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Turkish
Clerics Weigh in on Father-Daughter Lust
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Originally published under the title "Turkey: Is It
Religiously All Right to Lust for My Daughter?"
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Turkey's
top Muslim cleric, Mehmet Gormez.
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Turkey has a government agency that regulates "religious
affairs" [read: Sunni Muslim Affairs]. It is run by the country's
top Muslim cleric and reports to the prime minister. The Directorate for
Religious Affairs, or Diyanet in Turkish, enjoys an annual budget bigger
than those of more than 10 other ministries combined – and its president,
a government-appointed cleric, enjoys a $400,000
chauffeur-driven car.
Among its duties is to issue "fatwas," or to tell Muslim
Turks what is religiously permissible and what is not. Its current
president, the top cleric, also enjoys making long, doctrinaire speeches.
Sometimes they sound reasonable, sometimes not.
When, a year ago, Islamist extremists in Paris were putting the final
touches on their gruesome plan to kill a dozen cartoonists and attack the
Charlie Hebdo magazine, Diyanet was busy issuing fatwas and
publishing a religious calendar for three million or so desks and walls
in offices and homes. Diyanet, at that time, also issued
a fatwa that urged Muslims who have tattoos to repent if unable to
erase them. Another fatwa in Diyanet's 2015 calendar said:
"Do not keep pet dogs at home ... Prophet Mohammed once said:
'Angels do not visit homes where there are dogs and paintings.'"
Turkey's Directorate for Religious
Affairs enjoys an annual budget bigger than those of more than 10 other
ministries combined.
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In those days of Parisian chaos -- even before the jihadists killed
over 130 people in November -- Diyanet's president and Turkey's top
cleric, Professor Mehmet Gormez "did not believe" jihadists
could kill innocent people. Speaking to a press conference in the
aftermath of the Paris attacks, Gormez
said that the use of Islamic symbols by the perpetrators of the
attack was a sign of "manipulation." In other words, Professor
Gormez was telling the world that someone else was carrying out the
attacks and putting the blame on Muslims.
Diyanet, generously funded by the Turkish taxpayer -- Sunni, non-Sunni
and non-Muslim -- hit the headlines recently with two fatwas that both
irked and amused secular people around the world, not just in Turkey.
In the first fatwa, Diyanet said that engaged couples should not hold
hands or spend time alone together during their engagement. The fatwa
read: "In this period, it is not inconvenient for couples to
meet and talk to get to know each other, if their privacy is considered.
However, there could be undesired incidents with or without their
families' knowledge ... such as flirting, cohabitating or being alone.
This encourages gossip and holding hands, not allowed in Islam."
Now think about that. The top clergyman in a NATO member and EU
candidate, Turkey, rules that: Flirting, cohabitating or being alone for
engaged couples are 'undesired incidents;' and Islam does not allow
gossiping and 'holding hands.'
That's fine. Every monotheistic clergy could be equally conservative –
one could presume. But the second fatwa of the week -- which Diyanet,
under fire now, denies -- caused a stir.
Diyanet's second fatwa, appeared briefly on the fatwa section of its
website (until it was deleted), in answer to readers' questions. An
anonymous user asked whether, from a religious perspective, a father
having sexual desire for his daughter should result in the cancellation
of his marriage.
The ulama [scholars] answered that, "There is a difference
of opinion on the matter among Islam's different schools of thought."
The fatwa read: "For some, a father kissing his daughter with lust
or caressing her with desire has no effect on the man's marriage."
The response continued by saying that in one Islamic school of
thought, Hanafi, the mother would be "forbidden" to such
a man. "Moreover," the fatwa went on, "The girl would be
over nine years of age."
Possibly too embarrassed by its own fatwa, Diyanet first deleted its ulama's
answer to the query and claimed that its answer was deliberately
"distorted" through "tricks, wiliness and wordplay"
aiming to discredit the institution. It then closed its
"queries" section and posted a warning saying the page in
question was "under repair."
As thousands of Turks decried Diyanet's scandalous fatwa and accused
the ulama of encouraging child abuse, a helping hand to Diyanet
came from Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag. In his twitter account, he
called the accusations a "character assassination" against the
religious body. The "assassins," according
to Bozdag, "were those miserably types who are annoyed by religion
and the pious."
Turkey, once a secular Muslim country and the world's only hope for
interfaith dialogue, has reached a point where the justice minister
defends a fatwa that says some Islamic schools of thought would NOT
command divorce if a father had lust for his own daughter [but if she is
over nine?]. Turkey also accuses those who protest such a thing as
lusting for one's daughter of hating religiosity. One can only wonder
what will be the next insanity.
Burak Bekdil is an Ankara-based
columnist for the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet Daily News and a fellow at the
Middle East Forum.
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