in a word or two, Ibn al-‘Arabī’s reference to the verse or sūrah where the source of the thought in the text in question is found, even if Ibn al-‘Arabī does not state it explicitly.”

“Everything we say in our conversations and writings comes from the Qur’an and its treasures,” Ibn al-‘Arabī said of the sources he used in his works. Inspired by this, he writes in his book, An Oman without a Shore, in which he takes the reader on a long journey towards Ibn al-‘Arabī and his system of thought, while at the same time astonishing and bewildering the reader by marveling at the invention of the Holy Qur’an: “Ibn Manzūr, in the preface to his famous Lisān al-‘Arab, explains that his purpose in writing this dictionary was to collect all the words of the Prophet’s language ‘just as Noah built his ark while his people mocked him’. In a sense, what Ibn al-‘Arabī has done is to build such an ark.”

Ibn al-‘Arabi says, “In astonishment, I saw an ocean without a shore and a shore without an ocean.” Here, it would not be wrong to say that the images of ‘umman without shore’ and ‘shore without umman’ refer to the Qur’an itself. Elsewhere in his work, Shaykh Akbar says that the Qur’an is ‘an ocean without a shore’. For those who do not see in it a permanent revelation, the words of the divine address are only a ‘shore without an ocean’. But for those who have a strong breath and dive into it, it is limitless and inexhaustible. It should be well understood that the divine address has both characteristics at the same time. The ‘shore’ (the literal meaning and the limits that this literal meaning sets for belief and deeds) can never be lost, the Sharī’ah will always remain valid in this world, and it is only in and through it that man can reach perfection.”

“It is impossible to think of guardianship in Islam in the absence of the prophetic model. Guardianship, which belongs to none other than God, has opened its doors to human beings to the extent of the Prophet, who is the ‘best example’. Moreover, the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), the only perfect being, is the only one who fully realizes in actuality what it is that he was created for. Since the whole purpose of spiritual life is to attain this perfection, the purpose of wilayah cannot be anything other than to participate in the Prophet’s wilayah.”

Michel Chodkiewicz’s numerous articles and books have been published and translated into many languages such as English, Arabic and Turkish.

He has published five works on the exploration and deepening of Ibn al-‘Arabī’s thought, both directly, through analysis, commentary and presentation of translated texts, and in the form of studies of other works, including one on ‘Abd al-Qādir al-Jazā’īrī (The Seal of the Awliya, An Oman without a Coast…) There are many special aspects of Michel Chodkiewicz that sometimes dispel prejudices that have been repeated for generations, or even centuries, and sometimes invite the reader to benefit from his personal discoveries, which can be characterized as “experimental” and which are the result of his intimate interaction with texts.

In addition to his scholarly competence and rigor, Michel Chodkiewicz stood out with his kindness and compassionate attitude in human relations. He never left a question unanswered by students or colleagues, and everyone felt the deep sense of someone who not only explained the set of values he was talking about, but also tried to put these principles into practice.

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Sayyid Muhammad Naqib al-Attas was born in 1931 in Bogor, Indonesia, the middle of three brothers. His lineage is from the Prophet. Al-Attas’ paternal grandfather, Sayyid Abdullah bin Muhsin bin Muhammad al-Attas, was a saint whose influence was felt from Indonesia to Arabia, and his mother was a member of the Indonesian Sundanese royal family. Al-Attas’ grandmother, Mrs. Rukiye, belonged to an aristocratic Turkish family.

At the age of 5, his family sent him to Malaysia (Cohor) for his education. He stayed there with his grandmother Mrs. Rukiye, his uncle and aunt. During the Japanese occupation of Malaysia, he returned to Indonesia (Java) to continue his education and studied Arabic at an Al-Urwatu’l-Wuthqa madrasa. After the Second World War, in 1946, he continued his education in Malaysia, first at Bukit Zahrah School and then at an English school. During this time he lived with both the sultan’s cousin and Cohor’s 6th cousin. His uncle (Ungku Abdul Aziz), who became Prime Minister, had an extensive library of Malay manuscripts on Malay literature and history. Sayyid Muhammad Naqib spent much of his youth reading these texts on history, literature and religion, as well as Western classics in English that were in the collections of other family members. Through this cultural atmosphere and reading, al-Attas developed a superior style and an impeccable vocabulary that shaped his own Malay and writing. His relationship with these manuscripts left a lasting and important mark on his life. Today, his personal collection includes some very important Arabic and Malay manuscripts that are not included in any catalog, including Van Ronkel’s catalog.

When Ungku Abdul Aziz retired, his other uncle, Cohor VII. The Prime Minister lives with nationalist Dato’ Onn bin Dato’ Jaafar, also the founder of the UMNO (United Malay National Organization) political party. Recognizing Al-Attas’ artistic talent, his uncle asked him to draw UMNO’s official flag, saying that it should have elements of power, Malay kingship and the Islamic religion.

After completing his high school education, he enrolled in the Malay Military Academy. He was then selected by the British High Commissioner to Malaya, General Sir Gerald Templer, for military training in England, first at Eaton Hall (Chester, Wales) and then at the Royal Military Academy (Sanhurst). Here he develops a deep understanding of the influential section of British society. Gains important friendships. One of them was Sharif Zayd bin Shakir, a cousin, colleague and friend of King Hussein of Jordan.

His attraction to Sufism began with an encounter with the works of the Iranian Islamic scholar Mullah Jami, which he found in the library of the Sanhurst Academy. After graduating, Al-Attas received the king’s commission to become an officer in the Royal Malay Regiment and took an active part in the work against terrorists in the Malay jungles. However, due to his love for learning and his academic activities, he voluntarily withdrew from military service to continue his studies at the University of Malaya, Singapore (1957-59). There is no doubt, however, that his military training – especially the Islamic elements of order, discipline and loyalty – influenced his views and methods as an Islamic scholar and administrator.

He wrote two books while still a student at the University of Malaya. One of them is his classic work “Some Aspects of Sufism as Understood and Practiced Among the Malays”, later published by the Malaysian Institute of Sociological Research in 1963.

For this work, he traveled all over the country, meeting with all the important Sufi leaders, learning about their ways and observing their practices. Due to the interest in the work, the Canadian government awarded Al-Attas a Canada Council Fellowship in 1959, an unprecedented three years in a row.

Al-Attas continued his studies at the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Here he met notable scholars such as Sir Hamilton Gibb, Fazlur Rahman, Toshihiko Izutsu and Seyed Hussein Nasr. He received his master’s degree (from the Institute of Islamic Studies of McGill University) in 1962 with his thesis titled “Raniri and the Bodudiyya Movement in Aceh in the 17th Century”. A year later, with the encouragement of distinguished academics such as professors from Cambridge and the British Academy and the president of the Royal Asiatic Society, he transferred his doctoral studies to the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. There he worked with Professor Arbery and Martin Lings.

Even during his years of study at McGill and in London, Al-Attas actively worked to spread the true message of Islam against its misrepresentations.

When he returned from the University of London in 1965 as a Doctor of Philosophy, one of the few Malaysians to hold this title, he was first appointed Head of Literature, Department of Malay Studies, University of Malaya. Between 1968-70, he served as the head of the department of the Faculty of Art at the same university. Between these years, he introduced a number of reforms in the academic structure of the faculty. It was also at his initiative that the language of instruction at the faculty was changed to Malay, despite objections from other professors.

Al Attas was one of the founders of the National University of Malaysia (1970), which advocated for the language of instruction to be Malay rather than English. It was also thanks to him that the philosophical foundation of the university was established and the Faculties of Science and Islamic Studies were founded. It proposes new methods for the study of Malay language, literature and culture. Among them is a genuine study of the role and influence of Islam and its real relationship with other regional and national languages. In 1973, to realize his plans, he founded the Institute of Malay Language, Literature and Culture at the new university.

Sayyid Muhammad Naqib al-Attas has expertise in many academic fields such as theology, philosophy and metaphysics, history and literature. He has written extensively on various aspects of Islamic thought and civilization, especially on Sufism, cosmology, metaphysics, philosophy, and Malay language and literature.

In 1975, in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the field of comparative philosophy, he was awarded membership of the Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy, which included such esteemed scholars as Professor Henri Corbin, Seyed Hossein Nasr, Toshihiko Izutsu, and others.

In 1979, the President of Pakistan, General Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, presented him with the Iqbal Centenary Commemorative Medal.

In 1987, he founded the International Institute of Islamic Thought Civilization (ISTAC) with the aim of reviving an Islamic tradition of thought and science and served as its president for many years.

Al-Attas is also an accomplished calligrapher whose work was exhibited at the Tropen Museum in Amsterdam in 1954.

The ISTAC (INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR ISLAMIC CIVILIZATION AND THE MALAYSIAN WORLD (ISTAC)) building, the unique al-Ghazali lecture hall and the mosque in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, built in a traditional and cosmopolitan character and in an Islamic style, has its own plan, design, furniture and interior decoration, even landscaping. Many local and foreign scholars and visitors have expressed how successfully al-Attas reflected the deep and meaningful atmosphere of ISTAC. Professor Gulzar Haider, a renowned Canadian architect, said of him, “al-Attas can think in lines and shapes as effectively as he speaks in words and sentences. What I really feel is as if the building has prepared itself by bending down, ready to receive knowledge along with ‘Divine Beauty and Majesty’.” Seyyed Hussein Nasr of George Washington University, after his visit to ISTAC (in 1993), wrote to Aga Khan on his return to the United States that he found “the institute of exceptional beauty, certainly the most successful building in Islamic architecture in recent years”.

He is the only academic in Malaysia to have been awarded the honor of holding academic chair in various disciplines.

In his list of “Who’s Who in the World”, Marquis included Sayyid Naqib among those who have achieved extraordinary success in their fields of specialization.

In 1976, he was the chief advisor to the London Islamic World Festival and the chairman of the committee of the First Islamic Education Conference in Mecca. He chaired the UNESCO Meeting of Experts on the History of Islam in Syria.

King Hussein of Jordan made him a member of the Royal Jordanian Academy in 1994. This was followed by an Honorary Doctorate of Arts from the University of Khartoum, Sudan in 1995.

In 2000, he was awarded the IRCICA (Islamic Research Center for History, Art and Culture) prize for his excellent contributions in the field of Islamic civilization.

In 2001, he was awarded special prizes by the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Iranian Government.

He has given over 500 lectures in Europe, America, Japan, Far East and Muslim Countries.

He was the first in the modern Muslim world to systematically and philosophically define, conceptualize and elaborate the content of Muslim education, the idea and method of the Islamization of contemporary knowledge, the nature and establishment of the Islamic University, and the formulation and systematization of Islamic metaphysics and philosophy of science.

For him, given all the problems caused by modern secular Western civilization, it is clear that what is needed now is not a new version of the same Western pattern. On the contrary, it is necessary to fundamentally rebuild a completely different civilization rooted in true religious ideas and ideals. Al-Attas’s basic ideas and methods are a creative synthesis of what are recognized as the world’s greatest minds.

For the first time, El-Attas put forward the original theory on the Islamization of the Malay-Indonesian Archipelago, thus initiating a general awareness for the reinterpretation of Islamic history in South Asia.

Al-Attas is a true reformer of modern Islamic thought and especially higher education. Al-Attas’s constant struggle with the higher education establishment in his multi-religious but majority Muslim country, which was also undergoing a socio-economic transformation, enabled him to develop a keen understanding of the root causes and real solutions to the complex problems that seemingly plague modern Muslims.

Although al-Attas’s ideas have caused a reaction, they have also led to important developments in modern Islamic thought and practice.

Known mostly for his theses on the “Islamization of Knowledge”, al-Attas has published more than twenty books and numerous articles in the fields of philosophy, religion and education in Islamic culture. Some of his works in English and Malay have been translated into Arabic, Persian, Turkish, French, German, Russian and Japanese.

According to the Royal Islamic Center for Strategic Studies Report in 2010, he is one of the “500 most influential Muslims in the world”.

Fazlur Rahman, a famous Pakistani academic thinker, described Al-Attas as “a genius”.

In 1961, he married Latifah el-Attas in Washington and had 4 children from this marriage.

He is now 87 years old and continues to live and work in Malaysia.

Despite his advanced age, he continues to pass on his vast knowledge to younger generations through lectures and conferences at universities.

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Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin

Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin was born on October 24, 1924 in Bitlis. He completed primary school in Doğubeyazıt, middle and high school in Erzurum. In 1943, he came to Istanbul to study mathematical engineering. However, the German orientalist Hellmut Ritter, whose seminar he attended on recommendation, changed his whole thinking with his statement that“the foundation of sciences is based on Islamic Sciences “. As a result, he gave up studying mathematical engineering and started to study “Islamic Sciences and Orientalism” at Istanbul University, Faculty of Literature, Institute of Orientalism.

In 1947, after completing his thesis on “The Evolution of the Science of Bedī’“, he prepared his second thesis on“The Philological Influence of Abū Ubayda Me’mar Ibn al-Musannā on Majāz al-Qur’an” under the supervision of Hellmut Ritter. He prepared a critical edition of Majāz al-Qur’an .
In 1951 He graduated from the Faculty of Literature. Later,in 1954, he prepared his doctoral thesis titled “Bukhari’s Sources” in the Department of Arabic Language and Literature . With this thesis, he argues that Bukhari, which has an important place as a source of hadith, does not rely on oral sources, contrary to popular belief, that it was based on written sources.

In 1960, when the military coup government included his name in the list of 147 academics who were suspended from universities, he continued his studies at Frankfurt University. In 1965, he prepared his second doctoral thesis on “Câbir ibn Hayyân” at the Institute for the History of Natural Sciences at the University of Frankfurt, and a year later he was awarded the title of professor.

In 1967, he published the first volume of “History of Arabic Literature”, the most comprehensive work written in the field since the beginning of human history. The 17-volume work is currently in its 18th edition. the volume of Philosophy.
In 1978, Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin was awarded the King Faisal Prize for Islamic Sciences. With this support, he founded the“Institute for the History ofArabic-IslamicSciences” at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt in 1982 and the “Museum of the History of Islamic Science” in 1983. This museum exhibits more than 800 examples of scientific instruments, tools and equipment developed by scientists who grew up in the Islamic cultural environment. This building also houses the “Library of the History of Sciences” with 45,000 volumes of books from all over the world and an archive of nearly 10,000 microfilms. This library is a specialized library that is unique in the world in terms of the History of Islamic Sciences. Founded in 2008, the “Islamic Science and Technology Museum”, which contains approximately 700 artifacts, is located in Gülhane Park.
Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin has a catalogue work titled “Science and Technique in Islam” in 5 volumes and 1121 pages in total, which he wrote to introduce the instruments in these museums. This is the first time such a comprehensive museum catalog has been written and published in four languages: Turkish, English, German and French.

In 2010, Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin founded the “Foundation for Research on the History of Islamic Science” to support the activities of the Islamic Science and Technology Museum. He pioneered the establishment of the “Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin Institute for the History of Islamic Science” at Fatih Sultan Mehmet Foundation University in 2013 and the “Publishing House of the Foundation for Research on the History of Islamic Science” in 2015. The income from the books published by this foundation is allocated to student scholarships.

Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin, who is a member of various academies at the international level, has received many awards and honors.

There is a world of knowledge, culture and civilization to which I belong, we are not rootless and unclaimed. We are the cradle of a very deep-rooted civilization. But I have seen that for centuries this civilization has been ignored, disenfranchised, insulted and persecuted, and all that it has done has been taken away from it. I aimed to introduce this dazzling accumulation of Islamic civilization and its great contributions to world science to a world that was not aware of it. Part of this endeavor is to serve the world of science, but another very important goal is to restore the lost self-respect, confidence and place in human history that the entire Islamic world has lost.

Western civilization is the child of Islamic civilization. Sciences have followed the ancient Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek, Islamic and European path. What has been put forward in the name of Western science is a continuation of Islamic science.

In general, there are those who believe that religion or a religious institution is responsible for the decline. I totally reject this. The Islamic religion has developed the sciences in a way that I have never known in any civilization. He patronized me.

This path is an arduous one, requiring endless perseverance and effort. Keeping track of which libraries or private collections have the books, tracing the researches, but especially finding a competent teacher… …One of the most important and fundamental factors in the development of the world of Islamic civilization is the fact that Muslims learn from their teachers. The teacher was the indispensable master of education.

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He completed primary school with three classes and one teacher at the age of 14, sometimes attending and sometimes taking breaks. In the same years, İskender Efendi, the Mufti of Batumi, who had fled Stalin’s persecution, was working as an imam in Akyazı and he had the opportunity to benefit from him.

In 1956, he started Çorum Imam-Hatip School. Here, at the same time, he read and taught himself the textbooks read in the Madrasahs.

He continued to read East-West classics. He became acquainted with the works of Ibn Khaldūn. In the same years, he met İzmirli İsmail Hakkı, Seyyid Bey, Ömer Nasuhi Bilmen, Ahmet Nâim and Muhammed Hamdi Yazır. Some of the works he read had not yet been read by his teachers. He wanted to make up for the years he had to interrupt his studies. In those years, the Higher Islamic Institute had not yet opened. Ankara University Faculty of Theology also did not accept Imam-Hatip graduates. When the Democrat Party came to power, Imam-Hatip Schools were established in the first year of their rule (1951) and Istanbul Higher Islamic Institutes in 1959.

He attended Süleyman Uludağ’s Istanbul Higher Islamic Institute. During the years he lived in Istanbul, he had the opportunity to reach some of the last links of Ottoman relics: Nevzat Ayasbeyoğlu (1966), Ömer Nasuhi Bilmen (1971), Mahir İz (1974), Nihat Sami Banarlı (1974), Hilmi Ziya Ülken (1974), M. Tâvit Tancî (1974), Ali Nihat Tarlan (1978). He also had the opportunity to meet and listen to Muhammad Hamîdullah, Zeki Velîdî Togan, Mümtaz Turhan, Nurettin Topçu and Necip Fâzıl Kısakürek.

In these four years, he remained at an equal distance from all Islamic sciences and devoted equal time to all of them. He was interested in philosophy and theology as well as hadith and fiqh. His graduation thesis was on “Semâ”. He was more interested in the contemplative and philosophical aspects of Sufism.

After graduation, he was appointed as a vocational courses teacher at Kastamonu Imam-Hatip School. In the same year, he won the first prize in a translation contest organized by the Journal of Islamic Thought published in Istanbul.

He was then appointed to Kayseri Higher Islamic Institute and then to Bursa Higher Islamic Institute. The book writing and translation activities started in Kayseri continued. Especially with his translations, he introduced Turkish readers to the classics of Sufism: Kushayrî Risalesi, Istanbul, 1978, Kashf al-Mahjûb/The Knowledge of Truth, Istanbul, 1982 , Taarruf/Taufr in the Age of Birth, Istanbul, 1979 , Tezkiret al-Awliyâ, Bursa, 1984 , Şifâü’s-Sâil/The Nature of Sufism, Istanbul, 1976 , Faysalü’t-Tafrika/Tolerance in Islam, Istanbul, 1972, Esrâru’t-Tawhîd/The Secrets of Tawhidin, Istanbul, 2002.

In addition to these translations from Arabic and Persian, he gave importance to the simplification of Ottoman works in order to facilitate research on the history of Sufism and to transfer Sufi culture to new generations. The book Nefehâtü’l-Üns, a book of tabât/biography written by Molla Câmi and translated into Turkish by Lâmi’î Çelebi of Bursa (v. 1531), was translated into new letters for this purpose: Evliyâ Menkıbeleri, Istanbul, 2000. Kâtip Çelebi’s (v. 1656) publication of Mîzânü’l-Hakk (Mîzânü’l-Haqq ) under the title The Method of Criticism and Discussion in Islam was also aimed at creating the same cultural environment (the last two works were prepared together with Mustafa Kara).

Süleyman Uludağ’s specialization is the History of Sufism, but due to his deep knowledge of the basic Islamic Sciences, he has given lectures in fields other than Sufism and has written works on many subjects from economics and politics to philosophy and art: A New Perspective on Interest in Islam, Istanbul, 1988, Islam-Politics Relations, Istanbul, 1998, The Structure of Islamic Thought, Istanbul, 1979, The Wisdom of the Commandments and Prohibitions in Islam, Ankara, 1988, Mûsikî and Semâ from the Perspective of Islam, Istanbul, 1976 , Mürşid and Irşad Faaliyeti in Islam, Istanbul, 1975, Issues of Belief in Islam and Sects of Belief, Istanbul, 1992.

As part of his interest in Ibn Khaldūn, he translated the Muqaddimahand al-Sātī al-Husrī’s (v. 1968, Baghdad) Studies on Ibn Khaldūn. His introduction and footnotes to the Muqaddimahare rich enough to warrant a separate study (vol. I Istanbul, 1982; vol. II Istanbul, 1983).

One of his areas of interest is theology and philosophy. His works are taught as textbooks in Imam-Hatip Schools. He translated Taftāzānī’s Sharh al-Aqā’id, one of the basic books of madrasas and one of the classics of theology, under the title The Science of Kalām and Islamic Aqā’id (Istanbul, 1980).

His work in the field of philosophy of religion is a translation of Ibn Rushd’s Faslu’l-Maqāl and al-Kashf an Menāhij al-Adille, which he wrote to reconcile philosophy and religion: Felsefe-Din İlişkileri, Istanbul, 1985. Published in Nesil Magazine, January-February 1978, 4 and 5. Ibn Khaldūn’s Philosophy of Religion were published in their issues.

Suleyman Uludag, first and foremost Sufism and its History, Ankara, 1976, (with Selçuk Eraydın, Mehmet Demirci, Kâmil Yaylalı), Dictionary of Sufi Terms, Istanbul, 1991, Women in the Eyes of Sufis, Istanbul, 1995, Sufism and Man, Istanbul, 2001, has authored many works, and his articles are Generation, Movement, It has been published in many different journals such as Dergâh, İslâmiyât, İslâmî Araştırmalar, Köprü, Türkiye Günlüğü.

Süleyman Uludağ still teaches at the Faculty of Theology at Uludağ University, where he is currently retired, continues to train his students and continues his scholarly studies.

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