Recovering Lost Knowledge: A Discourse by Fuat Sezgin
Bringing Islamic Science Back to Life: The Legacy of Fuat Sezgin
Fuat Sezgin, a prominent Turkish scholar, dedicated his life to uncovering and documenting the scientific and intellectual heritage of the Arab-Islamic world, challenging the Eurocentric narratives that had long marginalized this foundational tradition.
Born in 1924 and passing away in 2018, Sezgin's life was marked by small, revolutionary acts. He opened untouched manuscripts, decoded marginalia, and recognised ancient insights in modern equations. His scholarship breathed life into civilizations dismissed as marginal or irrelevant by dominant historical narratives.
One of Sezgin's most significant contributions was the establishment of the Institute for the History of the Arab-Islamic Sciences in Frankfurt in 1982. Later, he founded the Museum of the History of Science and Technology in Islam in Istanbul. These institutions served as vital platforms for research and public education about Islamic scientific contributions.
Sezgin's magnum opus, "Geschichte des Arabischen Schrifttums" ("History of Arabic Literature"), spans 17 volumes and stands as an intellectual monument. This comprehensive work functions not just as a catalog but as a rigorous intellectual refutation of the marginalization or erasure of Islamic science in mainstream historiography.
Through painstaking research, Sezgin revealed an integrated scientific tradition encompassing astronomy, medicine, geography, optics, and mathematics within Islamic contexts. This tradition blurred distinctions common today—between faith and reason or science and philosophy—and showcased figures like al-Khwarizmi, Ibn al-Haytham, and al-Razi as part of a broader epistemic ecosystem.
Sezgin embarked upon one of the most extraordinary acts of scholarly recovery in the modern era, combing through Arabic, Persian, and Ottoman Turkish manuscripts scattered across European archives. By meticulously examining these texts, he recovered significant historical knowledge previously neglected or forgotten, challenging outdated paradigms about the so-called "decline" of Islamic science.
In 2025, the Turkish Presidency's Directorate of Communications hosted a panel titled "The Legacy of Fuat Sezgin: Building Bridges through Science and Diplomacy." This event was more than a commemoration; it was a summons to ensure the silence surrounding an entire intellectual heritage does not return.
Sezgin's greatest wish was for others to continue his work in deciphering, translating, and expanding the Islamic scientific heritage. He taught that memory is justice and that reclaiming buried knowledge is an act of survival, not arrogance. His legacy serves as a reminder that the question of what to do with the civilization Sezgin brought back to life is not a question to be answered quickly.
For centuries, a Eurocentric historiography posited that science, reason, and rational inquiry were born and matured exclusively in the West, rendering the Islamic world a void. Sezgin illuminated the broader epistemological ecosystem in which Islamic scholars operated, where the binaries between faith and reason, science and philosophy, art and engineering were non-existent.
The institutions founded by Sezgin were interventions in collective memory, containing celestial globes, surgical tools, and astronomical instruments, reconstructed not from conjecture, but from textual evidence. They are not symbols; they are counter-arguments.
Sezgin understood the inaccuracy and violence of this claim and wrote extensively to document the reality of Islamic science. His work reshaped the understanding of Islamic scientific history by systematically documenting its depth, breadth, and influence, thereby reclaiming a forgotten epistemic tradition.
In the end, Sezgin resisted commemoration for its own sake and demanded the reopening of archives, the studying of manuscripts, and the rewriting of histories to recalibrate the present. His legacy continues to inspire scholars and challenge us to confront the existential void of history being written without marginalized civilizations.
- Fuat Sezgin, a Turkish scholar, dedicated his life to rediscovering Islamic science, challenging Eurocentric narratives and breathing life into dismissed civilizations.
- Sezgin's lasting contribution is evident in institutions like the Museum of the History of Science and Technology in Islam in Istanbul, serving as platforms for research and public education.
- Worldwide, education-and-self-development and personal-growth can be enriched by understanding the integrated scientific tradition of the Arab-Islamic world, as Sezgin revealed.
- The legacy of Fuat Sezgin is not just about science, but also diplomacy—his work serves as a bridge between divergent intellectual traditions and fosters greater understanding among nations.
