from David Rohde:
Inside Islam’s culture war
ISTANBUL – In a state-of-the-art television studio here, the Islamic world's version of America's culture war is playing out in a lavishly re-created 16th century palace.
A dashing Turkish actor plays Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman ruler who conquered vast swaths of the Middle East and Europe, granted basic rights to Christians and Jews, and promoted education, science and art.
To Turkish conservatives, the series maligns a revered ruler known as "the lawgiver" whose military prowess and legal reforms placed the Ottomans at the zenith of their power. Set in the palace harem, early episodes featured a young Suleiman cavorting with scantily clad women and drinking wine. The sex was frequent.
The show's producers point to other themes. The dominant character is a woman, a real-life, Ukrainian slave-turned-concubine who eventually became Suleiman's queen. And in the program, members of different faiths coexist.
"This is the most important thing of the Ottoman Empire, that allowed one family to rule for centuries," Halit Ergenc, the actor who plays Suleiman, told me during a break in filming. "Sharing the same land with different cultures and different religions and respecting their rights."
After its January 2011 debut, critics hurled eggs at billboards advertising the program, protested outside the production company's office and filed more than 70,000 complaints with the Turkish government television agency. The show's producers shortened kissing scenes and toned down certain elements.
Today, Magnificent Century is the most popular program in Turkey and one of the most popular shows in the Middle East. Aired in 45 countries, it is the latest Turkish soap opera to take the region by storm. And according to Turkish academics, the programs are subtly changing cultural norms.
from Tales from the Trail:
Perry stands ground on Turkey
Given an opportunity to revise (back down or retract) his comments he made in Monday's Republican debate linking Turkey to "Islamic terrorists," Texas Governor Rick Perry stood his ground on Tuesday.
The Republican presidential candidate made no apology for nearly touching off an international incident with his take on the long-time U.S. ally. Perry defended his view in a CNN interview, hours after Turkey's response.
Here's the video:
Seeds of Arab Spring sown in Islam’s past, Turkish author says
Eight year-old Mustafa Akyol was looking at a book in his grandfather’s library when he saw something that shocked him: a passage advising parents to beat impious children. Now, Akyol is a journalist in Turkey, and he hopes the Arab Spring shows a different side of Islam: one where there is no conflict between Islam and political freedom.
His new book, “Islam Without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty,” which is being released in the United States on July 18, aims to tell people that there is a long history of freedom in the Islamic world. “The fact that so many Arab countries have been run by dictators fostered the myth that it’s the only type of government that those countries can produce,” Akyol told Reuters. “The current uprisings are showing that this is wrong.”
With news of the Middle East dominated by suicide bombers, violence and despotic leaders, Akyol worries that it’s easy to get the wrong idea about his religion. In his book, he argues that Islam has a rich history of supporting freedom and tolerance. Harkening back to a time when Muslims were more open than European Christians, he highlights many examples of progressive thought from Islamic history.
Recounting a record of religious tolerance under Muslim rule, Akyol traces this tradition to the time of the Prophet. In 7th century Medina, for instance, Jews were allowed to openly practice their religion with the protection of their Muslim rulers. People in Syria, Yemen and other countries who are campaigning for democracy today, can look to history for inspiration, Akyol said. He offers up the notion that the governmental ideas of one respected 10th century Muslim thinker, Al-Farabi, sound almost identical to modern democracy.
Read the full story by Andrea Burzynski here.
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As Turkey votes, concern this time focuses on democracy, not theocracy
The last time Turks voted in a general election in 2007, opponents feared the socially conservative ruling party was turning Turkey into an Iran-style Islamic state. With voters on Sunday expected to keep Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party in office for a third straight term, critics and some analysts now worry about that less but fear that the future course of democracy may be at stake.
A rising power with a vibrant, free economy and a U.S. ally that aspires to join the European Union, Turkey is held up as an example of marrying Islam and democracy and has been an oasis of stability in a region convulsed by “Arab Spring” uprisings. AK has also overseen the most stable and prosperous period of Turkey’s history with market-friendly reforms, and begun membership talks with the EU while opening new markets in Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
But Erdogan, whose party controls the government and parliament and who last year won a referendum to overhaul the judiciary, says if he wins by a big enough margin this time and achieves a “super majority,” he will rewrite Turkey’s constitution.
Many fear such a move will polarize society and distract the government from pursuing the needed structural reforms in the economy.
Scaremongering suggesting the AK has some hidden Islamist agenda is gaining less traction these days. “If we did have a hidden agenda this would be the best kept secret on earth because people have seen us in action for the past nine years,” Egemen Bagis, Turkey’s minister for European affairs, told Reuters at a marina built for the new rich on the outskirts of Istanbul.
Read the full story by Simon Cameron-Moore and Ibon Villelabeitia here.
For more background, take a look at a few other items from Reuters and other sources:
Harun Yahya’s Muslim creationists tour France denouncing Darwin
France’s staunchly secularist educational establishment was shocked four years ago when schools around the country suddenly began receiving free copies of a richly illustrated Muslim creationist book entitled the “Atlas of Creation.” The book by Istanbul preacher and publisher Harun Yahya had come out in Turkey the year earlier. After the French Education Ministry warned teachers not to use it and held a seminar on how to deal with creationist pupils, the issue dropped out of the public discussion. But the Harun Yahya group has been spreading its view in France and is now holding a series of conferences on them. Here is my feature after visiting one of the first meetings in the current series:
AUBERVILLIERS, France (Reuters) – Four years after they first frightened France, Muslim creationists are back touring the country preaching against evolution and claiming the Koran predicted many modern scientific discoveries.
Followers of Harun Yahya, a well-financed Turkish publisher of popular Islamic books, held four conferences at Muslim centers in the Paris area at the weekend with more scheduled in six other cities.
At a Muslim junior high school in this north Paris suburb, about 100 pupils — boys seated on the right, girls on the left — listened as two Turks from Harun Yahya’s headquarters in Istanbul denounced evolution as a theory Muslims should shun.
“We didn’t descend from the apes,” lecturer Ali Sadun told the giggling youngsters. Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution, he said, was “the scientific basis to defend atheism.”
Harun Yahya, one of the most prolific publishers in the Muslim world, gave proudly secularist France a scare in January 2007 by mass-mailing thousands of free copies of his “Atlas of Creation” to schools and libraries across the country.
The Education Ministry quickly ordered headmasters to seize and hide copies of the large format book that, over 768 pages of glossy photographs and easy-to-read text, argues that all living things were created by God exactly as they are formed today.
Turkish PM raps France for face veil ban, militants online urge punishment for Paris
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan accused France of violating the freedom of religion on Wednesday after Paris began enforcing a law barring Muslim women from wearing full face veils in public. He told the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe that Turkey was the only Muslim country that had copied the French law on secularism, or separating church and state.
“It’s quite ironic to see that secularism is today under debate in Europe and is undermining certain freedoms,” he said. “Today in France, there is no respect for individual religious freedom,” he said. The Strasbourg-based Council of Europe monitors human rights across the continent. Read the full story here.
Meanwhile, the face veil ban has triggered calls on militant online forums for armed retaliation against the country, a U.S.-based terrorism monitoring service said on Wednesday. Some contributors to the messages seen on the password-protected, invitation-only militant chatrooms this week called on al Qaeda’s North Africa arm to “deter” France by staging armed attacks, the SITE service said.
The anonymous threats, presented by the sites as comments by individuals, carry none of the weight of published audio or video statements by Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda or similar established armed groups seeking to attack Western targets. But Western security officials are concerned that sermons, discussions and videos published on online forums and social networking sites are increasingly used by militants to encourage sympathisers to attempt attacks.
“Sarkozy, leave our sisters alone or we will truly be obligated to act on our words,” wrote one participant with the online identity of “Jabeen of Abdullah Azzam”, writing on the Arabic-language Shumukh al-Islam forum, SITE reported. “Declare a war against crusader France!” wrote “al-katebat al-khdra” (the green battalion) on Shumukh al-Islam. “France with such action brought destruction and woes on itself.”
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Istanbul celebrates carnival after nearly 70 years
Istanbul’s tiny Greek community has revived an all-but-extinct tradition by celebrating Bakla Horani, an evening of carousing at the end of carnival ahead of Lent. About 300 masked, painted and costumed revelers paraded on Monday through the streets of Istanbul’s Kurtulus district, known as Tatavla when it was home to Greeks decades ago.
The procession ended at a local hall where musicians performed rembetiko and cranked a laterna, a Greek mechanical piano. Partiers were served raki, the aniseed-flavoured spirit, and meze that featured beans. (Bakla Horani roughly translates as “eating beans,” referring to the austere Lenten diet that looms.)
For 500 years, Bakla Horani was celebrated in Istanbul, now a mainly Muslim city, and pre-Lenten street parties would run for weeks ahead of the 40-day period of self-denial Christians observe ahead of Easter. Lent began today, Ash Wednesday.
Though never on the scale of the Bacchanalian parties of Mardi Gras in New Orleans or Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, Bakla Horani was a colourful feature of Christian life in Istanbul until its last commemoration in 1941. After that, Greeks, along with the city’s other non-Muslim residents, faced social and financial discrimination that made it all but impossible for them to stage such a splashy event.
A small group gathered to mark the holiday last year. This year, the municipality asked members of the community to organise a full-scale event, promising to provide security for the procession, said Dimitri Zotos, head of the Ayios Dimitrios foundation, which hosted Bakla Horani.
“Bringing this tradition back to life after 70 years helps keep our community alive,” said Zotos. “This is proof that we are here, that we still exist.”
Such a prominent public event by Greeks is a rare sight in Istanbul, a mostly Muslim city of some 17 million people that is home to fewer than 3,000 ethnic Greeks, most of whom are over the age of 55. About 60,000 Armenians and 20,000 Jews also live in Istanbul.
Masses mourn at funeral of Turkish Islamist leader Erbakan
Turks, including the country’s political leaders, paid their respects on Tuesday to former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, the founder of the country’s modern Islamist movement, who died on Sunday. Sombre music poured from loudspeakers outside Istanbul’s 15th Century Fatih Mosque and street vendors sold scarves emblazoned with the message “Mujahid Erbakan”, celebrating the Erbakan as a holy warrior, as mourners chanted “Allahu Akbar”, or “God is Great”.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul, proteges of Erbakan, joined other leaders for prayers in front of the coffin, laid out in the mosque’s courtyard and draped in green cloth adorned with Koranic verses. The streets, rooftops and balconies of houses surrounding the mosque were crammed with men wearing skull caps, and women, either veiled or wearing head scarves — marks of respect. Some mourners carried Palestinian flags.
Mourners in the immediate vicinity of the mosque were in tens of thousands, though some media estimated the throng in hundreds of thousands.
“Erbakan was a genius,” said 17-year-old student Talha Celik, as he tied a green ribbon with a Koranic inscription round his head. “Though they had their differences, Erdogan followed in his path.” Erbakan, who died of heart failure in an Ankara hospital aged 85, pioneered Islamist politics in Muslim but strictly secular Turkey and paved the way for the subsequent success of Erdogan’s ruling conservative AK Party.
Erdogan’s party, embracing pro-market policies and reforms designed to secure European Union membership, has gone on to dominate Turkish politics for the last decade, whereas Erbakan’s party, staying close to his Islamist roots, had limited support. Erbakan reached the pinnacle of his success in 1996 when he became the first Islamist prime minister in Turkey’s modern history at the helm of a coalition government after his party won 1995 elections.
Erdogan urges Turks in Germany to integrate, not assimilate
Turkish immigrants in Germany should integrate into society but not assimilate to the point where they abandon their native culture, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on a visit to Germany on Sunday. Speaking to some 10,000 members of Germany’s large Turkish community in the wake of last year’s heated debate over the place of foreigners in the country, Erdogan took up the theme of integration amid what he sees as persistent European xenophobia.
“You must integrate, but I am against assimilation … no one may ignore the rights of minorities,” he said, adding that individuals should have the right to practice their own faith.
On Saturday, Erdogan threw an even sharper barb at German immigration policy, telling the Rheinische Post newspaper that forced integration requiring immigrants to suppress their culture and language was an affront to international law.
Immigration leapt to the forefront of political debate last year after central banker Thilo Sarrazin published a bestselling book that argued German culture was at risk from Muslims, who he said were a drain on state coffers. The debate left raw nerves on both sides as German politicians initially closed ranks to condemn Sarrazin’s theories, but later shifted tones rightwards as polls showed he enjoyed widespread support. Sarrazin later stepped down.
Erdogan’s newspaper comments were published alongside those of a senior German politician who complained of discrimination against Christians in Turkey. Conservative parliamentary floor leader Volker Kauder told the same paper that lands of a Christian monastery in Turkey known as Mor Gabriel were being expropriated, which he said showed that the Muslim country lacked religious freedom.
“I urge the EU to not open any more negotiation chapters with Turkey as long as Turkey does not guarantee full freedom of religion,” Kauder said.
Erdogan’s speech on Sunday comes ahead of a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel scheduled for Monday, where Turkey’s bid to join the European Union waslikely to come up. Turkish leaders have sounded increasingly impatient with lack of progress in entry talks that began in 2005, though they insist membership remains their top foreign policy goal. In his newspaper interview, Erdogan again derided what he described as European foot-dragging over the entry talks, saying he expected more German support for Turkey’s bid.
Suleiman the Magnificent TV drama opens Turkish divide on religion
A steamy television period drama about a 16th century sultan has angered conservative Muslims in Turkey and sparked a debate over the portrayal of the past in a country rediscovering its Ottoman heritage.
“The Magnificent Century” chronicles the life of Suleiman the Magnificent, who ruled the Ottoman Empire in its golden age. Scenes which have particularly offended show a young and lusty sultan cavorting in the harem and drinking goblets of wine, pursuits frowned upon by the Muslim faithful for whom the sultan had religious as well as temporal authority.
Producers of the series, which has drawn huge audiences and boosted sales of history books on the period, said they wove in imagined elements to the love story between Suleiman and his favorite slave concubine, and later wife, Hurrem, with the aim of presenting the characters as more human. But for many pious Turks, including Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, who leads a government with its roots in political Islam, the series is an insult to the nation’s forebears.
That is not something he welcomes at a time when he is trying to revive Turkish influence in the old Ottoman domains across the Middle East. Tens of thousands of complaints have been filed with the national TV watchdog. Known as the “Lawgiver” among Turks, Suleiman is regarded as a sacred character, whose rule from 1520 to 1566 marked the height of the Ottoman military, political and economic power, when it stretched from Budapest to Mecca, Algiers to Baghdad.
Read the full story by Ece Toksabay and Ibon Villelabeitia here. Follow FaithWorld on Twitter at RTRFaithWorld
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Resident FaithWorld Expert
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It is now 2012 and the Turks finally discover the cultural value of the Soap Opera. To them it is like watching the TV series Star Trek for the very first time. When real life is so oppressive then a good dose of Soap Opera should sedate the ignorant masses.
A very enlightened society, indeed.