Saudi Gazette report JEDDAH — The city of Yozgat in central Anatolia, Turkey, held a grand ceremony for the groundbreaking of the “Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu History and Culture Research Center” held Friday. The did so in the presence of Prof. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the secretary general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), whose dynamic term in office concludes at the end of this year. The ceremony was also attended by the speaker of the Turkish Parliament,Cemil Cicek, the Deputy Prime Minister of Turkey Bekir Bozdag, the Rector of Yozgat's Bozok University Tamer Ucar and many academics, dignitaries from the province and the capital along with other guests. The research center, which will comprise a library, archive, conference room, exhibition hall, and offer facilities to researchers, is located in the campus of Bozok University. The building to be constructed is a replica of the historical mansion of Ihsanoglu's grandfather Agvanlioglu Haci Aziz Bey. Architects have relied on old pictures, plans of similar buildings of the era, and descriptions by senior people of the province to reconstruct the building.
The center's aim is to play a pivotal role in the development of scholarly research on Islamic culture and civilization. It will be a meeting place for scholars and researchers engaged with studies and research on various aspects of Islamic civilization. The center's reference library will be specialized in Islamic history, culture, art and civilization. Ihsanoglu has donated books from the personal library of his father, a prominent scholar, as well as from his own collection to the center, which now has more than 10,000 items in different languages. The library, combining a significant number of rare books and manuscript collections, will also collect several notable pieces of Islamic calligraphy and thousands of archival material. Cicek in his speech praised the OIC secretary general for his close affiliation and dedication to his hometown Yozgat through the establishment of the cultural center in his name. He also expressed his hope that the center would contribute to the development of academic work in Yozgat. Bozdag on his part called the OIC secretary general as the “son of Yozgat,” who is a great and internationally well-known scientist with major contributions to the Turkish and Islamic culture and civilizations. He expressed his conviction that the cultural center will constitute an important source for the scientific work for many academicians and scientist. On Saturday, Yozgat Municipality held another ceremony for naming one of its main streets, where the grandfathers' mansion is located, after Prof. Dr. Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu. During his visit to Yozgat, the OIC secretary general gave a lecture at the Bozok University titled “Birth of the Concept of University as an Institution in the Islamic World.” The talk was attended by a large number of academics and students from the University.
