Ibn Haldun University 6th Graduation Ceremony was held on June 29, 2024 at Ibn Haldun University Complex with an intense participation. At the 2023 - 2024 Academic Year Graduation ceremony, where Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah, Palestinian Rector of Glasgow University, delivered a speech as the guest of honor, our graduates and graduate candidates from our undergraduate and graduate departments received their diplomas from the hands of their professors. A large group of guests from the world of business, academia and politics witnessed the excitement and happiness of our graduates at the ceremony held at the Amphitheater.
This year's Graduation Ceremony was dedicated to the Palestinian academics and students who have been martyred in Gaza since October 7 in order to draw attention to the events in Palestine. Within the framework of this institutional planning, all our graduates and academics participating in the ceremony were given a kokart with the names of martyred Palestinian academics and students, and our graduates and academics participated in the ceremony with these kokarts attached to their robes.
In the welcoming speeches of our graduation ceremony, our Chairman of the Board of Trustees Prof. İrfan Gündüz stated that Ibn Haldun University is an institution that keeps our ancient philosophy alive, which he expressed as leaning on the past, taking support from the present and focusing on the future. Prof. Gündüz congratulated our academic staff who teach and guide our students throughout their undergraduate and graduate education, and ended his speech, in which he advised our students to be locomotives, not wagons, by thanking the families who raised them.
In his welcoming remarks after Prof. İrfan Gündüz, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Necmeddin Bilal Erdoğan, Deputy Chairman of the Board of Trustees, stated that our University, which aims to reach the top of the world as an international research university especially in the field of social sciences, stands out as "The Single Star in Its Own Sky " with the education it provides and the opportunities it offers. Expressing his hope that our graduating students will do their PhD in the best universities of the world and come back to our University as academicians or represent the education they received at Ibn Haldun University as academicians in the best universities of the world, Erdoğan concluded his words by wishing to be together in many more graduation programs of Ibn Haldun University, which they aim to transform into an academic center of excellence, and in many more achievements of our students.
In his welcoming remarks, Our Rector Prof. Atilla Arkan described the graduation ceremony as a turning point in the lives of our students, and described it as an emotional rollercoaster in which the happiness of graduation and the anxiety of the responsibilities ahead are experienced together. Prof. Arkan touched upon the pride of the students' families, who are seeing the tangible reward of their efforts in flesh and blood, and expressed that it was a moment of pride for them as well. Prof. Arkan thanked the members of the board of trustees for building the vision of Ibn Haldun University and for their efforts to continuously develop this vision with new experiences, and stated that our board of trustees made one of the biggest investments in the future of the country by establishing a university. Arkan said that on this exciting day, we are experiencing a bitter happiness due to the massacres that have been going on in Gaza for months, and emphasized that as a university, we have not remained indifferent to injustice after October 7, as we did before, and that we have dedicated this year's ceremony to Gaza and our martyrs. Prof. Atilla Arkan stated that he, as the rector, wears the cockade with the name of the martyred Rector of the Islamic University of Gaza, Prof. Dr. Sufyan Tayeh, and talked about the importance of remembering our brothers and sisters in Palestine on our happy days. Prof. Arkan ended his speech by expressing the pride of graduating our students and at the same time the sadness of seeing them off from Ibn Haldun University.
In the welcoming speeches of the ceremony, Hatice Akın Yılmaz, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Turkish Youth and Education Service Foundation (TÜRGEV), stated that this graduation ceremony shows that Ibn Haldun University continues to develop steadily in line with the principles and goals determined since the day it stepped into the world of education. Yılmaz stated that our University, which is witnessed to add a lot of value to academic life, is a role model in Turkey's scientific life and that as the founding foundation, together with the University, they are inspired by Ibn Khaldun, the founder of the science of umran, and that they aim to take a humanitarian and spiritual perspective and transfer it to students with an approach that combines past, present and future. Underlining that they wish to see our graduates as individuals who pave the way from depression to civilization with the knowledge they have gained here, Hatice Akın Yılmaz stated that our students, who are the voice and breath of our Palestinian brothers and sisters who are struggling with the Israeli genocide both locally and internationally as university youth, have reinforced this belief. Yılmaz concluded her words by wishing our students to make the best use of the moment they are in, regardless of the stage of their lives, without minimizing every good deed and sin they commit.
Following Hatice Akın Yılmaz, Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the Turkish Youth and Education Service Foundation (TÜRGEV), Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah, the Palestinian Rector of the University of Glasgow, who took the floor as the guest of honor in the last welcoming speech, started his words by expressing his thanks for the invitation to our University and expressing that he was very impressed by everything he saw in the heartwarming environment of this successful university. Dr. Sittah spoke about the importance of having a consciousness that reflects our own culture in building the future, that will take us forward as an ummah and a nation, and that will help us as we face the challenges of the 21st century, and he wondered why the United Nations or international NGO’s have been failing us on the Palestinian issue since time immemorial. Then he realized that he had asked a question that was wrong from the beginning and therefore it was unreasonable to expect an answer, he said, stressing that the real question that needs to be asked is what we, as Muslims, should be doing with our own useful, need-fulfilling and functional Islamic organizations. Since October 7, we have learned a lot about the genocide and that universities with the vision of Ibn Haldun University are extremely important because they are Islamic conscious. Dr. Sittah added that the Palestinians feel the incredible support of Turkey and appreciate the efforts made to continue education in Gaza, adding that their belief that tomorrow is ours has never faltered and that the occupiers are only in Palestine temporarily.
Dr. Sittah emphasized the importance of education, stressing that land, money and social status can be lost, but the only thing they cannot take from us is education. Stating that what Ibn Haldun University has given to its graduating students today is a treasure that they will carry throughout their lives and can never be stolen from them, the Rector of Glasgow University concluded his speech with the following words of Irish writer Bobby Sands: “‘Our revenge will be the laughter of our children.”
At the Diploma Ceremony, Çiğdem Kıyak, a graduate of the Faculty of Law, delivered a speech on behalf of the undergraduate graduates and Nur Sakinah Jannati, a graduate of the Master's Program in Political Science and International Relations, delivered a speech on behalf of the postgraduate graduates.
Ibn Haldun University 6th Graduation Ceremony ended with the delivery of diplomas to our graduates.
The ceremony did not include a cap-throwing ritual, but when the diploma distribution was over, the caps were quietly placed on the ground by our students in a show of support for the just cause of the Palestinians.
