The journey of knowledge is a difficult, arduous, and challenging path. Ali İhsan Okur, a scholar from Yozgat, was one of the significant travelers of knowledge who departed from us in 2022, leaving behind an exemplary and instructive life story. In July 1949, he set off from the village of Başınayayla in Yozgat toward Egypt to pursue his studies; following a route that included stops in Çiçekdağı, Ürgüp, Niğde, Adana, Tarsus, Mersin, and Beirut, he reached Damascus and finally arrived in Egypt after 15 months. Every stage of this journey, followed by his period of study in Egypt and his years as a teacher of Turkish Language and Literature, constitutes the crucial points of his memoirs.

The memoirs of Ali İhsan Okur, a brief summary of his 92-year life, could unfortunately not be completed and published while he was still alive. With this published memoir, you will not only read about the journey of a seeker of knowledge woven with determination, effort, and sacrifice, but you will also read vignettes from the lives of Turkish students who were in Egypt—one of the important centers of learning at the time—and the Al-Azhar circle for their education, as well as the life of the professor who mentored these students, Yozgatlı İhsan Efendi.