ANTALYA'DA BİR İLİM VE İRFAN MERKEZİ: ELMALI

Abstract

It is crucial for a place to have important personalities grown in the region and the unearthed cultural heritage to become a science and wisdom centre since they are considered as fundamental features. The present study aims to determine the value of Elmali district by examining the historical adventure of the district regarding education, science, culture and literature, and revealing its transformation process to the science and wisdom centre. Elmali district remained in the Roman, Byzantine, Seljuk, Principalities and Ottoman periods, bearing traces from many civilizations, and was an important neighbourhood that influenced Anatolia with its foundations, madrasahs, lodges and zawiyahs, a strong Khalwatiyya and Bektashi Sufi tradition. In this tradition, many significant poets, who conveyed the intangible cultural heritage of their time and maintained the style of Yunus Emre, were trained. Elmali has become an important science and culture centre that constitutes the Turkish-Islamic thought and influences Anatolia with the important personalities it cultivates. Another factor that makes the district a science and wisdom centre is education. Based on the books contained in the Libraries, which are among the important shreds of evidence showing the educational level of the region, an individual can know the information sources of the country, the fields of science, how the information is used, what views are dominant in the country, how the works are classified, the world view, the aesthetic value of the arts used in the volumes and pages, the importance of the country to the book, the economic and cultural level of the region. In this study, the history of the ancient Elmali district of Antalya was briefly mentioned at first and then the information was provided about the scientists grew up in the region. Besides, the library heritage it had were handled from different perspectives, the books were examined, it was tried to determine the topics they contain, the languages they have written and the number of writing books to understand the culture and civilization of Elmali.