Presidential Culture and Art Grand Awards found their owners. Prof. Dr. Ahmet Yaşar Ocak, a retired lecturer in the History Department of the Faculty of Letters, received the 2019 Presidential Culture and Art Grand Award in the field of Social Sciences. Prof. Dr. Ahmet Yaşar Ocak received the award from President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
In the statement made by the Presidency's Directorate of Communications, it was stated that the award in the field of Social Sciences was given to Prof. Dr. Ahmet Yaşar Ocak for his "contributions to the historiography of history and culture, and his academic studies that meticulously examine the mystical groups, people and structures in the history of Islam from the perspective of social history".
Joining Hacettepe University Faculty of Letters, Department of History as an assistant in 1972, Ocak received his science expertise in history from Hacettepe Social Sciences Institute. Prof. Dr. Ahmet Yaşar Ocak became an associate professor in 1983 and a professor in 1988 at Hacettepe University. Prof. Dr. Yaşar Ocak, who served as a lecturer in the Department of History at Hacettepe for many years, retired from the same department.