Center for Islamic Studies in Istanbul

Yesterday I went with Princeton professor Heath Lowry to visit the Center for Islamic Studies (ISAM), a first-class research facility sponsored by the same agency that coordinates DITIB activities in Germany.  When I discussed my project with Dr. Lowry in Princeton this spring he thought it’d be a good idea to introduce me to some of the folks he knows at the Center.  As luck would have it, when I called him on Monday he said he was just thinking of making a trip there.

Traffic was ridiculous as usual but the road opened up just as we hit the bridge spanning the Bosphorus, the waterway separating Europe and Asia.  It’s hard to imagine a better panorama of Istanbul, or perhaps any city, than the view from that bridge.  I’ve crossed over it many times, but thankfully never in the driver’s seat - I’d veer off the road for sure.  (I also tried to swim across the Bosphorus a couple years ago, but that didn’t go very well).

The Center is truly an impressive facility with one of the best libraries in all of Turkey for students of the Middle East and Islam.  The director, Akif Aydin, told me the library has over 200,000 books and 100,000 journals and documents.  That might not sound like much for those of you at huge schools in the U.S., but anyone who’s done research in Turkey will realize how exceptional it is.  Even better, the library is open 7 days a week and well into the evening.  That’s unheard of in Turkey.

I also met with Talip Kucukcan, an assistant professor of sociology at the Center.  He has very good connections with higher-ups in the Directorate of Religious Affairs (DITIB’s parent) and said that he would do what he can to arrange some meetings for me.  He was heading to Ankara last night and thought he might be able to set something up for this Thursday or Friday.  Just like catching Dr. Lowry a day before he was planning on going to the Center, it was quite fortunate to catch Talip a few hours before he left for Ankara.  (We had been in touch via email, but I didn’t have the chance to let him know I’d be visiting the Center.)

Before leaving the Center I spent some time in the library looking up what they had on Islamic sermons.  Among other things, I was finally able to get my hands on a 1985 book by Sabine Prätor, a German scholar who did a study of Turkish Islamic sermons written in 1981 that bears some similarities to what I’ve been doing.  It will be interesting to see how the sermons have changed over the last 25 years and also to read someone else’s approach to the subject.  As far as I know, there’s no other study of this kind.