Essay Example on Ibrahim Kalin: Turkish Presidential Press Secretary & Georgetown Teacher

Ibrahim Kalin is the Turkish Presidential Press Secretary and a fellow at Prince AL Waleed bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at Georgetown University (Ibrahim Kalin, n.d.). As the Turkish Presidential Press Secretary, Kalin's function is to offer advice to the president of Turkey. He is also a teacher of Islam philosophy and Islam West relations at Georgetown University. Ibrahim Kalin happens to be the founding director of the SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research that is based in Ankara, Turkey (Schleifer 2018). The SETA foundation is a policy think tank that is responsible for analyzing the field of society, politics, and economy. The think tank also has the objective of providing the policymakers and the members of the public with the most accurate and up to date knowledge on the changing political, social, economic and cultural conditions. He served as the director of the organization from 2005 to 2009. Ibrahim Kalin has provided lectures at various parts of the world. He is also the author of several books including Knowledge in Later Islamic Philosophy: Mulla Sadra on Existence, Intellect, and Intuition, which attempts to remodel knowledge on existence. There is also another book called Islam and the West, published by Isam Publications in 2007, won the Turkish award for best book. Distinct books include Islam in Turkey and Knowledge as Light. He has also co-authored other studies such as the Turkish Perception of the West (Ibrahim Kalin, n.d.). He has contributed to Encyclopedia including the second edition of MacMillan Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World. All these contributions and actions have propelled Ibrahim Kalin to an influential position particularly in the Muslim World. The Muslim 500 ranked Kalin at position 150 among the 500 most influential Muslims of 2019. He is currently affiliated with the ruling party, the Justice and Development Political Party, which has been in power since 2002.

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Ibrahim Kalin was born on 15 September of 1971 in Istanbul, Turkey. Despite coming from Istanbul, Dr. Kalin grew up in Erzurum, which is the largest city in the eastern province of Erzurum. However, his stay in Erzurum was short lived as he soon moved to the resort city of Alanya in the Antalya Province to attend Alanya High School. He moved to Istanbul to pursue his first degree in Bachelor of Arts from Istanbul University in the Faculty of Literature and Department of History, which he completed in 1992. It is also in the same year that Ibrahim Kalin married Neriman Kalin whom together they have two children; Rumeysa Kalin and Dilrupa Zeynep Kalin. He later went to the Islamic University in Malaysia to Study Islamic thought and philosophy. He got his Master's Degree in 1994 after completing his thesis on, "Move-i-Mulla Shadrach Cevheriyy Theory" and returned to Turkey.

In 1996, he joined George Washington University in Washington D.C where he received his Ph.D. in Islamic Studies. He worked at George Washington University as a doctor in the field of philosophy with Mulla Sadra's theory of Knowledge and the possibility of an anti-subjectivist epistemology. While in the United States, Dr. Kalin got interested in photography as a side activity. He was also involved in music and even joined a music group, where the baglama was his favorite music instrument. Ibrahim spent three months in France in 1998, where he took English courses. Starting the year 2002, Dr. Kalin worked in the College of Holy Cross that is located in Massachusetts in the city of Worcester. He was a faculty member of the Department of Religious Studies in the institution until the year 2005 where he left to work as the director of SETA foundation. As a lecturer, Dr. Kalin has specialized in post-Avicennan Islamic philosophy (Ibrahim Kalin, n.d.). He has also specialized in international relations. Kalin has research interests in modern Turkish history, comparative philosophy, and Muslim-Christian relations. He also lectured in Bilkent University. Ibrahim Kalin has had the pleasure of serving in various international conferences that have allowed him to travel to the vast majority of Europe and North America. By the early 21st century, Kalin was already a public figure in Turkey. He was involved with many conventions and had published a few journal articles about relations between Turkey and the West. Some of his books also won the prize from Author Association of Greek and Albanian ideas. Dr. Kalin has worked as a columnist for the Sabah. Sabah is a Turkish Newspaper owned by the company Turkuvaz Media Group. It is one of the most read newspapers in the country.

At the age of 46, Dr. Kalin seems to be at the top of his career. He has made academic as well as impressive personal accomplishments. Ibrahim Kali current close association with the Turkish Prime Minister has led to speculation concerning his future career in politics. He is being tipped to run for the country's presidency in the future, but at the moment, he has shown no intention of aiming for Turkey's top seat.

References

Ibrahim Kalin. (n.d.). Retrieved from Georgetown University: https://acmcu.georgetown.edu/ibrahim-kalin

Schleifer, S. A., Prof (Ed.). (2018). Ibrahim Kalin. Retrieved April 17, 2019, from https://www.themuslim500.com/