Ercan Cem

Ercan emailed me a few years ago asking about my note-taking technique.
I knew nothing else about him except he lives in Istanbul.
So when he arrived, I asked, “So what is your interest in note-taking?”
Single answer:
The Quran.

For the next 100 minutes he gave me a beautifully deep dive into Chapter (surah) 12 of the Quran: the story of Yusuf.

Surah 12 is unique in that it’s the only real story like this in the Quran.
Verse by verse, word by word, reading deeper into it.
It starts out saying, ”This is the best possible telling of this story.”
Every word has an important meaning.

He goes back to the original Arabic to get into the meanings of words that have clues like, “... into the well...” which indicates it’s a well that’s already known, not just any old well, which means the brothers knew that Yusuf would be picked up.
And ”she locked the doors” (plural) indicating there were multiple doors to get into the room.
Fascinating stuff, like a mystery looking for clues.
He even had me read parts of the English translation of the story out loud to make sure I understood.

He contacted another scholar in Istanbul about this chapter and the guy came over to his house that same night but then was trying to quiz him to see what he knows, and he didn’t like that stance.
Ercan is writing an entire book about this chapter.
Rough draft already 900 pages.