SÜLEYMAN HİLMİ TUNAHAN OF SILISTRE IN LIGHT
OF ARCHIVES DOCUMENTS
(By Prof. Dr. Ahmed AKGÜNDÜZ)
One of the contemporary examples of those personalities who were not duly understood in their time is Hadhrat Süleyman Effendi. Not only those who do not think much of Süleyman Effendi but also those who love him, not only his enemies but also those who are his friends or are supposed to be his friends do not know him very well. Unfortunately, as in the case of Bediüzzaman the reports prepared about him and the mass media and encyclopedias influenced with these reports are full of falsities about this great scholar of Islam. As per the motto “One is the enemy to what one is incognizant of”, this work reveals that most of those related or written about Süleyman Effendi and his students so far are false and baseless; that Süleymancılık is neither a mazhab nor a religion; that this personage is a great scholar who had his education at Ottoman Madrasas and a Murshid al-Qamil (Perfect Spiritual Guide) that attained to the climax in internal sciences.
In this work the birth of Hadhrat Süleyman Effendi, his family, his education life till he came to Istanbul, his arrival in Istanbul and continuing his education there, the offices he held during the Ottoman State and the early days of the Republic, the oppressions and pursuits before the government of Democratic Party in 1950, and his life stage and pursuits after 1950 have been studied. In the last chapter, the academic personality, the profession, silsilah al-tariqah (chain of order) and cause of Hadhrat Süleyman Effendi have been elaborated.
This serial of researches we have thus started with the title “Notable Personages from Tanzimat to Our Day”, the first ring whereof being Hadhrat Süleyman Effendi, will inshaallah (if God will) continue with such scholars as Bediüzzaman, Elmalılı Hamdi Yazır and Ahmed Hamdi Akseki, etc.
(107 pages)
