The close ties and relations between cities and people, between people and civilizations, between civilizations and cities are issues to be considered. The attention and interest aroused by these issues, which I have been thinking about and commenting on for a long time, inevitably provide an opening for me, too. Maraş was in my attention for a long time, but I could not go there. Fortunately, this was the time. Without the occasions, such important centers would not be able to be visited.
The invitations to Konya and then Kahramanmaraş about the Çanakkale Victory both overlapped, and I breathed in both cities one day apart. Breathing two different souls and two different personalities in two days impressed me. In my Konya article, the opposite of the issues I emphasized is valid for Maraş. I prefer to use the name Maraş especially in this way. There is a bit of heroism in the title of Kahraman (hero), and a different personality. Maraş has a beyond. My approach is a little different. There have always been special and subjective aspects of Maraş that brought me closer, made it amiable or made it belong to me. Many of our leaders, who have important places in our world of thought and spirit, are either from here or are connected with it in some way. The Master Necip Fazıl, Nuri Pakdil, Rasim Özdenören, Alâeddin Özdenören, Cahit Zarifoğlu, Erdem Bayazıt. And my friends from the next generation Kadir Tanır, Ali Büyükçapar, Serdar Yakar, Duran Boz, İsmail Fatih Maraşbey, Recep Şükrü Güngör and many more. The Master Sezai Karakoç and Mehmet Akif İnan whose names are sometimes mentioned with Maraş, even though they are not from Maraş. Because of these names, the affinity and interest of Maraş remain hidden inside us. The Master Sezai Karakoç is remembered with the Master Necip Fazıl. Mehmet Âkif İnan, on the other hand, is indispensable for Edebiyat and Mavera.
From the moment I entered Maraş, I felt that I was not a stranger to that city, that I was not a stranger. I could not answer to a previous invitation of my dear friend Ahmet Bahar because of my Diyarbakir conference on the same date. I was on the bus to Maraş right after my conference in Konya on Saturday evening when I entered Maraş on a rainy morning with fatigue, lack of sleep from the previous night and bus tension. I was loaded with images of the place and location of Maraş, both in the memoirs and essays of Zarifoğlu, Pakdil, Bayazıt, Özdenörens. I was constantly looking at Maraş with an eye that was reflected in me from them and formed in me. Each of our cities is living the same fate as each other today. Our cities face two different sieges. One of them is that the inexhaustible greed of the modern world, which is self-seeking, inteded for acquiring goods and possessions, overwhelms people. Another is that the migration from the village to the city is so intense that the hybrid spirit that attaches to, clings to and hangs on that original city is gradually besieging the cities. While one destroys and takes down our cities, civilization and savings, the other grows and swells like a tumor, careless and ordinary. Either way, it's gnawing our cities. I landed in Maraş under a rainy, cloudy and gray sky atmosphere. For some reason, I had the feeling that I would find that old Maraş in front of me. However, since I know the general conditions of cities, it is psychological that I had such an expectation. When Ahmet Bahar Bey, Ali Büyükçapar and other friends were in front of me, I was honestly embarrassed. I have always sought to live simply in life and to be in this simplicity. In our natural tradition, the understanding and spirit of reconquest, which started with the Master Necip Fazıl and continued with Erbakan Hodja, and the feeling of having perseverance when entering a city are among my attention. Since spiritual alienation prevailed in the last century, in order for a new resurrection to take place at a time when power and oppression are increasingly intensified, the feeling of being and being seen strong is just as important when one sets out with a small number of people. Time has been surpassed in a way, we live in a new time. A new process is taking place that shakes people's feelings of conquest or resurrection. Like a disintegration, disregard, scattering, indifference. In this new time, it is also difficult to determine what should be done in the new awareness process. People’s minds are confused. Every sentence you say, every step you take can bring something different in front of you. It can lead to unexpected results. Despite everything, we still have to rebuild this spirit of resurrection and conquest on behalf of our civilization. That's the hardest part of the task anyway.
We have problems of human and civilization on the one hand, and hybridization and disappearance over time on the other. These are also multi-faceted. We do not even know what surprises await us as we enter through a gate of the city of Maraş, pass through a plain and water. Aren't these feelings that lead people to the future with hope?
For someone who goes to a city for the first time, the psychological effect of the knowledge and emotion that has been formed beforehand is important. When I entered Maraş, I was thinking of leaving aside what I knew about the past as much as possible. What can I draw out of myself with a new look and feeling, what can I capture… The impressions we get from the memoirs and essays of the masters and older brothers who came out of Maraş definitely have an effect on our thoughts and feelings. When the Lonely Juniper is mentioned Cahit Zarifoğlu comes to mind, and when Güzlek is mentioned, it is Erdem Beyazıt. The high school, the castle, the alleys, etc. However, these feelings keep following the person. To stop at a place on the Güzlek road and look down on Maraş, to get rid of the effect of their looks as we run from place to place, to keep our eyes open and catch the details... In the foggy and misty weather, the silhouette of the city was blurred. Maybe there was something good about it for me. Because I didn't like seeing the modern, suffocating foreignness surrounding Maraş.
With our host, Ali Büyükçapar, and our dear friends who were traveling with us all day long, we could only travel around a quarter of Maraş.
Maraş is a cultural city where the Ottoman Empire did not visit much, where there are no traces of it, and where the Beylik period becomes evident with all its features. The houses, streets, mosques, old buildings and the real silhouette of the city reveal the spirit of the city immediately. The effects of the modern world are trying to gnaw the city. However, these two spirits clash fiercely. It is possible to find almost all the reflections and features of Islamic civilization and its culture when we wander through the alleys of Maraş, sometimes by car and sometimes on foot. It also approached other cultures with kindness and enabled them to live freely. As in the time of the crusaders, these cultures have left their homes and lands when they kept up with the provocations of outsiders. The Ottomans do not seem to have come by Maraş, why? This is an important question. There seems to be such a conflict between the Ottoman Empire and Anatolia in our cultural history. As such, Anatolia presents a different structure. The influence of the Muslim Arab culture is evident in the minarets and structures of the mosques. This shows an evolutionary side of our cultural world. The races and tribes have a constantly self-revealing side in their meeting with the spirit of Islamic civilization. This is what enriches this spirit. With the Islamization of the Anatolian lands and preserving all its characteristics, the Ottomans constantly turned their face towards the West and conquests.
Instead of being imprisoned in castles, Islamic urban culture overflows outside the castles and establishes its own circle. This circle is mosque centered. It spreads around the mosque with spirals. Like circles opening out from a stone thrown into a lake. It also gives its spirit there.
While we are performing our noon prayer at Grand Mosque, our last stop, the events in and around the mosque complete the prayer. The reflection of the Beylik period is evident in every aspect of the mosque. One is confronted with a cool spirit in this mosque.
While visiting the bazaar, from the drapers to the other shopkeepers, it makes you feel many things from the old spirit and beauty. It is important to carry the same spirit. It is as if the smell of spices, the furniture there, the walls, the vaults, the stone stairs, the twisting bazaars, the narrow and vertical stairs carry something. The life is very nested here. Looking sadly through the closed door of a Mevlevi lodge, passing far from the door of a Şazeli lodge and a pir...
How deeply shocking it is to see a piece of shrapnel stuck in the minaret standing there as an example, while passing by from a distance of a war-damaged minaret. How shocking it is to experience these at a time when I am loaded with very intense emotions and full of the spirit of Çanakkale. The effect of the reflection of its sacred originality, which gives a nation its spirit, appears here and at this time.
The works of the Seljuk and Beylik periods remains heavily. There is a sense of maturity in its personality. This can be experienced with the spirit and warmth of almost all periods. It has a warm spirit. There is a boiling heat there, flowing in full spate, its waters accompany it. The sincerity of human relations can be felt in every way, since people of all races are so close to each other that they can touch each other if they reach out of their windows in the houses and narrow streets.
It should not be misleading to compare some cities with towns. Our towns have a feature that preserves their purity and maintains their originality in the transition from village to town, from town to city. With this aspect, I am after what belongs to me from the originality of that pure and pureness. Something interesting caught my attention in this city, which is a very old settlement. While many of the ancient elements have been preserved, many have disappeared. The cemeteries of Maraş surprised me in this sense. The reason is one of the important signs of a city is its cemeteries. It is important for cultural history. The Maraş cemetery is not even the cemetery of the last century. You can't see the old look there. In the modern cemetery, the reinforced concrete appearance of modern cities is experienced. The marble tombs resemble concrete apartments. The apartments lined up next to each other. It does not evoke any metaphysical pleasure. The memory of culture and civilization is being destroyed. The memory is being erased. While the memory is lost in the cemeteries of Maraş, despite everything, there is a rich memory in the city.
The house where Cahit Zarifoğlu was born and grew up is in ruins. It still carries something from him to us in the center and spirit of the city. The masonry and lath and plaster houses around it are being left to fall and disrepair. For modern people, these houses are of no importance. Why would they be? When it is possible to be the slave of the houses where one cannot meet with the soil, that have large rooms and halls, and where the artefacts are stored unlimitedly. In any case, the modern structures surrounding Maraş are rising as if they are defying and suffocating each other. There is a different life there. The first cinemas of Maraş, the cinemas where conferences are held… Those who have changed places from generation to generation. In the process from Master Necip Fazıl to today, it can be felt that they are breathing there. Everyone has a first in their memory. These firsts are decisive in human life. The first excitement that Necip Fazıl, Necmettin Erbakan, Akif Inan and many others gave to people still preserves their spirit.
Nuri Pakdil is a man of action. There is something for him that blocks the way of Grand Mosque. It is a crime to even step on where its shadow rests. He has to wander around to get to the mosque or to the place where his father's drapery shop is. This modern understanding of the city, the western perspective, brings worship together with sculpture. This narrows people's thinking and freedom areas. The absence of pictures of the Prophet Mohamed, the prohibition of the picture, the absence of the statue, the prohibition of the statue prevent worship. While entering the Grand Mosque, the feeling of eternity beyond the feeling of worship becomes evident in people. It is like there being another floor on top of one floor in the oldest mosque. It gives people a shudder as it creates a new excitement in the transition from one section to another.
The originalities that will take the modern city under its control and give it a spirit should be preserved. Sultan Abdulhamit Han Mosque, which was placed on the highest hill of Maraş and whose foundation was laid by Erbakan Hodja, raises its index fingers [minarets] towards the sky. The feeling of carrying the Ottoman consciousness and spirit to Anatolia and keeping it alive is getting stronger. Only by this can modern aberration, worship, and abandon be prevented. Every period, a person leaves his mark on a part of that city. Each of them leaves a mark. While the tales of Sütçü İmam and Malik Ejder are being told, you can be together with them on the narrow and steep slopes of Maraş, out of breath. This is the union of spirits. Every town, city, village also has hustlers. While climbing those steep slopes of Maraş, friends suggested that we take a rest in the tea house of someone they described as Ali Ağabey. In this short stay, something conjures up. While Ali Ağabey was a total defiant, Akıncı (raider) youth took him among them. He still preserves some features of that period. He is manly, hospitable and respectful and has a valiant stance. There are conversations of the friends in his tea house. His mustache is yellowed from cigarette smoke. In this place where the conversation is deep, the photo of the late Necmettin Gevri Hodja takes its place on the wall of the tea room. And with the lines symbolizing the moment when he fell and surrendered his soul while reading the poem “Sakarya” on his photograph. “The water flows…” endless lines and that sad farewell moment comes to mind. Is that just that? The framed painting of Sultan-ı Âli Osman [the sultans], given by the newspaper Yeni Devir, takes its place on the wall of tea house. In a yellowed state. This great town, which is familiar and connected with each other, still preserves its spirit despite the reinforced concrete spirit that surrounds and gnaws it.
In a one-day Maraş diary, when I look at the places that are visited at once, the names that are tried to be kept in memory, after an excessive and intense load, it will be seen that I have internalized very little of a cultural city yet. For someone who breathes and lives in Maraş, perhaps, what is told may not be of any value because of the the feeling of taking for granted. It is certain that Maraş has left us something, albeit partially, among those who are intertwined with its past and present. However, there are some things that do not fit well. One of them is that I could not see any warmth in the tomb built in the name of Sütçü İmam. I couldn't feel a metaphysical shudder when I found myself in front of a marble sarcophagus. His name and the events and parables around him, however, attract a lot of attention. Unfortunately, this modern mausoleum wipes everything out in an instant. The winds are blowing in the place of the bath in question. It was not protected, it could not be protected. We are skilled at not keeping cultural history alive. There is none that can be compared with us with regards to destruction. The tunnels, rooms and most of the things in the castle that belonged to the castle in Maraş Castle are gone. A park and a tea house on a hill… It does not evoke a feeling of the past. According to what is told, there are no connections between the rooms, the passages under the castle, and the bath under the castle, which were revealed during the studies. If the things in question could be revealed, the understanding and view of life regarding that period would have become clearer. So is the description of the French occupation. The feelings of the people of Maraş are much more meticulous. In the French occupation, the feeling that one could not be free under the French flag waving in the castle and that the Friday prayer could not be performed brought liberation. This feeling, beyond heroism, is significant in terms of both reflection from a metaphysical spirit and showing the clarity of a nation's passion for freedom. Today, it seems impossible to even talk about such a value. The global world psychology is a new view of defeat. The plane trees are one of the symbols of our cultural history. The plane trees are generally in an identical situation as mosques. But I have to highlight a contradiction here. In our conversation with Kemalettin Erbakan on the plane tree, there is something important that he underlined and emphasized. “The plane trees do not bear fruit. What good is a tree without fruit?” The question has been bothering me ever since.
The place names of Maraş have features that make people think with connotations. It will be enough even to give a few examples such as ‘Boğazkesen’, ‘Beyazıt Mosque’, ‘Müşir’, ‘Kumarbaz’, ‘Tekke Mahallesi’’, ‘Grand Mosque’, ‘Çukur Bath’, ‘Malik Ejder’, ‘Hatuniye Mosque’, ‘Sütçü İmam’, ‘Çınaraltı Mosque’, ‘Şeyh Mosque’, ‘Bahtiyar Yokuşu’, ‘Şekerli Mosque’, ‘Kümbet’, ‘Divanlı Mosque’, ‘Şizet Çağlaları’, and ‘Güzlek’. Along with the houses, a few trees, mulberries, vines, plums, etc. that fit into the small gardens. It is unthinkable for a house to be without a garden. Does mint still grow in mint fields? Ahmet Bahar, Ali Büyükçapar, Serdar Yakar, Adem, Mehmet Beys, whose warm friendships I cannot get enough of…