I AM IN SEARCH OF ANY OLD OTTOMAN DOCUMENT THAT ANY FAMILY MEMBER MIGHT HAVE NO MATTER HOW INSIGNIFICANT IT MAY SEEM!
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| Photo of the first two pages of the Halil and Piri Mehmed Pasha Vakfi Book of 198 pages that I had the chance to hold in my hands and was allowed to photograph. It is full of valuable information about the family and its history. The image above shows approval by Sultan Suleiman on the Vakfi as witnessed by many officials and dignitaries of the time. |
In Islam, it is said there are 3 types of Imams:
Type 1: Imam Al-Sultan, an Imam who uses his knowledge of the Koran and appointed position to serve the agenda of the Sultan and misguides people by using certain verses out of context in order to provide support to the Sultan in return for monetary rewards or a powerful position. He is a Munafiq, and his likes, we are told, will rest at the bottom level of Hell.
Type 2: Imam of Reya (a Show-off) who boasts about his knowledge and his intent is to be well known as opposed to be a productive Imam, and work to discredit others in order to raise his stature in return for announced achievements and rewards during his lifetime. He usually thrives on being told how great he is, and speak down at others to assert his superiority, and is not very cooperative. At judgment times, we are told, he will be said to have already received the rewards he was seeking for on earth.
Type 3: The True Imam, seeking Al-Akhera (after life), this is the Imam who truly uses his knowledge to help others and obey Allah above all else and his only objective receiving rewards from Allah for doing his best to help others. He welcomes everyone seeking his help with open arms, and a great smile. This Imam, we are told, is reward with heaven.
It seems that the above classifications ALSO APPLY to Historians.
The more I search for the truth about our stolen family history, the more I realize that history is what incumbent rulers wanted it to be during their governing times in support of their agendas. Only a few historians work to document facts as they uncover them, strive for knowledge with open arms and are true seekers of truth and wish to document whatever they learn and encounter, taking advantage of every opportunity to learn and uncover facts that may have been once hidden, deleted, or changed as ordered by a Sultan or by a bribed official.
In my search for truth about our family history, I was amazed by the tactics of Type 1 and Type 2 Historians I have encountered. I am confident that Allah will bring me in contact with Type 3 historians, those who match my passion for true history.
I begin to wonder about the hidden agendas when certain historians choose to avoid learning whatever they can about the descendants of the Ramazanogullari who settled in Lebanon and Syria, especially when a book about Beirut Velayati sanctioned in 1916 by the Vali of Beirut Azmi Bey Efendi during Ottoman rule assigned two pages to speak about the origins of the honorable Ramadan family of Beirut. Plus when a story told by Historian Sharif when he was 15 recollecting that around 1938 the senior Niazi bey Ramazanoglu of Adana (noted for keeping important family history records, that oddly his descendant refuses to share after repeated requests) visited Beirut to meet with Aref Efendi Ramazanzade is corroborated by his living daughter who when I met her and told her of the visit, she said she remembers that her father did in fact go to Beirut during that time, this was in a meeting at the 2013 reunion.
I would think that a true historian (Type 1) interested in the history of Ramazanogullari would want to meet with every one of them, interview them, unearth every record in the Ottoman archives that could have anything written about them and provide it to the public and be a real historian instead of use some information out of context to discredit them. The blatant refusal of certain Ramazanoglu family historians to be welcoming and to not take the opportunity to learn more about the other branches of Ramazanogullari can only make me wonder: “what is their hidden agenda?”, who is behind it?, and why? Why are some historians insisting on deleting the Ramazanogullari outside of Turkey forever?
I have faith, that such true historians still exist and I seek their support. In the mean time, there may be a true historian inside every Ramadan or Ramazanogullari, wherever they are around the world including Turkey. I hope to meet with them, ask them to join our reunion, greet them and share with each other our combined knowledge in order to better understand our real history and document it well for the ages. I truly believe that there are more cousins out there sitting on some very important documents that can provide more clues, and I am confident that Allah will provide the opportunity to meet with them and unearth more of those important documents when Allah sees fit.
May Allah guide us all to the right path.
If you have copies of anything from our family past, a note, an old Secil record or an ID, written memoirs, really anything, or even a story told to you by an elder about our family, please email me a copy of it to ne at:
Samer.ramazanoglu@gmail.com
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