With great sorrow, Ibn Haldun University (IHU) received the news of the death of Professor Ömer Faruk Harman, faculty member of School of Islamic Studies and one of the respected scholars of the Islamic sciences and theology community in Turkey and in the world, who passed away on Thursday March 4, 2021.
IHU expresses its deepest condolences to the family, relatives, students, science community and Ibn Haldun University Family who will carry on, in present and in future, Prof. Harman’s inspiring biography.
Ömer Faruk Harman, who was born in 1950 in Söğüt, is a Turkish theologian with a focus on the history of world religions.
Harman first graduated from the İmam Hatip School in Istanbul and then from the grammar school. He studied at the Istanbul Islamic Institute, which later became the faculty of theology. In 1973 he finished his studies in sociology at Istanbul University. He later taught at Marmara University. Harman received his doctorate and became an Associate Professor in 1988 and a professor six years later. In 2005 he became a religious attaché at the Turkish Embassy in Paris. He started working again at the Faculty of Theology at Marmara University from 2009 till 2017. Professor Harman, who is married and has three children, has been working as a faculty member of History of Religions at Ibn Haldun University School of Islamic Studies since 2017.
He is considered one of the most important experts on Judaism and Christianity in Turkey and also took part in interreligious dialogue meetings with the Roman Catholic Church. In addition to Turkish, Harman was speaking fluent French.
