An Evaluation on Fuat Sezgin in the History of Islamic Civilization

Fuat Sezgin is a great historian who worked relentlessly to uncover and remind the role of the Islamic civilization in the development of science. He is a Muslim orientalist of Western dimensions. In this study, we first of all construed the course of Islamic civilization in the relation to theory-idea on the basis meaning from four points of view. And then we tried to see the Historian of Sciences Fuat Sezgin in the view of this picture that stretches from past to present. A constant flow from old to new is in the nature of the language. This flow is a transition that is an essential vehicle to connect old and new to each other. Ergo it is important to be careful of this fact in the process of writing. Otherwise to remain blind to the language as a living entity will limit it in terms of meaning (mana) and make it impossible to carry the meaning (anlam) of the past to present. On the other hand, when meaning positioned outside of the course of history it will change the direction of thought. This change of direction may cause the reduction of past to present or present to past unconsciously. In the end meaning (mana) is lost and meaning (anlam) is changed. As it can be seen the word ‘meaning’ used in to two different connotations for its counterparts in Turkish language: mana and anlam. To understand the difference between two it must be known first is ‘transcendent’ while the second is ‘immanent’. Thus ‘mana’ encloses ‘anlam’ and ‘anlam’ limits ‘mana’. While ‘mana’ is an old word in Turkish, anlam is a new word and nowadays both of them is used interchangeably. This relation between old and new word is very important because it shows us when the old discarded completely, the new cannot be transitioned to language as it should be. In this context Fuat Sezgin’s monumental work and his endless effort can be understood better. As he uncovered Islamic history of sciences he carried the meaning without discarding the past completely and didn’t destroy the meaning (in its both connotations). On the contrary as he carried the past to present he enriched it and expanded on it. Fuat Sezgin’s journey as a historian of sciences begun with his teacher Hellmut Ritter. And again, his owe his first awareness to the existence of great Muslim scientists of the past to the H. Ritter. Fuat Sezgin was introduced to manuscripts of history of Islamic civilization by his teacher and for this purpose he made considerable progress on Arabic language. After this Sezgin and Ritter frequent the Süleymaniye Library. Thus, his recognition and comprehension of old manuscripts