Arabic book fair in Istanbul presents Rumi's letters

Organized in collaboration with the Writers Union of Turkey and Haşimi Publishing House, Turkey's Arabic Book Fair opened gates on Feb. 13 in Istanbul. The fair will host 30 publishing houses with 3,000 books from 15 countries including Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Jordan, Morocco and Kuwait. Thousands of printed works from Arabic textbooks to fairytales, from history books to the Noble Quran and primary resources related to Islamic sciences will be displayedat the 10-day event to run from Feb. 12 through to Feb. 22. "Mevlana Halidi Bağdadi Hz," a special edition of Rumi's letters in Farsi and Arabic, which was rebound by Haşimi Publishing House, is also being introduced at the fair.



The event will feature various seminars and discussions. Mahmut Bıyıklı, the president of the Istanbul office of the Writers Union, Semerkand Media Group Executive Editor Ali Özer, General Director of Sudan Higher Education Tarık Nur Muhammed, the owner of Lebanon Dar Al Minhaj Publishing House Bajkhaif Omar Salem, the owner of Darul Kütübil İlmiyye Publishing House Mohammed Baydun, Moroccan researcher Abdülmecid Hayali and Egyptian researcher professor Ahmetferid Ahmed Mazed were in attendance during the opening ceremony of the event. Stating that the roots of the religious language fellowship in Turkey will get deeper, "Many works related to our religion, history and culture were written in Arabic or Farsi. For us, Arabic, Farsi and Kurdish were never considered foreign languages and they have lived together with Turkish for years," Ali Sözer, the executive editor of Semerkand Media Group, said in his opening speech. "Today, in order for the world to benefit from Muslim heritage and for Muslims to be aware of their own heritage, these sister languages need to reunite. Since Turkey hosts millions of Syrian refugees and the number of participants at the international book fairs in Turkey gradually increases, this need is real. Actually, the Arabic Book Fair was organized due to the intense demand triggered by this need," he concluded.

The fair's participants and visitors will host authors including Yusuf Kaplan, Bedri Gencer, Ebubekir Sifil, Kamil Büyüker, Ahmet Turan Arslan, Cahit Baltacı, Kemal Yıldız, Ali Sözer, İbrahim Aydemir, Sariye Rifai and Kureyyim Racih.