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TURKIYE DIYANET VAKFI ISLAM ANSiKLOPEDISI (Turkish Religious Foundation Encyclopaedia of Islam). Istanbul, Turkiye Diyanet Vakfi. Vols 1-13 published (1988-in progress) (Ab-i hayat-Gelenek). c. 550 pp, per vol. DM40 per bound volume.
This new Turkish encyclopaedia of Islam is an ambitious and wide-ranging project which, on the evidence of the early volumes, will rapidly become an indispensable reference work for the study of social, political and cultural aspects of modern Turkey and, in particular, of the Ottoman world. As stated in the preface to Volume 1, the work is a statement of pride and confidence in the Islamic religious and cultural heritage, at a time when the Muslim world is determinedly overcoming its long-held inferiority complex vis-a-vis the modern West; its appearance also reflects a growing appreciation in Turkey of the Ottoman past. Accordingly, the TDV Islam Ansiklopedisi was conceived and designed by, and is being overwhelmingly executed from within, a community of Muslim scholars, mainly, although not exclusively, Turkish. It is thus markedly different in scope and tone from the existing Islam Ansiklopedisi puplished by the Milli Egitim Bananl (the final volume of which appeared in 1988), which began as a revised translation of the Leiden Encyclopaedia of Islam, the latter seen by the editors of this new encyclopaedia as a project primarily of European orientalists for the use primarily of other European orientalists. There can be no quarrel with the Foundation's desire to produce such an encyclopaedia from within. How much weight would, or should, an encyclopaedia of Christianity carry in the West which had been produced in, say, India, or China?
Systematic work on the TDV encyclopaedia began...