Prof. Dr. K. Nevzat Tarhan

Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan was born in Merzifon in 1952. He finished Kuleli Military High School in 1969 and qualified in medicine at Istanbul University's Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Medicine in 1975. His internship took place at GATA (Gülhane Military Medical Academy), followed by postings in Cyprus and Bursa; in 1982 he qualified as a psychiatrist at GATA.

After serving as a hospital physician in Erzincan and Çorlu, he joined GATA Haydarpaşa, where he was appointed Assistant Professor in 1988 and Associate Professor in 1990 and also held the post of clinical director. Military promotion to colonel came in 1993, and academic promotion to full professor in 1996. From 1996 to 1999 he taught at Yüzüncü Yıl University and acted as an expert witness for the Institute of Forensic Medicine, before taking voluntary retirement. In 1998 he became the Turkish representative of the Memory Center of America. He went on to found NPİSTANBUL Hospital in 2006 and, in 2011, Üsküdar University, which he created by donating his entire estate.

Academic work and publications

Decades of clinical practice and research in psychiatry are reflected in close to 300 research articles, 142 of them indexed in Web of Science (WOS), and in more than 100 books and book chapters. His publications have been cited nearly 6,000 times, with an h-index of 41 on Google Scholar and 24 on Scopus. Through print and broadcast media in Türkiye his work has reached more than one million readers, and several of his books are available in English as well as in Bulgarian, Indonesian, Persian, Albanian and Azerbaijani (figures as of November 2024).

Outlook and values

Prof. Dr. Tarhan approaches every task with great seriousness and care. What drives this diligence, and much of what he has achieved, is his philosophy of life and his faith. He sees his life as reaching beyond this world to the hereafter, and he is conscious in all his work of standing before his Creator. From this vantage point he engages with science and presents to readers the principles of faith as grounded in inquiry, observation and evidence, linking them to the attributes of Allah that the universe itself bears witness to. He is counted among the rare scholars who have explained the universe and the Qur'an so that each strengthens the other. Living his identity as a scholar in daily life, he has made sharing what he has learned with others a guiding principle.

The Holy Qur'an, which he has read since youth and which has guided his life, is the root of this distinctive perspective. As a university student he wrestled with the questions many young people ask: Is existence a matter of chance? What gives life meaning? What is Darwinism, and why does evil exist? Why do people need religion, what is the psychology of belief, is there life after death, and how do the mind and soul find fulfilment? In his writing he answers these questions using the explanations of the Qur'an, supported by scientific research.

A careful observer of society, he regularly draws attention in the media to the importance of social psychology, offering accurate readings of social life.

His qualities go well beyond this brief account. Investing in people has always been his aim, and he has devoted both his material and spiritual resources to it. Most of society has witnessed what he has accomplished, and his conduct shows that he intends to keep pursuing these goals, from a faith-based perspective, for the rest of his life.

Personal

More than one million copies of his books have been sold, and he donates all of his income to the TARHAN-İDER Foundation, which he established. He speaks English and German fluently and is the father of two children. A book documenting his family tree, which goes back 1,400 years, appeared in 2017.

Üsküdar University and NPİSTANBUL

Üsküdar University was founded with his entire fortune, without any public funds or allocations. Today it serves more than 24,000 students as a "Brain Hub" where future Nobel Prize-winning scientists are nurtured. Guided by the global vision of Prof. Dr. Nevzat Tarhan and his team, it represents Türkiye on the world stage as the first and only Turkish university to take part in the G20/N20 Summits.

At the 2020 conference of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), one of the most prestigious psychiatric associations in the world, experts from Üsküdar University and NPİSTANBUL Hospital led by Prof. Dr. Tarhan presented on "Computational Psychiatry and Future Perspectives". The APA then chose these presentations as one of the 12 lectures offered to its members, one each month, throughout 2021.

Prof. Dr. Tarhan is currently Founding Rector and Chairman of the Executive Board of Üsküdar University and Chairman of the Board of Directors of NPİSTANBUL Hospital, Türkiye's first neuropsychiatric hospital.