The importance of the project and the contributions of the catalog and the book to the literature were discussed at Marmara University Faculty of Theology Prof. Dr. Raşit Küçük Hall. On Saturday, February 23rd, a panel discussion was held with Süleyman Güder, Chairman of the Board of Directors of İLEM, Lütfi Sunar, Chairman of the Executive Board of the Association for Science, Culture and Education (İLKE), and Hızır Murat Köse and Özgür Kavak, the executives of the ISD Catalog Project.
In the opening speech of the program, Süleyman Güder, Chairman of the Board of Directors of ILEM and ISD Project Coordinator, emphasized the importance of the project. Güder said, “We have been working on the Islamic Political Thought Project for about two years. The Islamic Political Thought Workshop and the book Islamic Political Thought edited by Lütfi Sunar and Özgür Kavak are the products of this project. Through this project, we hope that these works published in the past will be brought into today's accumulation and have a significant impact on the continuity and change in thought. Through the catalog, we are always trying to provide an explanation and solution to the issues that we describe as dilemmas in contemporary political thought. We believe that dynamic concepts such as law, justice, human nature, and ummah will be reinterpreted by revealing the past accumulation. We hope that this project will have a significant impact on academic studies and research in the field of Islamic Political Thought.”
Explaining the scope of the project, Güder said, “Our intention is not to keep this work as an archaeological study, but to go beyond it and lead to new studies. In 2020, we strive with all our efforts to organize the International Symposium on Islamic Political Thought.”
Then, Lütfi Sunar, the advisor of the project and Chairman of the Executive Board of İLKE, stated that the main purpose of the project is to propose a solution to the problems and dilemmas of the contemporary period and said, “We are in an effort to shed light on our problems again by focusing on the problematics of the contemporary period. I think it is a project that will cause the boundaries of the field of thought to be redrawn.”
Then Hızır Murat Köse, who took the floor on behalf of the Executives of the Islamic Political Thought Catalog Project, expressed his pleasure to be introducing this project at the end of 20 years of labor. Stating that 805 works related to Islamic political thought until the 20th century were classified, Köse said, “The fact that we have come to these days from the reading group we started at the Science and Art Foundation will express the extent of our labor to some extent. Through this catalog, we will be able to see the works in the field of Islamic Political Thought written until the 19th century. The 19th century will be added to the catalog in the following process. Through this catalog, we hope that the studies in the field of Islamic Political Thought will expand in terms of opportunity. We hope that this opportunity will increase the interest and interest in the field.”
İbrahim Halil Ayten, who prepared the catalog, introduced the catalog by giving detailed information about the catalog and its content.
After these speeches, a panel on the theme of Islamic Political Thought was held under the chairmanship of Project Coordinator Süleyman Güder. After the program ended after the panel, the Islamic Political Thought Catalog, which can be accessed at isd.ilem.org.tr, started to be published.
