Long before today’s tragedies, over a century ago, the Ottoman Empire sent teachers like Sayid Abubakr Effendi to the heart of Africa, not to conquer, but to educate.
The children of the continent, eyes wide with curiosity and dreams, sat beneath palm-thatched roofs, learning to read, to write, and to hope.
Their teachers, devout scholars from Istanbul, travelled through deserts and hardship. Often unpaid for months, the Istanbul government struggled through war and poverty to ensure their wages were delivered – because the mission mattered more than gold.
This was not a colonial venture. It was a bond of brotherhood.
The Turkish people have long stood with the oppressed. In the skies above, the world’s first Black pilot, Colonel Ahmet Ali Çelikten, flew with pride for the Ottoman Air Force.…
