Turkey declared 2019 as the year of Fuat Sezgin, a world-renowned late Turkish historian, under a circular published in the Official Gazette on early Thursday.
On Wednesday, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan signed the circular announcing 2019 as "Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin Year" in Turkey.
All the related activities will be organized in collaboration with the Prof. Dr. Fuat Sezgin Research Foundation for the History of Science and Technology in Islam, the presidential circular on gazette read.
Sezgin was born in eastern Bitlis province in 1924. He studied at Istanbul University's Faculty of Letters, where he also earned his PhD on Arabic language and literature.
He continued his studies at Germany's Frankfurt University in 1960 following a military coup in Turkey.
He devoted a considerable amount of time to studying and listing scientific contributions made by Muslim/Arabic scholars throughout history. He wrote numerous books and articles.
Granted with numerous international academic awards, Sezgin was also deemed worthy of Germany's order of merit.
Sezgin founded the Research Foundation for the History of Science in Islam in 2010 to support activities of the Istanbul Museum of the History of Science and Technology in Islam.
In 2013, he also founded the History of Science in Islam Institute at Fatih Sultan Mehmet Vakıf University in Istanbul.
On June 30, Sezgin, treated for an unspecified illness, passed away at the age of 94.
