The news that İlber Hoca, a great scholar raised by our country, has passed away has caused great sadness. The decision to bury him in Fatih Cemetery by our President is a very appropriate and correct decision. I would like to thank him for this right decision.
The more we saw the misanthropes who made hostile comments against Prof. İlber, the more we realized that our country still has a long way to go before it matures in terms of scientific mentality. Unfortunately, we also witnessed that many people have a shallow quality despite the academic title on their heads.
Are we surprised? No, we're not surprised!
It did not go unnoticed that many of the so-called scientists, many of whom have passed through the rostrums of some congregations and sects, drinking soup and eating maklube, prefer the guardianship of the tekke to the academic title.
I strongly condemn the disrespect shown to the deceased, who donated all his books and scholarly inventory to the Presidential Library, who was a statist and loved his nation.
He was a rare scholar who could read Ottoman edicts without error. He was also fluent in many foreign languages. How many people are there today who know Arabic, Persian and Ottoman and speak more than one Western language?
I believe that the existence of pseudo-scientists who disrespect Gazi Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the head of the will that founded the Republic of Turkey, is the real danger; they serve to stratify and divide society.
Such people are not scholars, they are not even men. Shall we feel sorry for the incompetence that compares someone like Kadir Mısıroğlu to İlber Ortaylı, or for those who unquestioningly accept some crazy videos and movie scenarios as historical data?
The science of history has become a toy in the hands of keyboard knights who lack research. Underbelly hits on interpretations that tell the truth, that lean on the truth, not populism...
This is not science, it is science vandalism.
The impudence of those who shamelessly criticize Atatürk for drinking, while sultans who drank alcohol are made saints, must be stopped. Everyone, especially those who identify themselves as historians, should stop seeing historiography as a lawyer's activity.
The late İlber Ortaylı has shown us that historical figures are also human beings and that one cannot make a healthy and logical analysis by exaggerating them with a mystical atmosphere.
This is the main reason for their anger. Because their livelihood has been shaken...
Turkish history is a whole, with its right and wrong, sane and insane, healthy and sick. Hold on to your past; learn, understand and digest this treasure.
Especially for the new generation:
Search, find, investigate, question and synthesize. You can hunt birds with loaded rifles, but you cannot win a war. This is precisely our main issue and the breaking point we are living in.
Today is the blessed Laylat al-Qadr. I congratulate you on your night with the hope that everything will lead to good again.
I pray Allah Almighty's mercy on Master İlber Ortaylı, who passed away in Ramadan, and I wish patience and peace to his family, his loved ones, our nation and the scholarly community.