Zeynep Üstün

Mehmet Akif Ersoy was a Turkish poet, author and the writer of the lyrics of Turkish National Anthem. He was born in Istanbul, Ottoman Empire in 1873. He is notable of writing the lyrics of Turkish National Anthem, İstiklâl Marşı (The March of Independence in English) – which was adopted in 1921. He is accepted by Turks as their “National Poet”. He studied veterinary science at the university. The lyrics were originally written as a poem in a collection of his writings. Paradoxically, one of his most famous works, a book called Safahat, was not widely read or published until recently. He is also said to have written a commentary upon the Qur’an which he later burned on discovering that it was to be published by the new secular government in Turkish instead of the original Arabic, and used in secular education. Although semi-Albanian by birth and deeply religious, he is held as a nationalist figure in Turkey. In fact, his real allegiance was somewhere in between Turkish and Islamic identities, and he was something of the Namık Kemal of his time. Deeply upset by the strongly secular nature the republic took soon after the sultanate was abolished in 1923, he left Turkey for Cairo to teach Turkish language, and returned only shortly before his death in 1936. His training was in veterinary science. He was interred in the Edirnekapı Cemetery in Istanbul.