Fuat Sezgin was a Turkish scholar and researcher who specialized in the history of Science in the medieval Islamic world.
16 Facts About Fuat Sezgin
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Fuat Sezgin was professor emeritus of the History of Natural Science at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany and the founder and honorary director of the Institute of the History of the Arab Islamic Sciences there.
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Fuat Sezgin created museums in Frankfurt and Istanbul with replicas of historical Arabic-Islamic scientific instruments, tools and maps.
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Fuat Sezgin's best known publication is the 17-volume Geschichte des Arabischen Schrifttums, a standard reference in the field.
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Fuat Sezgin obtained a position at Istanbul University, but was dismissed in the wake of the 1960 coup.
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Fuat Sezgin moved to Germany in 1961 and started working as a visiting professor at the University of Frankfurt.
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Fuat Sezgin was appointed professor at the university in 1965.
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In 1982, Sezgin established the Institute of the History of the Arab Islamic Sciences.
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In 1983 Fuat Sezgin founded a unique museum within the institute, bringing together more than 800 replicas of historical scientific instruments, tools and maps, mostly belonging to the Golden Age of Islamic science.
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In 1968, Fuat Sezgin found four previously unknown books of Diophantus' Arithmetica at the shrine of Imam Reza in the holy Islamic city of Mashhad in northeastern Iran.
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Fuat Sezgin was the author and editor of numerous publications.
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Fuat Sezgin had, since 1984, edited the Journal for the History of Arabic-Islamic Science.
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Fuat Sezgin had argued that Muslim seafarers had reached the Americas by 1420, citing as evidence the inscription on a map and the fact that the high longitudinal precision of early maps of the Americas would not have been attainable using Western navigational technology.
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Fuat Sezgin had an Insutute named after him, Insutute of Prof Dr Fuat Sezgin History of Islam Science, Located next to Gulhane.
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Fuat 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.
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Fuat Sezgin is member of the Turkish Academy of Sciences, the Academy of the Kingdom of Morocco and academies of Arabic Language in Cairo, Damascus and Baghdad.