ISTANBUL (AA): Following on its rich history of science and culture, nowthe Islamic world can forge a new renaissance, said Turkey’s president onMonday.
“The Islamic world, which made Istanbul, Cairo, Damascus, and Baghdadcenters of science and culture for centuries, can realize a resurgence thatis worthy of its history,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a ceremony at IstanbulAirport honoring Fuat Sezgin, a Turkish scholar who documentedcontributions by Muslim scientists.
Saying that the history of humanity has come down to our day throughscientific riches rather than wars, he said that history gives people theopportunity to embrace their past as well as build their future.
“We should never forget that we are members of a nation that has built sucha great civilization from Samarkand to Cordoba,” he added.
Scientific history as presented today is largely European-based and has anorientalist perspective, said Erdogan, calling a perspective placing Europeat the center of scientific development starting 500 years ago misleading.
Restricting history to the West and ignoring Muslim scholars is ignorance,perhaps intentional, he said, citing famed Muslim scholars that pioneeredfields from geometry to sociology.
Read Top Stories
During his speech, Erdogan also mentioned that passenger traffic atIstanbul Airport has already reached 50 million annually.
This puts the airport on track to attract 90 million passengers a year, andthen 150 million, and eventually 200 million.
Istanbul Airport, whose first phase officially opened in October 2018, tookover air traffic from the former main Ataturk Airport this April.
The new facility was named Airport of the Year this November by readers ofU.K.-based International Airport Review magazine, beating out LondonHeathrow, Sydney, (Australia) and Changi (Singapore).
