Ashraf AboArafe
To celebrate the centenary of the Turkish Republic, the Yunus Emre Institute in Cairo/the Turkish Cultural Center launched a journey through time to retrieve the memory of history over the course of approximately six and a half centuries, the age of the Ottoman Empire, during which the sun never set and the call to prayer “Allahu Akbar” sounded around the clock in the seven regions.
The cruise started from the Nile River to reach the Bosphorus Strait, led by the captain of the Turkish Embassy in Egypt, Ambassador Salih Mutlu Şen, in partnership with the ship’s cockpit crew, Mr. Emin Poyraz and the rest of the work team, to dock the cruise at Yildiz University.
Among the honorable attendees on board the ship were a number of representatives of Arab and foreign diplomatic missions, along with a group of Egyptian academics. The professor at Yildiz University and the director of the Sultan Abdul Hamid II Center for Studies and Applications, Prof. Dr. Ayşe Melek Özyetgin showed the photo albums that Sultan Abdul Hamid II collected and kept at his residence in Yildiz Palace, which include photographs of about 50 countries. Özyetgin highlighted the 20 albums related to Egypt, containing more than 800 photographs of Egypt in the nineteenth century AD.
Özetgin stressed the importance of these photos, which were taken by the most famous photographers of that era, because they display the historical, cultural, social and architectural aspects of Egypt, as well as showing the richness of the common Turkish-Egyptian heritage.
For his part, the director of the Yunus Emra Institute in Cairo, Amin Poyraz, gave a speech in which he pointed to the interest and love that the Egyptian and Turkish peoples show to each other, and said, “This interest is not born today or yesterday, but rather extends back to long centuries ago, and this interest is evident through the theme of the event.” today; “Egypt Albums, which are considered the largest in size and most important among the Yildiz Palace photo collection.”
Dr. also delivered Aisha Barsai gave a speech in which she highlighted the value of Egypt’s albums in the embrace of Yildiz Palace and its historical status as a witness to the era in the world of Islamic culture and arts.
In a statement, Turkish Ambassador Salih Mutlu Şan said, “The Ottoman Sultans showed close interest and love for Egypt, which was part of the Ottoman Empire until 1914. Sultan Abdul Hamid II, who was a lover of the art of photography and interested in Egypt and Egyptian civilization, collected one of the The largest and most important collections in the history of world photography. This collection not only gives us an objective idea about Egypt’s civilization, nature, cities, life, architecture, and people, but also sheds light on the historical and cultural ties between Turkey and Egypt and carries these ties to the present day.”
He added, “In light of our recently developed relations with Egypt, we will continue our activities aimed at remembering and defining the monuments of our shared history and culture.”
Thus, it was a journey through the beautiful time in which the audience recalled the exploits of the Ottoman Empire and the unity of Muslims in the east and west of the earth in light of a painful present in which the Islamic nation has become prey to its enemies. We wake up from the dream of pride and find ourselves on the campus of the American University in Cairo, where an event is being held to open an exhibition that includes selected pictures from Egypt’s albums. Preserved in Yildiz Palace. The exhibition, held on the campus of the American University in Tahrir, will receive the public between 10 am and 6 pm until next January 2.
