Fuat Sezgin

Fuat Sezgin (24 October 1924 – 30 June 2018) was a Turkish scholar and researcher who specialized in the history of science in the medieval Islamic world. He was professor for the History of Natural Science at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany and the founder and honorary director of the Institute for the History of the Arab Islamic Sciences there. He also created museums in Frankfurt and Istanbul with replicas of historical Arabic-Islamic scientific instruments, tools and maps. His best known publication is the 17-volume update to the History of the Arabic Written Tradition (Geschichte des Arabischen Schrifttums), a standard reference in the field.

Career Sezgin earned his Ph.D. from Istanbul University under the German Orientalist Hellmut Ritter in 1950. His thesis titled "Buhari’nin Kaynakları" (The Sources of Al-Bukhari) argued that, contrary to the common belief among European orientalists, Al-Bukhari's edition of collected Hadiths was based on written sources dating back to the 7th century as well as oral history. He obtained a position at Istanbul University, but was dismissed in the wake of the 1960 coup. He moved to Germany in 1961 and started working as a visiting professor at the University of Frankfurt.

Awards Sezgin received several awards, including the King Faisal International Prize of Islamic Studies in 1978 and Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany. He was a member of the Turkish Academy of Sciences, the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco and academies of Arabic Language in Cairo, Damascus and Baghdad.

Recognition On 24 September 2012, Melih Gökçek, Mayor of Municipality of Metropolitan Ankara, announced that a square in Ankara was to be named in honor of Fuat Sezgin. A relief of him, created by artist Aslan Başpınar, in the square was revealed by the mayor, in the presence of Fuat Sezgin and his spouse Ursula.