A Brief Overview of the Turks’ Journey in Education

The Turks are one of the leading societies in world history in terms of cultural and political continuity. For centuries, Turks have existed across a vast geography stretching from the northern and eastern steppes of Mongolia in Central Asia to Eastern Europe, from India to Yemen, and across the North African coastline. Turks have established hundreds of states of varying sizes across this vast area and become part of different civilizations, but more importantly, they converted to Islam in the tenth century, after which they established great states such as the Seljuk, Mamluk, Mughal, and Ottoman dynasties. In doing so, they contributed important works and experiences to world history in science, culture, art, and philosophy. In a sense, to say that Turks have made the greatest contribution and had the greatest influence in establishing and institutionalizing the new, original, and enduringly influential Islamic civilization would be no exaggeration, and the most important institutional and factual structure of this process has undoubtedly been education.