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0. Introduction 1. A Trip to Hell Muslim political writer, Edip Yuksel, is arrested again in 1987 by Turkish state security police, later forced into a sealed truck with other men like so many sardines in a can, and then blindly driven hundreds of miles across seemingly endless roads across Turkey from one prison to another. Yuksel reflects on his hours of desperation in that place of airless, motionless confinement, his terror and that of his fellows, and the ultimate sense of peace that overcame his fear and sustained him through this crisis, rooted in his steadfast refusal to recant his views as the price of freedom. The upbringing of Yuksel from his birth in 1957 as one of seven children of a Muslim cleric father and a mother of Kurdish ethnicity. Life in an Islamic household. Yuksel’s strict and rigorous religious and secular education at his father’s right hand, and his grooming for a life in the Muslim clergy. 3. A Dissident is Born: "Come Closer If You Dare!" Yuksel’s first steps and development into a fundamentalist Islamist student radical… The nature of his political and religious dissonance in the context of the then-current climate in Turkey... His association and bonding with fellow youthful dissidents. His ascension as a student leader, writer, and charismatic speaker at great public rallies in open, defiant conflict with his nation’s authoritarian socio-political establishment... The profound detrimental effects of these activities on his education, future career opportunities and decision-making, and social standing within the society… 4. Recruited by the Ayatollah The political courting in the late 1970’s of Yuksel by Iranian Islamic fundamentalists, who sought to enlist him as their agent in Turkey to be a leader of the same revolutionary movement then sweeping over Iran. The near seduction of the youthful Yuksel through the flattery and promise of future prestige possibly gained through his accession to their advances. What ultimately led Yuksel to a secret trip to Tehran for personal audience with the leader of Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guards) and leading Ayatullahs, including Ayatollah Khamenei. Yuksel was disappointed when he learned that his preferred method for bringing about an Islamic revolution in his country was radically different than his Iranian comrades. Yuksel had expected Iran to help his organization in establishing a radio and TV station inside the border of Iran to promote a non-violent Islamic revolution in Turkey; but Iranian leaders offered guerilla training and they expected intelligence on Turkish and NATO military basis in turn. 5. A Student Radical’s Own "Days of Rage" In late the 1970s, after the Iranian revolution, Yuksel’s father became more radical. His father was in favor of a revolution that would bring a theocracy into power. He urged a revolution envisioned by the Egyptian founder of Ikhwan-i Muslimin (Muslim Brotherhood) Hasan el Benna, Seyyid Qutub, Abul A'la el Mawdudi, Saed Hawwa, and more recently by Blind Sheik Abdurrahman and Osama Bin Laden. Yuksel’s experiences in the expansion of political violence among the Muslim student intelligentsia in Turkey and his explanation of the reasons for its growth… Rioting in the streets of Istanbul. Yuksel recounts his first-hand experiences with the Turkish government’s repression of protesters, including the tear-gassing, beating, and torture by police, and the profundity of its effect on the country and him, personally. After his brother's assassination by the racist Turkish gray wolves, Yuksel plunged into political activism and lead the Raiders organization promoting a religious revolution. Establishes relationship with Muslim Brotherhood and other underground radical Muslim organizations. He is detained numerous times, and once he was forced to share the same prison with the murderers of his brother. Soon after Afghanistan’s invasion by Russians, he attempts to occupy Istanbul's airport and the demand for planes for three hundred radical Muslims volunteering to go to Afghanistan to help in their jihad against infidal invaders. Yuksel meets and supports Gulbeddin Hikmetyar, the leader of Hizb-i Islami who later became notorious for his destruction of Kabul and the brutal killing of thousands of Afghanis from other tribes. Yuksel had zeal, charisma, courage and plenty of stupidity. He was going
to make a revolution in his country. Enough was enough for the rule of
a secular, oppressive government and its ally the Great Stan, U.S.A. He
and his comrades were going to have an Islamic government that would bring
economic and political justice, freedom and peace.
"Shah, Butto, Hoveyda; which infidel is next to die?"6. Arrest Yuksel’s arrest on the night of the September 12, 1980 military coup in Turkey for alleged sedition against the Turkish state, with a full account of the physical and mental price exacted upon him by its state security police, including his lengthy incarceration before trial and repeated instances of torture upon him by his captors. 7. The Dissident: Words on Trial Yuksel’s 1981 trial in a Turkish military court for his authorship and
publication of two articles deemed seditious. Tried without advance knowledge
of the charges against him, and without meaningful legal counsel or an
opportunity to personally prepare his defense, Yuksel is subjected to a
brief trial before a military prosecutor and panel of military judges.
Given less than half an hour to extemporaneously defend himself against
the crimes for which he was accused, and unsure of what sentence he might
receive if convicted, Yuksel’s defiant, but respectful final words to the
court remained true to the beliefs that made him a radical political leader
in Turkey and representative of free people everywhere in the world:
"The Athenian authorities were wrong when they sentenced Socrates to death. The Inquisitors were wrong when they condemned Galileo Galilei. You are similarly wrong for subjecting me to torture and prison merely because of my religious beliefs and political opinions. You have two choices: either sentence me to prison or resign from your jobs!"Then, Yuksel was not aware of the irony in his speech. The theocratic system to which he was aspiring to was in reality full of repressive teachings, relics of medieval ages past. These would turn the earth into a graveyard for any free-thinker, subjecting them to severe punishment as infidels or apostates. Yuksel did not know than he would not have a chance for free expression of in the system of his dreams. Indeed, the government of his dreams would be even worse than the government he was now fighting. He would learn this only after witnessing the disappointing transformation of his heroes in Iran and Afghanistan. Upon gaining power, the freedom-fighting Iranian mullahs would devolve into tyrannical parasites, and Afghan’s liberators mujahids, be transformed into advocates of pain and ignorance. 8. The Prisoner Convicted of the charges against him arising from his heartfelt expressions of religious and political belief that would have drawn little if any reproach in the Western world, Yuksel is sentenced to and suffers his first lengthy period of incarceration ? nearly four years in Turkish penitentiaries. Recounting a story stunningly similar to that of Billy Hayes in "Midnight Express", he describes a world where he was routinely beaten and mentally abused, deprived of sunlight and medical care, fed adulterated food, restricted most of his individual pursuits, forced to undergo political indoctrination, solitarily confined amongst filth and vermin, and, worst of all, made the target of fellow prisoners who sought to murder him for his reputed status as a radical political leader, and made several attempts on his life. In particular, Yuksel describes one assassination attempt against him wherein his friend and fellow prisoner was attacked by a hired inmate killer and stabbed in the mistaken belief that he was, in fact, Yuksel. 9. A Soldier’s Life Released from prison after serving nearly four years of a six-year sentence, Yuksel goes back to life as a radical political writer in Istanbul, publishing in Turkey three best-selling books of his political and religious thoughts within the first year of his return to freedom. After only a year, however, he was conscripted into the Turkish army under threat of further imprisonment and ultimately served eighteen months as an infantryman. Dubbed by suspicious commanding officers, "sakinjali piyadeh" ? meaning "dangerous foot soldier" (in reference to his history of radical political dissidence) ? Yuksel was constantly watched by other soldiers and segregated whenever possible from his fellow troops to ensure he would not infect them with his perceived radicalism. However, Yuksel has a surprise for his commanders. 10. A Radical’s Transformation While a soldier, Yuksel underwent what he terms his "transformation" as religious and political thinker, wherein he rejected many of his former views, particularly those he had previously drawn from fundamentalist Islam. In a period of maturation not unlike that of America’s Malcolm X, he recognized that what he had once fervently believed and promoted to his countrymen was profoundly incorrect. He now saw that traditional Islam bore little relationship to the original message of the Quran and merely reflected the imposition of medieval Arab culture by the religious establishment upon the masses as an implement of socio-political control. 11. Behind Bars Again While writing a sequel in 1986 to his earlier best-selling book, "Interesting Questions", Yuksel was unexpectedly arrested by Turkish state security police who took him from his office to jail, where he underwent a week of constant interrogation, including several sessions of torture. This was followed by his transfer several hundred miles away to prison from Istanbul to Ankara. Imprisoned with several of his political rivals and at least one serial killer, Yuksel describes the delicate art of survival in that torturous environment. (Note: The earlier chapter, "A Trip to Hell", describes his 1987 transfer from incarceration in Ankara back to Istanbul for trial on charges of promoting establishment of a theocratic government. Ironically, Yuksel is no more an Islamist and cut his relationship with his organization. But the ghost of his previous religious and political position hunts him while he had already denounced them! The government is slow to learn Yuksel’s radical transformation). Following this nearly five-month period of imprisonment without conviction and the obvious punishment to him inherent in it, Yuksel was later acquitted at trial of the charges against him. 12. The Apostate Soon after his acquittal of the most recent charges against him, Yuksel published his sequel to "Interesting Questions", where he renounced his traditional religious and radical political views. This "burning of bridges" eventually led to his complete familial alienation by his father, a well-known Muslim cleric in Istanbul, who publicly pronounced Yuksel as an "apostate" -- a branding heavily published in the Turkish religious and secular press. Following his public denunciation, Yuksel’s books were removed throughout Turkey from bookstores and burned by Muslim fundamentalists, who often threatened stores and publishers who resisted such efforts with violence to accomplish their objective. Moreover, Yuksel was repeatedly threatened with violence and, ultimately, physically assaulted on several occasions by his more rabid detractors on the streets of Istanbul. Within a week after this 1989 campaign against him began, Yuksel was driven into hiding and then left everything ? including friends, family, business contacts, and even cherished personal belongings ? to escape to the West. 13. A muslim expatriate in America With little more than a plane ticket, the clothes on his back and a few hundred dollars in his pocket, Yuksel traveled to Tucson, Arizona, where he was heartily welcomed by his spiritual mentor, Dr. Rashad Khalifa. A retired scientist, Khalifa was himself a controversial figure who had been instrumental in Yuksel’s political and religious conversion, which had begun during his stint years during his mandatory military service. Twelve years ago, when Yuksel escaped to America from Turkey to save his life, he thought he knew America. In his teenager years, America was the land of his favorite comic book heroes, such as, Texas, Tom Mix, Captain Swing, and Red Kit. Yuksel was always on the side of white cowboys, hunters, and rangers who were fighting against bad guys, such as barbaric Indians crying "Voah!"s or lazy Mexicans or stupid British soldiers with funny uniforms. Then, when Yuksel became a political activist promoting an Iranian-like revolution, America was transformed into the "Great Satan," the evil imperialist power that exploited the resources of Muslim countries through puppet regimes. Yuksel’s account of his first encounters with American culture is wildly humorous and childlike in character, and indeed ironic, given his prior vitriolic hatred of America while an Islamic fundamentalist leader earlier in his life. In sum, says Yuksel, "I once shouted ‘Yankee. Go home!’ Now I am in the14. The American Janus Yuksel discusses his later impressions of the United States in the context of Janus, the two-faced Greek god. For example, he sees America as both the land of liberty and the burgeoning prison industry; as a place of stunning prosperity and abject poverty; as the base of the world’s "peace force" and also of a global war machine; as a sort of heaven meets hell. 15. The Assassination of A Mentor In January, 1990, Yuksel’s close friend and mentor, Dr. Rashad Khalifa, was murdered by associates of Usama Bin Laden (this, according to a very recent report by Dan Rather on the CBS Evening News on October 26, 2001 and also the cover story of Newsweek, January 14, 2002, p. 44). Khalifa, an Egyptian-American who became a popular author in the Muslim world and later dared to criticize the religious orthodoxy of fundamentalist Muslim clerics; promoted a radical reformation in Islam characterized by its rejection of all sectarian teachings other than the Quran. As previously stated, this formed the philosophical and religious basis of Yuksel’s "conversion" that ultimately required him to leave Turkey. In referring to the Quranic verses, Dr. Khalifa argued that modern Islam has essentially abandoned Muhammad's original message to Muslims, and is instead, a cult concocted by scholars using fabricated narration and medieval Arab culture, and falsely attributing them to Prophet Muhammad. Said Khalifa, through the incorporation of their opinions with those medieval fabrications, Muslim scholars have formed various orthodox sects promoting oppressive laws, misogyny, hatred, violent aggression, and terrorism as a means of social imposition. In February 19, 1989, a group of scholars convened in Saudi Arabia to discuss the issue of Salman Rushdie. Their resultant fatwa (religious decree) calling for Rushdie’s assassination became headline news in Muslim countries, including Yuksel’s homeland Turkey, as well as in the West. In fact, their fatwa was not confined to Rushdie, but stated that: "both Rashad and Rushdie are apostates." Although the world widely came to know of Rushdie as the result of his book, "the Satanic Verses," Rashad was far less known, but no less the target of fundamentalist Islamic enmity. Yuksel, spending about 12 hours a day in Khalifa’s Tucson Mosque where he worked on the translation of the Quran and participated in activities, had been with Khalifa the night before his murder by stabbing. On the day of the killing, Yuksel arrived at the mosque just two hours after Khalifa’s murder there, and describes events in great detail. It can indeed be reasonably said that, as he had done several times before in his native land, Yuksel had ? in a place Americans would think to be far removed from the bitter conflicts within Islam ? again barely escaped losing his life over his beliefs. 15. The Law Student A bizarre twist in Yuksel’s life... He loves law school. He loves his professors. Yuksel discusses his entrance into and experiences at the University of Arizona College of Law, and the value of the American legal education he attained in 1998. Among his accomplishments there was his development of a far stronger degree of English proficiency (note: Yuksel is educated to read, write, and speak Turkish, Arabic, Farsi, English, and speaks Kurdish). He recounts his passionate classroom debate with Chief Justice William Rehnquist of the Supreme Court of the United States (who taught a summer school course at the College of Law) regarding the "fighting words" exception to the First Amendment right of free speech, and compares, with a suitable twist of irony, that experience to that which he underwent earlier in life before a Turkish military court before his sentencing to prison. Yuksel yearns for the day that his fellow Muslims can enjoy the freedom he did in intellectual debate with America’s senior jurist. 16. Return to Turkey: Hit and Run, and Paternal Interrogation In 1996, Yuksel ? still an American law student ? summoned the courage to return to Istanbul, leaving his Persian-American wife and two small sons in Tucson, to make the journey home. Having written three manuscripts in the United States while living there (and becoming a naturalized American citizen in 1993), he was drawn to return there given his recognition that the Turkish political and religious culture had become significantly more moderate and stable since his flight from there eight years before. Upon his return to Turkey ? which he made despite his great trepidation on the part of his family in Tucson -- Yuksel was surprised to find himself welcomed by journalists, particularly one daring television talk-show host. Although he remained well-hidden by certain supporters during the four weeks he was in Istanbul and Ankara, given the real fear that some government or Muslim fundamentalist enemy might unexpectedly seek to settle an old score by attempting to harm or embarrass him, he was the subject of a five-hour live television interview that caused a nationwide sensation, as well as was the subject of numerous favorable newspaper and magazine stories and some negative accounts in the Islamic religious community. One facet of his return was his visit to his family after seven years of silence between them. The return is poignantly described in the following draft excerpt by Yuksel: When I arrived at my family’s home, I entered to find my father at his desk in the living room, where he was huddled over a great Arabic religious book, one which I particularly believed to be a prime cause of backward thinking and great dissonance in Muslim countries. My father was then 77 years old and his eyes were failing. Seeing him so aged and afflicted filled my heart with pain. It was important to me that I see my father and try to re-establish my relationship with him the best that I could. To me, my father was a brave man, my hero, even though it had been his severe public denunciation of me as a heretic ten years before that had accelerated the process of my political excommunication in Turkey and ultimately jeopardized my freedom and my life. His first published criticism of my book had been unforgiving, yet I knew deep inside that he loved me. In my published response to that rebuke of me, though I had strongly and, I feel, conclusively rebutted it, I never lost, or failed to show respect for him. However, there I stood, apprehensive of what was to come. In my father’s eyes, I had become a stranger, a betraying son, an infidel ? an American. Though I could not allow myself to accept any attempt by him to impose his religious beliefs on me, I understood the reasons for his feelings, which oddly made me feel they had some validity. As much as I wanted to please him, I could not allay his disconcert with me, since our religious and political differences stood between us like glass Himalayas. 17. Yes, I am a Kurd In 1998, Yuksel, who is of Kurdish extraction, authored a law review article that was published in the Journal of International Law & Practice of the Detroit College of Law at Michigan State University. This significant piece discusses the plight of the Kurdish population, which resides principally in Southeastern Turkey, Northern Iraq, and Western Iran. The Kurds are, to put it bluntly, a disfavored people, who have been oppressed for centuries and have little political power. Most recently, America publicized the Kurdish uprising in Iraq following the end of the Persian Gulf War, a revolt that was violently suppressed by the regime of Saddam Hussein. Yuksel’s views in that article are profound, particularly given the fact that Turkey has, through its constitution, outlawed the recognition of Kurds and has prohibited the speaking by its population of the Kurdish language. It can be reasonably said that the fine reputation enjoyed by Yuksel at the University of Arizona College of Law is principally related to not only his status as a Turkish dissident who has suffered greatly for his bravery through free expression, but in his passionate advocacy for the Kurds throughout the world. In another published article Yuksel dealt with the paradox of banning religious parties under the pretext of protecting democracy. "Cannibal Democracies …" received the attention of a diverse group of academics. Yuksel’s paper became the topic of a symposium held in March 1999 at Cardozo Law School. 18. Observations since September 11, 2001 Since his return to Turkey in 1996, Yuksel has enjoyed a resurrection in its media as a leading intellectual living abroad. He is frequently the subject of Turkish newspaper and magazine stories. He has published several books there since. As the founder 19.org, Yuksel maintains contact with a network of persons there who gather information for him so that he may keep abreast of the latest developments there and in the Islamic world at large. He has a significant viewpoint of the current crisis in the Middle East. His views have begun to gain media attention in the United States, having most recently been interviewed by the Phoenix, Arizona CBS television news affiliate and by The Dallas Morning News. 19. The Message As a muslim who was a leading member of the international network of anti-American radical Islam, a muslim who continuously receives death threats from Muslim fanatics, a muslim who lost his closest friend to the knives of Usama bin Laden's terrorists, a muslim who has dedicated himself to the promotion of human rights, freedom of expression, democracy and reformation in Islam, Yuksel invites Muslims to reform themselves under the light of the Quran alone. We should seek peace and justice for all. We should attain individual freedom by submitting ourselves to God's laws in nature and His scripture. We should use our reason, rather than submitting to superstition. We should reject the teachings of clergymen, which have doomed us to the darkness of ignorance and to the backwardness of medieval culture. Yuksel argues that the ramifications of following the Quran alone cannot be exaggerated. It provides a paradigm shift regarding the role of women, freedom of speech, democracy, position against science and technology, criminal system, international terrorism, and peace with other nations. (Yuksel has discussed some of these issues briefly in his first English book, "19 Questions For Muslim Scholars.") As an American citizen, Yuksel also invites American people to be more sensitive towards the foreign policy of their government. The myopic American foreign policy, which primarily serves the interests of corporations, such as the weapon and oil industries, has inadvertently helped the cause of religious terrorists. Militant clerics, whether they are collaborators with totalitarian regimes or are dissidents, should be taken seriously. Using the language of religion and the proverbs of their forefathers, they can mobilize gullible masses, perpetrating bloody conflicts. The best way to deflate the power of militant clergymen is (1) to support intellectuals who promote democracy and freedom, and (2) to denounce and punish the oppressive leaders, without favoring one over another, through international legal devices, such as freezing their assets in foreign countries and trying them in international tribunals. 20. The Action In the last chapter, Yuksel provides a series of social, political and
religious actions required towards reformation in Islam. Yuksel predicts
that the authoritarian regimes ruling the lands of Muslims will soon lose
their power and a dramatic social and political change will sweep their
countries. Yuksel urges West not to ally with those repressive and oppressive
rulers, the soon-to-be dinosaurs. There will be a historic battle, says
Yuksel, between those muslims who yearn for freedom, democracy, peace and
progress and those Muslims who dream of returning to the barbaric days
of medieval ages. The oppressive rulers, however, might conveniently label
reformers too as "terrorists".
Let's start from my first English poem, Smile to the Child in You:
Shunning mature eyebrows nearby,Despots may fervently fight to silence them, clergymen may consider aborting them a sacred duty, and their followers may wish to ignore or banish them from land. Yet, the children in us have decided to meet each other! They may join together for adventures beyond this book! To set all the silenced and banished children of the world free!
My mother, Sara, was the daughter of a popular Sufi leader, Sheik Masum Mutlu, which when translated means Honorable Innocent Happy. Sheik Masum raised and educated my father, who was a young orphan boy from a nearby town. My grandfather ran a madrasa--an underground religious school--which educated and trained mullahs at a time when the Turkish government had banned religious schools, hoping to eradicate the influence of Ottoman culture. The school's curriculum emphasized the study of advanced Arabic grammar, Sunni jurisprudence, analysis of hadiths (sayings falsely attributed to Muhammad), Greek philosophy (especially that of Aristotle), logic, and archaic astronomy. The textbooks were all written in Arabic, and the teaching language was Kurdish, a language officially banned by the Turkish Constitution and Criminal law. Since his childhood my father was a bookworm. He would read books day and night. I still remember a story he told us while I was in middle school. In summers, my mother's extended family would move to the mountains to enjoy a cooler climate, taking their servants, students, and animals with them. One summer night, my grandfather's students ran out of candles and fuel for their kerosene lamps. But this did not faze my father, for he one or two days before the next wagonload of supplies arrived, collected dozens of fireflies and put them in a glass jar, which he then used as a lamp by which to read. In recognition of my father's extraordinary intellectual success during his seven years of education, the Sheik asked my father to marry his daughter, Sara. This offer was unusual, unheard of, which was immediately protested by my mother's brothers (uncles) and noble religious leaders in surrounding towns. In those times, only a noble could marry a noble, like my mother, whose family enjoyed high prestige, vast lands, wealth, and religious and political power. My father's family was considered by the protesters to be ignorant, poor and sinful. But this did not deter my grandfather and despite of this widespread disapproval, my mother and my father were married. When the villagers would meet or visit any member from my mother's family, they would bow and kiss the later's hands and occassionally their feet as a sign of respect. Those villagers who visited our guest house or the shrine of my great-grandfather would even kiss my hands. I still remember old people kissing my hands when I was only seven or eight years old. As the grandson of Sheik Masum, I was holy from birth! As the daughter of a great Sheik, my mother had inherited nobility too. She was raised in a Shafii-Sunni religious family who were the leaders of a prominent local Sufi order, and therefore was required to wear a veil from head to toe. My uncles and their cousins had been elected to the Turkish National Congress ever since I remember. Their exploitation of the popular religion for economic and political ends meant that my mother and other female relatives were doomed to live behind walls or beneath veils all their lives. They were barred from communicating with males other than the family members, and were not taught to read or write their language. They could talk to male servants behind the doors or curtains. Ironically, they were allowed to read the Quran, however, without understanding it, since the language of the Quran is Arabic. They could not go outside by themselves, and could not go out at all without permission. In fact, on their own, they were unable to ride horses and find their way! Although they were innocent of any crime, they were prisoners in their own homes and were watched and guarded constantly. Through religious indoctrination they had accepted this life as the only option. My mother's family was living in adobe-style building complexes made of red block stones in a secured and isolated section of the town. The female nobles could only move inside this extended family compound and the adjacent wash. If they had to go to the hospital, one of the few times they were permitted to leave the house, they were expected to cover themselves completely, including their faces. This dress code, I admit, was and is very rare in Turkey. Kurds follow the Shafii faction of Sunni sect while Turks follow the Hanefiy faction. However, it is often enforced by law or by powerful family members in the so-called Islamic countries, such as Iran, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. My father, by then a prominent religious scholar, accepted the noble Sara as his wife. During the marriage he never physically abused my mother. And though he occasionally yelled and screamed at her in anger, he never used insults, except the word "ignorant," which was a statement of fact. A fact that was created by the religious men whom my father followed and admired! Unable to contribute intellectually, some uneducated women nonetheless were active in the important business of managing their families. I never saw my father, however, consulting my mother in issues involving family. He did not allow her to have her own identity. My mother was like a concubine, or furniture that belonged to my father. Getting tired of my uncles, my father moved the family from the compound in Norshin, Bitlis, to a smaller home in Istanbul. Now, in addition to being imprisoned, my mother was lonely and would get frustrated and bored in home. She had no servants who used to do all the house work. She had no one to talk to and nowhere to go. Because she was illiterate, she was deprived of the joy and satisfaction of reading books or newspapers. Now, fifteen hundred miles away from her family, in a strange place where no one spoke her native Kurdish, her captivity became almost unbearable. In the early years in Istanbul, she began to complain. She wanted to return to her town, to the bigger family prison! My father's response was only the threat of divorce. Knowing the shame and difficulty of being divorced, she would cry quietly. She would curse her brothers for leaving her alone in Istanbul. They were no help. They were not much different than my father. Because she was protected and maintained, they expected from her silent gratitude. I was a teenager when we moved to Istanbul. But, I still remember our fear of divorce and family disintegration each time I heard my father threatening my mother. I still remember the insecurity and dread I felt when I thought that my father would just utter the magic word "Talaq" (Divorce) three times, thereby divorcing my poor mother forever and tearing us from her custody with no recourse. Witnessing how my mother was treated like a slave, like an animal with no rights, all in the name of Islam, has made me a passionate advocate of women's rights. I cannot accept any woman on this planet being deprived of her dignity and rights the way my mother was. No, my mother was not beaten; but she was stripped off her God-given
human rights, from her identity, from her freedom! My father was also the
victim of his own religion: he was deprived of the company and companionship
of an equal partner. The medieval Arab culture, which was further distorted
and sanctified by an all-male clergy, has been introduced to people
as religion for centuries. Following the instruction of this religion creates
just the contrary of what the Quran expects from marriage:
Among His signs is that He created for you spouses from among yourselves, in order to have tranquility and contentment with each other. He places in your hearts love and care towards each other. In this, there are signs for people who think. (The Quran 30:21). Born in 1919, my father is now sick and old, and his memory and brain activity is in sharp decline. My mother, who is 13 years younger than him, is inflicted with multiple diseases, such as diabetes. I hear now that my mother is the only person my father talks to. He has no more zealous followers who would crowd our living room seven days a week to ask him religious fatwas and receive his advice and instructions. He never considered my mother worthy of education. He never shared with her his "religious" or "political" causes. She was not worthy of intellectual communication! Now, she is his only company. The poor women in the village, who would kiss my mother's "holy" hands, adored her high position. But, as her son, I know better; she was not, by any means, in a position of admiration. Her pale face rarely saw the sunlight. She was buried alive. She could not claim her identity because it was taken from her while she was still a child. Her noble roots and powerful family were no help. Ironically, she was forced to accept this grave as a privilege, all in the name of power and greed. She was the symbolic sacrifice, like her mother and sisters. Those who think that Muslim women are happy with their condition should not forget that American slave owners used the same argument. Slaves, too, seemed to be happy with their beds and meals in exchange for their long hours of work in the cotton fields. But death came to slaves who dared to demand their rights and there was nowhere for them to hide. Those who deprive girls of education and their identity cannot use the submission of their women as proof of the righteousness of their religious teachings! Women's "consent" cannot be a justification to bury them alive! Those who obtain obedience through fear cannot claim true authority, for they are only masters of a hellish illusion. Unfortunately, my mother was a dweller of such an illusion. My older sister became a nun, a Muslim version. My two younger sisters ran away to the neighbor boys when they were teenagers. As for me, I jumped over the Atlantic Ocean. From America, I call my mother once a while, and if I am lucky Nedim would not be there. Otherwise, he will hang up the phone on me. Years later, to my dismay an shock, I found out that I was not able to have a decent conversation with my mom on the phone. Sure, lacking the aid of facial expressions and gestures was a factor. But, there was another, and more important new one. As always, my mother mixed Kurdish and Turkish. Being in America for years, and acquiring English as my fifth language, somehow had a disruptive effect on my communication with my mother. When she starts talking in her unique language, which I call Kurturkish, it confuses the linguistic software of my brain and I start mixing Kurdish and Turkish with English. Since English is no different than Chinese to my mother, our conversation turns to a linguistic mine field. Trying to find the right word, I get frustrated and dizzy during my international phone calls. After reading several articles on the linguistic, social and political aspects of bilingualism during my college education in America, certain memories of my childhood revived with much more meaning. I had experienced most of the cases mentioned in those articles. However, before reading them I did not have a clear and systematic interpretation of my experiences. Now I know the reason my father suddenly forbade us to speak Kurdish after we moved to the city. Now I realize how oppressive was the government, and how it made me unable to communicate with my own mother. I was raised in a bilingual family. I spoke Kurdish until I was eight years old. At age nine, when we moved from a small eastern town to Istanbul, the biggest city in western Turkey, I was suddenly obliged to speak Turkish. Turkish was the only national language with high prestige. Indeed, it was the only prestigious language of my country. Kurdish, the language of approximately ten million minority, had much negative connotation. Speaking Kurdish was a declaration of ignorance and inferiority. Though at that age I was not fully aware of this racist attitude, yet, I was influenced. My father did not have enough ammunition to fight against that pressure. He could not protect our original self-esteem. He submitted fully, even in the privacy of his home. Fighting back, probably would be useless. The city with its mighty social, political and economical institutions was a ruthless mold reshaping every irregular individual thrown in. In order to resist that terrible molding machine you needed to be economically independent and heroically resistant. Unfortunately, my father was neither. We were molded. The communication language of our family changed dramatically. My father declared martial law against his own mother language, which he had spoken until his late forties. My mother did not know a single Turkish word when we were banned from speaking our mother language. It was not that difficult for my father. He had learned Turkish as his fourth language, while doing his military service. He had studied Arabic and Persian from religious schools. Being one of the top experts in Arabic language, he was invited to teach Arabic in the university. While he was trying very hard to polish his Turkish, we were struggling to communicate with our mother; sometimes sneaking in Kurdish. At retrospect, I see that our family was victimized by the ruling majority. As a result, I traded my Kurdish with Turkish. My father ended up teaching Arabic in Turkish with a heavy Kurdish accent. My poor mother started talking a new language, Kurturkish, a mishmash of Kurdish and Turkish. Nobody could understand her, except us. Now, exclusive with my mother, I use Kurturkenglish, which she understands little. Curiously, I started missing Kurdish, my mother tongue, the original
one. I hope, I will be able to recover it in its pure form. Alas, I am
not sure whether if my mother will be able to understand it.
He was comparatively open-minded, and his views on certain issues clashed with the popular cultural and religious traditions. For instance, after moving to Istanbul in late 1970's, he was the only prominent religious scholar who approved a translation of the Quran containing pictures. (Unfortunately, the artwork and pictures were very primitive). He even wrote an article defending the Illustrated Quran (Quran-i Musawwar) by interpreting certain sectarian traditions that consider drawings and photographs of living beings works of evil. He even objected to strict sectarian rules that forbade believers to pick and choose among the so-called Four True Sunni Sects; namely, Hanafy, Shafiiy, Hanbaly, and Maliky. He argued that if all four were on the right path, a person should be free to follow what they felt were the best religious rules for a particular situation. Though many scholars opposed his views, his sharp pen, mastery of Arabic grammar, deep knowledge of religious classics, and ability to construct powerful arguments for his position intimidated them. They usually stayed silent. People would consult my father on many religious issues. Among them were divorce cases. They were invariably men. According to Sunni sects, contrary to the teaching of the Quran, only men have the right to divorce, and divorcing one's wife is as easy as uttering three words. He could say "Talaq, talaq, talaq" (divorce, divorce, divorce) to his wife, or "I divorce you by three talaqs," or declare in public that he had divorced his wife 3 times, and she was divorced forever. Usually without hope of re-marrying again. He could marry her ex-wife only if he was married to and divorced from another woman. The Quran considers divorce a process that involves consultation of both families, which takes several months. According to the Quran, a husband cannot defy the time element and shoot three divorces by one kick. Furthermore, according to the Quran you cannot just divorce your wife by uttering magic words. But, Muslim scholars care little about the text of the Quran; they prefer to follow the volumes of "holy" Hadith and Jurisprudence books fabricated after Muhammad. Since the divorce was made so easy, it was a frequent problem and so was regretting afterwards. Some men, in an angry moment, would utter this magic word three times. When they cooled down, however, they would realize that with so many children, extended families, social and economic hurdles, it was impossible to get divorced. They had to go to a religious scholar to beg for a solution, if there was any. This made-by-clergy problem was in turn would help the clergy or religious scholars to reinforce their authority over people. This process would also bring them some income. Since my father was not loyal to one sect alone, and he would even go beyond and liberally utilize the teachings of ancient extinct Sunni sects, he had many more rules of jurisprudence to exploit. He was usually successful in finding an opinion, occasionally in a footnote of a respected book, which would justify a no-divorce verdict. In my teenage years, I was always in the guestroom listening to my father giving advice or answering questions. He would question the husband regarding his exact utterances, the number of repetition, and the degree of his anger, etc. He would usually find a loophole in either of these elements and give the good news: "You are never divorced, because. . .," or "You are not really divorced for three times. You are only divorced once. So, you need just to renew your marriage oath." Among his fatwas regarding divorce, I found a class of solution bizarre. If he could not find a solution for the problem in the framework of divorce, he would ask the man about his marriage ceremony: how it was conducted, by whom, with what terms, etc. Then, he would find some flaws in the marriage and would tell him: "Your marriage, in fact, was null all those years. In your sect, this or that term must be mentioned in the contract. Since your first marriage was not valid, your divorce is not valid either. You divorced someone to whom you were legally not married. Thus, next time bring your wife or his representative and two witnesses so that I marry both of you for the first time." Well, I would ask myself, my father's solution turned a lawful marriage to adultery and their legally acquired children to bastards. Shouldn't then they be punished for committing such a crime for so many years? My father's answer was a procedural or jurisdictional cop-out: "For criminal cases, the case will be decided according to another jurisprudence that would be most in favor of validation of their initial marriage!" In other words, playing the role of both lawyer and judge, he was dancing among volumes of contradictory rules and opinions. He was perhaps unaware that this liberal approach was compromising the integrity of Sharia and trivializing the rules of sectarian jurisprudence. In retrospect, I think my father had good reasons for using such a lax attitude regarding his divorce fatwas: Deep inside he knew that he was as smart and as knowledgeable as many scholars whose opinions have been considered as part of religion. Freezing religious opinions and limiting them to only generations of scholars who lived centuries ago was not fair and practical for his generation. He was averse to sectarian zeal that could condemn families to suffering due to reckless words of husbands. He was also enjoying the fame of "finding the law that other religious scholars could not find." As a byproduct of this public and selfish concern, he would also get paid voluntarily by the husband. Though my father was pragmatic in exploiting all the loopholes of the sectarian jurisprudence to solve a divorce problem, he was on the other hand, critical of exploiting or creating loopholes when there was no practical need to do so. For instance, there was a common religious practice in the eastern part of Turkey. When someone died, according to the religious books, his sins should be calculated and the corresponding amount of fine (usually, in terms of a specific amount of wheat) should be paid to the poor. The sectarian books had listed major sins, such as missing daily prayers or fasting, together with their monetary penalties. To be on safe side, the clergymen would advice the family of the deceased to consider that the deceased did not pray or fast properly all his life. The number of days since his puberty would be estimated. To find out the number of daily 5 prayers, this number would be multiplied by five. The number of fasting days would be calculated by multiplying the adult years by 30. All these would be multiplied by the fines per unit and would be added together. Usually, the amount of what I call "death-tax" or "sin-fine" would exceed all the wealth left behind. So, while keeping this morbid law alive, perhaps to be used with full power when the filthy rich dies, religious scholars created a way to adjust it according to the wealth of a person. They invented a scheme called "Isqat" (Reduction). When I was a child in a boring town, watching the execution of this trick was fun. Since the fine was usually paid to those who were studying religion, they were the one who would carry out this trick. Let's assume that the family of the deceased needed to pay 20,000 pounds of wheat, but could afford or were willing to give only 200 pounds of wheat for charity. Students would fill a thick woolsack with 200 pounds of wheat and tie it to a thick and long wooden bar. Four students are needed to execute the task of reduction in sin-fine. One student would represent the family of the deceased (Let's call him Sinner). Another student would represent the recipients (Let's call him Poor). Two other students would lift the 200-pound sack and move it between the two (Let's call them Movers). Here the way it worked: Each student would sit on a corner of an imaginary square. The Sinner would sit diagonally across the Poor, and the Movers would stand diagonally across each other. The wheat sack would be in the middle. The sack first would be moved close to the Sinner. The Sinner would tell the Poor, "I am now giving you 200 pound wheat as a fine for the sins of Hagi Muhammad." The Movers would lift the sack and move it towards the Poor and land it before of him. The Poor would say, "I accept this charity as the fine for the sins of Hagi Muhammad and I give it back to you as my charity." You got the picture. The sack would shift forward and backward between the Sinner and the Poor for 100 times, each time those words repeated. The last 100th time the Poor would say, "I accept this charity as the fine for the sins of Hagi Muhammad, may God forgive his sins," and kept the sack for himself and other poor students. Though this practice would provide a good exercise for the Movers, as a 5-6 years old child, I found a better way to execute this sin-fine reduction. I suggested them to hang the sack to the roof so that they could move it back and forward with much less effort. They liked my suggestion and conveyed it to my father. He just smiled and told me that he did not agree with the practice of isqat, but it was a harmless tradition. However, it took me a few more years to find out the real problem with this and other religious formalism: how could we think that we could find loopholes in God's religion? God should be the last person we try to trick. But, through this game, the clergymen had increased their power over the masses. If the family of the deceased were asked to give the charity that they can afford directly to the poor, the clergymen would not be the gatekeepers. Complex ceremonies are created to impress gullible believers; they justify the "need" for religious figures. In this case, through a ridiculous ceremony they became the arbiter and distributor of the charities. Clergymen of every religion are guilty of peddling lies about God and practicing the most ridiculous rules and rituals in his name. (Reading: Symbolic Power, Bourdieu) In early 1960's, when I was 4 or 5 years old, I remember our move from Norsin, the town of my father's family, my birthplace and my father's alma-mater. My father needed to move out and the leaders of a nearby town had asked my father to be their emam and teacher. We were moving to Naynik by riding horses and mules. The bulk of our property was a wooden box of books, some kitchenware, a rug and our beds. Several mules were sufficient to move our entire belonging. A few servants accompanied us. One of them was Mahmud-i Katirci. Some servants would take care of sheep, some cattle, some farms, some would serve the guest house divan, some would work in the compound's bakery, and Mahmud was responsible for mules. His title Katirci in Kurdish meant the Muleman. Years later, he and his sons would switch their subject of responsibility from mules to tractors, but his title Katirci never changed. During the trip, I was on a horse with one of the servants. As for my mother, she was riding a horse alone while her face was covered with a veil; her vision was like looking through dark sun glasses. We were riding on rocky tracks uphill and downhill. I remember one break on top of a mountain where I ate a peach for the first time in my life. Naynik was on a hill with many beautiful trees. We were given one of the best houses in the town as a pension. My father was the emam of the mosque and had a group of students whom he would teach Arabic. Among the memories etched in my brain are a wooden chess set, which contained characters such as horse (knight) and elephant (bishop). I also remember the heavy smoke in the air while my father was teaching; he and perhaps all of his students were smoking cigarettes during sessions. I still remember one of my mother's happy moments. My mother was flying from happiness for giving away my father's cigarette paraphernalia, that is, bags of golden tobacco, thin rectangular wrapping papers and the metal container. My father was a heavy smoker and upon learning that smoking was harming his health, he decided to quit cold turkey. That was it. He was always a man of principles and strong personality. He never smoked again. Furthermore, he became an ardent opponent of smoking. In a country where almost ninety percent of men smoked cigarette, not a single visitor could smoke in our home since then. During our one or two year residence in that town, my father became a candidate for the Turkish National Congress from the newly formed Democratic Party. Turkey had transformed from the authoritarian one party system, which was called "limited democracy," to a more democratic multiparty system in 1945. Democratic Party (DP) gave hope to religious conservatives who were oppressed by the aggressive secular government of Peoples Republican Party (PRP), which emulated the Fascist party both in its agenda and organization. DP's campaign promised encouragement of free enterprise, greater religious freedom, and the reduction of the executive powers. However, the 1946 election results disappointed DP, since they won only 62 of the 465 seats in parliament. When it became known that the PRP victory was a result of tampering with voting, ballot box stuffing and intimidation, the antigovernment movement became more popular. The election was a farce, since ballots were cast publicly and counted secretly. This meant that the officials would see which party you voted for and the government officials could temper with the results. On top of that the radio was under the monopoly of the government, exclusively used for PRP. And they called it "democracy." So, when the election law was forced to change, the 1950 elections brought DP an overwhelming victory. DP won 408 seats. PRP could prevent a fair election since it controlled the army and all the civil administration. However, PRP and its leaders withdrew gracefully. This led to short term freedom and public discussion of government policies. Nevertheless, the DP soon got intoxicated with power and started imposing restrictions on the opposite views, banning rival parties, closing newspapers, and imprisoning scores of leading Turkish writes who opposed DP's policy. DP used anti-Communist ordinances to suppress intellectuals critical of government. The dove that was singing peace songs, after one victory had turned to a hawk. Democrats still won the 1954 and 1957 national elections by a landslide because of widespread peasant support. My family supported DP mostly because they suffered under the cruel treatment of Gendarme, the military police. They were oppressed because they were religious. They were oppressed because they were Kurds. However, the DP became the victim of its totalitarian policies, which prompted the Turkish army to intervene in 1960. Three leaders of DP, including the prime minister, were hanged. More than 500 members of DP were sentenced, some to life imprisonment. A new Constitution promoting civil rights, freedom, and creating a series of checks and balances to offset the dangerously excessive power of executive was drafted. In October 1961 elections there were some new parties, including Justice Party (JP), which was supported by former members of banned DP. Molla Sadruddin was a folk hero, whose intelligence and hard work made him a prince. He was a poor peasant orphan who married the daughter of the most influential man in the county. So, my father thought he had enough votes to win. He rented a van and started campaigning in the county as a candidate of JP. My father lost the 1961 election with a small margin. He later told us that he lost because of my uncles, in their own way they quietly campaigned against him. He was bitter, and decided to never run for another election. I witnessed his determination to keep his promise when a new party was formed by the religious elite and he was invited to become its candidate in a county with potential high votes. He refused to actively participate in politics. Shortly after his defeat in the election, my father received an offer from a bigger town, Liz, which I have more memories of. Liz was a bigger town, located on a vast valley divided by a river. At that time it had two mosques. Initially, we stayed in a government building used by teachers. It was a new complex made of concrete with pitched roofs. There my mother gave birth to twins, of which one died soon after the birth. My mother's first child had died too. After losing her first son, she gave birth to my older sister, Surayya. Two years later I was born, two years after me my brother Matine, and now two years after Matine, the twins, Mufit and Nazim. My father picked a Persian poem for Nazim's tombstone. The location for his grave was on top of a hill where there was a military memorial. I still remember the first line of the epithet, which my father used to recite with his sad voice. He had made me memorize the entire poem. Tutii bahavaai shekeri.... (A bird in a joyful manner ... ) Later we moved to a stone house with flat roof just next to the mosque. However, it was an old house. There were rats and cockroaches. I remember catching a rat in my bed while I was sick. I was commended for my hunting skills. Rats were fine, they would escape from us, and I was not scared of them. But, worse than rats were the bugs. There were millions of bedbugs. Those bloodsucking bugs were making us itch with pain all day. Blisters had become a permanent topography of my skin. I do not remember whether my father tried to exterminate them by spraying chemicals or not; but I have clear memories of needles in our hands leaning over the caravan of bedbugs moving along the cracks of the window's wooden frame. Before going to bed, my father and I would grab our needles for the bug hunt. We would poke them in the wicked bodies of the bloodsuckers. We would fill the needles like a shish kabab and start over again. It was a futile attempt to protect our blood. We were doomed to itch in that house. One day I developed an internal infection in my groin. It grew as big as a walnut and put me in bed. My father decided to take me to the clinic in a nearby town, Gulchimen. Gulchimen was one of the greenest towns I have ever seen. But, it is the red color that I remember the most about Gulchimen. When we arrived to the entrance of the clinic, my father extended his finger to a red button. He pushed that red button and I heard the sound of a bell. I had never seen such a thing before. The red button was beautiful and magical; it opened the door. My father was not a man who valued money. (Unfortunately, I inherited this attitude and caused suffering to my family). He was much interested in increasing his knowledge about the intricate and conflicting rules of his religious jurisprudence. He enjoyed reading poetry, solving puzzles, writing articles and books, teaching students, and answering the questions of his followers, either on the phone or during in house visitations. He was also, I think, found of his fame as "the most knowledgeable religious scholar and the top expert in Arabic language." So, money or becoming rich was not much of his concern. I never saw him bargaining to lower the price of an item even if the seller had obviously inflated the price in expectation of a bargain. In my teenage years, I remember criticizing him for throwing away his hard-earned money. I do not remember even once my father counting money. He would give almost all his paycheck to my mother to use it wisely. My mother, who never shopped in her life even once, would worry how to make the ends meet. She would look at our eyes begging us not to steal a few liras when she was sending us to the market. Occasionally, my younger brother Matine and I would cut our little commission without my mother's knowledge. I was more conscientious than Matine, since he was cheating more. We were poor, but somehow we always had a roof on our head and usually enough food on the table. My father was content. When my mother's father died, he left several towns, farms, cattle, horses, houses, vans, tractors, and some businesses, such as a gas station as inheritance. Perhaps the most lucrative and fertile inheritance he left was his legend, popularity and holy authority for his children. His grave would add more holy power to the shrine on top of the hill, and it could easily be transformed, to enduring political, economic and social power by my uncles. My grandfather had seven sons and four daughters. According to the Islamic distribution of inheritance, my mother would automatically get half the share of a brother, which would be 1/18th of the inheritance (perhaps half of a town and hundreds of farm animals). This was a lot of land and money. Did she get it? Not, of course. Noticing the greedy attitude of his inlaws, my father forfeited all my mother's inheritance. My mother knew that it was in her best interest not to fight against her brothers. In fact, she was trained to respect the decisions of her brothers, regardless. Like all of her sisters, she got nothing. So, in Istanbul, we were doomed to a life of occasional poverty and living with the bare necessities of life. Once in a few years our uncles would send us several paraffin tins, each containing about 40 pounds of cheese or butter. For years, we were on a very tight budget. We could hardly afford to buy ever necessary food. We were living on bread. For breakfast, our family of nine would eat several breads accompanied by 100 or 150 grams of white cheese. In better times, we would see several olives besides the cheese. We could eat meat once or twice a week. I still remember that I would usually buy 250 grams of ground meat. Rarely it would be 500 grams. A quarter of that weight would be the heavy waxed paper and the paper cover. Sometimes we could not afford meat. So, we would substitute with giblets and scrap meat. When I was in middle and high school, I remember that I was hungry most of the time. The little pocket money I had would finish after I bought a bare bagel. My father was not a handy man. He was also a very trusting person, to the degree of gullibility. When I was in my early teen years, I noticed people taking advantage of my father's credulity. For instance, the stem washer in the faucets would wear down pretty frequently. This was partly due to their bad quality and our overtightening them in order not to waste water. My father did not have a single tool and he had no knowledge of the simplest maintenance. So, he would call the nearby plumber. The plumber, after a lengthy inspection, would claim that the faucet was bad and he would replace it with a "good" used one. Each time he would take ours. He would charge my father for the faucet he installed and for hourly services. He was respectful to my father and appeared to be a religious person. Knowing that our budget was tight, I worried about the situation, and one day, I decided to watch the plumber carefully. Later, I bought some basic tools, and when the faucet was again leaking water, I asked my father not to call the plumber; I could fix it by just replacing the worn-down rubber washer. From that moment on, I fixed our faucets. Now I wonder whether the plumber deliberately replaced our faucets with faucets containing half-worn out washers. Later I saved my father money by fixing the electric fuses, which would go off frequently, and by assembling the stovepipe in the beginning of each winter. In late 1970's, Saudi Arabia, striving to be considered as a bastion of Islam, started a lobbying campaign among religious leaders in Turkey. The Rabitat-ul Alem-il Islami (???), Saudi's international arm of corruption, was offering irresistible amount of salaries to religious figures as royal assistance. Afterwards, many religious scholars and leaders became the defenders of the Saudi regime, one of the most oppressive and corrupt governments on the face of this planet. My father was among those whom the generous King just wanted to support! But, knowing the quid pro quo nature of this majestic support, he rejected the offer. He never liked the Kings and found them to be hypocrites and materialists. He chose poverty over a king size hypocrisy. Starting in late 1978, there was mass demonstration against the Shah's regime in Iran. My father, though a well-respected Sunni scholar, who had in the past written critical articles against the Shiite sect, became a vocal supporter of Iranian revolution. Knowing that the Turkish government was afraid that the Iranian revolution would spread like a contagious disease, my father was taking great risks. He could end up being tortured and imprisoned by police, or even killed by secret agents. But, he was a brave man with integrity. He had his own mind and he was not afraid of expressing what he believed in. So, the years my father was my hero, I found my brother Metin I in company with the leading figures of radical Islamic movements. My father, somehow, had received the respect of diverse and even rival religious groups. We had personal acquaintance with the leaders of various Sufi orders, Noor community, members of Congress and Senate from MSP (National Salvation Party), Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt and Syria, Hizbut Tahrir of Iraq, Hizbi Islami of Afghanistan, etc. However, in late 1970's my father became more radical and cut his relationship from passive religious orders and communities. After the Iranian revolution, he even accused MSP of compromising with the Turkish infidel regime. My father was for a revolution that would bring theocracy into power. A revolution that was envisioned by the Egyptian founder of Ikhwan-i Muslimin (Muslim Brotherhood) Hasan el Benna, Seyyid Qutub, Abul A'la el Mawdudi, Saed Hawwa, and later by Fethi Yeken, Ali Shariati, Seyyid Muhammad al-Sadr, Rashid El Ghannushi, etc. Mahdipur was the emam of one of the few Shiite mosques in Istanbul.
He was not Ayatollah, nor Hojjatulislam; his religious title was "Akhund,"
whatever it means. He was a pupil of Ayatollah Shariatmadari, one of the
leaders of revolution, whose moderate approach later put him at cross-purposes
with Khomeini. Mahdipur was the leader of the small Shiite community in
Turkey. In about late 1978 and early 1979, during the tribulation and revolution
in Iran, this unknown simple religious figure transformed to an activist,
appearing in media, giving speeches, participating in political demonstrations.
It was like a worm turning to a butterfly, or a cat to a tiger. With his
pleasant accent and clever mind, he was an articulate and a passionate
activist. His agenda was to promote the ideology of the Shiite version
of radical Islam in Turkey. My brother was a charismatic leader of Akincilar,
the radical Muslim youth organization, and he was in love with the Iranian
revolution.
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers. (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 19) "The Athenian authorities were wrong when they sentenced Socrates to death. The Inquisitors were wrong when they condemned Galileo Galilei. You are similarly wrong for subjecting me to torture and prison merely because of my religious beliefs and political opinions. You have two choices: either sentence me to prison or resign from your job!" These were the last words of my defense in a Turkish martial court after the 1980 military coup. Though I was comparing a shrub to giant sequoias, my tragedy was no different than that of Socrates and Galileo. I was surprised that the judges permitted my ten-minute diatribe on freedom of expression. I was promoting an Islamic revolution, like the one in our neighbor, Iran. Dozens of armed soldiers were in the room and outside the gate, outnumbering those who were permitted to attend the hearing. I knew that just by moving his eyebrows, the chief judge could unleash the military guards. They would be down on me like hungry wolves. I was only a little mouse in their eyes. They could smash my head or enjoy my humiliation for as long as they liked. But I was not willing to let them enjoy the second option, even if it meant legal suicide. I was not then aware of the irony in my speech. The theocratic system to which I was aspiring to was in reality full of repressive teachings, relics of medieval ages past. These would turn the earth into a graveyard for any free-thinker, subjecting them to severe punishment as infidels or apostates. I did not know then I too would not have a chance for free expression in the system of my dreams. Indeed, the government of my dreams would be even worse than the government I was now fighting. I would learn this only after witnessing the disappointing transformations of my heroes in Iran and Afghanistan. Upon gaining power, the freedom-fighting Iranian mullahs would devolve into tyrannical parasites, and Afghan liberators mujahids, be transformed into the advocates of oppression and ignorance. The three judges sat on a high platform. The prosecutor belonged to the same club. They all came into the courtroom through the same gate and they shared the same building, the same dark black robes, the same arrogant demeanor. Their faces looked as if they had chronic constipation. I did not have good images of judges. During the previous 19 months, I had been brought to the military courts of Selimiye eleven times for writing and distributing political fliers without permission, organizing mass protests without permission, giving public lectures without permission. Once, one of the military judges warned me. "If you come here again, I will put you in prison for a long time, no questions asked." He could care less whether the allegations against me were true. Coming to Selimiye, however, was not an easy journey; it was an ordeal. Each time, before coming in front of a judge, I had to pass through the gates of cruel police stations, rat-infested jails, damp cells, and torturous interrogations: a process that would drain a few more weeks from my life. I was not allowed to communicate with anyone, including attorneys. My whereabouts would be a mystery to my family until I was brought into the court. Each experience during my frequent detention periods would justify and solidify my opposition to the government, a regime I thought brutal, alien and illegitimate. According to the law, I needed to get permissions from the very government that I deemed to be illegitimate. I was a rebel, and doing things without governmental consent was my prime cause. Asking permission to share my political opinion with my own people was unacceptable. I was a rebel against the Turkish totalitarian regime and its imperialist ally, USA. Now I was a political prisoner. In the years ahead, I would need permission to talk, to sleep, to walk, to eat, to read, and even to go to the bathroom. I was a 23-year-old author and political activist: indoctrinated, religious, idealistic, naive, and fanatical. The three panel judges were not moved by my lecture and certainly did not resign from their positions. They chose the first option after the first and only hearing. A six-year prison term was the official response to two of my published articles promoting the establishment of an Islamic government! Years later, I learned from a lawyer who had developed a friendly relationship with the military judges that they spoke highly of my heroism and honesty. Many of the so-called Muslim scholars and authors who had been uncompromising critics of government became apologetic when they came before the court, begging for mercy. Though the judges appeared to be aloof, perhaps deep in their hearts they had sympathy for me. Disguised behind their black robes, high podium, and high salaries, they apparently had some human feelings. Several lawyers had volunteered to defend me in that trial. I met them for the first time in this hearing, having had no previous contact. A political defendant did not have the right to an attorney until he was in the courtroom. They wanted to re-interpret my articles, but I refused such a defense. It would have been hypocritical to let them misinterpret my position in order to get a lighter sentence. I was going to share the same room with murderers, thieves, drug smugglers, and terrorists for years. I was facing overpopulated prisons, dark, humid wards, cruel guards, psychopathic inmates, plus physical and mental torture. All left scars on my young, idealistic mind. In my early days as an inmate, I was held in a military prison in the middle of the 2nd Armored Brigade, located in Kartal-Maltepe, Istanbul. It had been built during the Ottoman Empire to store ammunition. Now they were storing political dissidents there. The building had four small rooms, one of which was converted to cells to be used for punishment. Our bunk beds were stacked next to each, packing us in like sardines. There were about 30 prisoners in a 10 x 6 meter ward. The other rooms were smaller and contained 10-12 prisoners each. The walls of the building were made of rock blocks more than a yard thick. The room did not have windows, except for two vertical slots which would hardly allow a crow to pass through. Since there was virtually no sunlight, a lamp illuminated the room 24 hours a day with its unsteady light. I was not sure whether they deliberately designed it that way, or if it was because of inadequate electrical wiring. High walls, crowned with razor wire and fortified by shotgun towers at the corners, surrounded the ugly, square building. The prison yard was a narrow concrete alley. We could not see a single plant. The sun was visible in the alley only for a few hours in midday. We looked forward to jogging up and down there to get some exercise and see the sunlight for an hour twice a day. All the fifty or so inmates in this high-security prison belonged to my political youth organization and were mostly university and high school students. Most of them were imprisoned for participating in political activities similar to mine. A few of them were charged with robbery or murder. Since I was on the national committee of the organization, the brother of a recently assassinated, legendary activist, the son of a prominent religious scholar, the cousin of a member of parliament, and the head of the highly regarded Fatih Raiders group, I was their leader by default. I did not know most of them. However, they all knew me. The number of members and sympathizers in my youth group exceeded a couple of hundred thousand, and I had no way to know all of them. I would later appreciate my first months in this prison, since there was no physical or mental torture, and I was able to read and write as much as I wanted. There, I was able to translate a book about the Secret of the Quran, which was only unveiled by an Egyptian-American biologist in 1974, fourteen centuries after the revelation of the Quran. The discovery of the Secret was initially great news for Muslims, and it was celebrated around the world. Books about the Secret were published in numerous languages. Ahmad Deedat, the charismatic leader of Islamic Propagation Center International in South Africa, wrote a book and produced video lectures about the secret. "Quran, the Ultimate Miracle" was published by funds from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, and was freely distributed by the tens of thousands. Surprisingly, the same governments and institutions that at first used the publication of the Secret as religious propaganda for Islam would later declare it heresy and ban it. They would condemn its discoverer to death as an apostate. Orthodox Islam attempted to put the jinni back in the bottle after using it for eleven years. To their great astonishment, they learned that the jinni was going to reform their religion dramatically and devour their power. Unable to put the jinni back, they tried to make it invisible to the masses. To cover the unveiled Secret, they used swords of intimidation, walls of ignorance, and clouds of distortion. They succeeded, somewhat, until the emergence of another jinni, the Internet. Just weeks before my arrest on September 12,1980, I had learned the Secret in an international youth camp and conference organized by WAMY (World Assembly of Muslim Youth), a group affiliated with the political wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. The conference lasted two weeks, with the eager participation of about two hundred Muslim youth representative from 42 countries. Many internationally renowned Muslim scholars, such as Yusuf al-Qardawi of Libya, participated as lecturers. Ahmad Deedat's lecture was on the SECRET, which was going to transform my political, social, and spiritual life forever. I will explain this point later in detail. In that conference, I got a copy of the book and promised Mr. Deedat that I would translate it. I was so busy with political activities that I might have never found a chance to sit down and translate the book. But my first months in prison provided me with a great opportunity, not only to translate the book, but also to verify much of the Quranic data presented there. Later, I contributed to the subject matter and became its co-author. The book became my first best-seller, until the religious establishment banned it. I have unforgettable memories of that prison, the converted ammunition storage facility. In our room, we had only one bathroom. Each morning, thirty of us would quietly wait in line. We were all following the Sunni version of Islam, but each of us had a different level of adherence to the rules. Few of us were serious about trivial rules. One young man was different, and he increased the morning traffic jam in front of the bathroom. Hasan belonged to a Sufi order and had been taught to be extremely careful about his urine, since according to a hadith (saying attributed to Muhammad), most of the torture in the grave would be because of urine drops wetting underwear. Trying to save religious people from the torments of the grave, Sunni liturgy contained detailed instructions to prevent urine leaks. The sanctified method was called "istibra." He would enter the bathroom and spend three or four times longer there than the average inmate. Then he would come out with a hand inside his pants, holding his penis. Later, I would learn that he was inserting cotton into his penis. To release the last molecules of his urine, he would walk around in the crowded little entry. He would then again enter the bathroom and repeat the same thing. Everyone complained about his use of the bathroom. Though I found it burdensome, revolting and even ridiculous, I did not want to ban him from performing his paranoid ritual. But, unfortunately, the scruple was contagious. Cemal, a teenager with some psychological problems, joined the ritual, perhaps just to get our attention. I could tolerate one urophobic in the ward, but two were too many. I banned them from entering the bathroom during rush hour unless they used the room like everyone else. Noise was also a big problem. We had several teenagers among us, some of whom were hyperactive. Thirty inmates were sharing the same little room day and night, and the noise was taking its toll. My style was not authoritative. I was a democrat, even when a rebel. I used to hold periodic meetings to discuss issues and search for solutions to our problems. By consensus, we decided to designate certain hours as quiet time. This solved the problem. Well, almost. Ahmad, a college student, was so talkative that his jaws were always in motion. Whenever there was too much noise in the room, he was invariably one of the sources. After several futile warnings, I had to give him a drastic order. In a meeting, I declared that Ahmad was not to speak to anyone for one week, until the next visitation day. This was called vocal-fasting. To my surprise, he followed the order perfectly. Vocal abstinence, it seemed, was the solution. We all were relieved. When the next visitation day came, every one of us was waiting for his vocal "break-fast." He surprised everyone. He did not start talking. Feeling guilty, I begged him to speak. Nope. He would not say a word! I was begging the most talkative person I’d ever met to speak, to make any noise. All week, I’d felt bad for him. Now it was time to end that torture, but, somehow, he had liked it. He wanted to continue his silence. I might be able to order him not to talk, but I couldn’t order him to talk. To help Ahmad in his daily need for communication, I decided to teach him the international sign alphabet, which I found illustrated in my dictionary. He could illustrate each letter of a word with his fingers. Soon, a majority of the inmates also learned and our communication with Ahmad was conducted entirely in sign language. I remember vividly his mastery of the alphabet. Instead of his jaws, now his fingers, hands, arms, and, occasionally, even legs were moving. During the day, he would get great exercise! I did not know then that one day I would need this sign alphabet myself. When we were moved to another prison controlled by the same regiment, they started subjecting us to systematic torture, and limited our weekly visitation rights. During weekly ten-minute visitation periods, two military guards would stand at my side and two at my visitor's side. They would carefully monitor what we said. During one of the visits, I somehow managed to tell my older sister to learn the sign alphabet. I was going to use it to convey some information during court hearings to be held for other charges against me. I remember sitting on the bench in the corridor of the Selimiye military courthouse, isolated from my relatives by soldiers. My sister was standing about fifteen yards away from me. We were anxious to communicate with each other. If she uttered a word to me, she would be expelled from the building, perhaps subjected to insult and threat. The cost of a single word from my mouth, however, would be the infliction of bruises all over my body, in addition to a few weeks of solitary confinement. I was not sure whether she had learned the sign language or not. I waited anxiously. Finally, leaning towards the corner of the wall, she started to use the sign alphabet in a clandestine manner. My handcuffed hands started moving, finger by finger. None of the soldiers had a clue what was going on. We were communicating with each other right under the watchful eyes of the oppressors. Several months later, soldiers transferred us to another ancient building on the military base. It was a basement with thick walls, a place where the sunlight was completely banished. In this prison, I would not see the sky, nor the sun, for about six months. In the former prison we were allowed to walk up and down in a small yard. We could at least see the blue sky once a day. Now, all we had were damp walls. As a change, we were neighbors with communist activists and "terrorists." A wall separated our wards and we were sharing the same hallway in turn. Though we could see each other through iron bars, we basically had no communication. This silence was a sign of truce. The director of the prison was a lieutenant-captain, but the daily management was conducted by a cross-eyed sergeant-major, Memduh, who appeared to have a higher I.Q. than his superiors. He occasionally would come to see me. He seemed to enjoy talking to me. I enjoyed it too. In his dealing with us, he was eerily polite and civil. We were responding in the same way. We were cooperating with all their rules. I did not see any benefit in fighting my enemy while I was a captive. Besides, my concept of rebellion was intellectual and abstract, rather than physical. One day, he gathered us in the hallway and quietly instructed us that starting the next day we would be reciting the Turkish national anthem. Well, at least its first two quartets, during the daily count. Fear not, the crimson flag, waving in these dawns
will never fade
Oh coy crescent do not frown for I am ready to
sacrifice myself for you!
With the exception of a few words, I liked the lyrics of the National Anthem, since it promoted freedom and unity. The third quartet, starting with a heroic challenge for those who attempt to deprive the citizen of his or her freedom, was one of my favorite verses: Which insane person has decided to chain me? I dare! Well, I dared the military judges and had ended up getting chained. Now, I was going to be forced to recite lines promoting national and individual freedom. I obeyed to the letter the first words of the national anthem. I feared not. I told the crossed-eyed sergeant -major that I was not going to recite the national anthem. Since I was not free, my recitation of it would be contradictory and meaningless. I did not demand my comrades join me in my protest. The next day, while the other prisoners recited the national anthem in chorus, I was silent. Memduh did not ask me again. Two days later, my name was called. I did not have a trial, nor was it the day of visitation. I had to leave the ward at once. I was frisked, handcuffed and taken to the office by two military guards who then immediately led me to a military truck. I had no idea where I was being taken. In the truck, there were four guards and a sergeant-major with twitching eyes who was unable to return my gaze. Perhaps he had problem with alcohol or he was fed up with his capricious superiors. On the way, he muttered with anger, "Are you going to make an Islamic revolution? Bring Khomeiny to power?" He was not really asking questions; he was just informing me about my crime. The whole trip took five minutes. I was now standing in front of the previous prison building. I was led to the office adjacent to the prison walls. There, suddenly I saw stars exploding and disappearing into darkness.
I felt excruciating pains. The two soldiers were ferociously attacking
me, hitting my head with their clubs. I jumped about and rolled on the
floor, unable to escape. The clubs were striking all over my body. I do
not know how long it took, but I remember that they stopped when I could
no longer move. At last they picked me up and pitched me into one of the
dark, cold, mouse-infested cells.
..... While I was in Canakkale prison, my oldest sister could not visit me that frequently. It was not a military prison and comparatively the conditions were much better. There was no torture, no insult, no mandated indoctrination sessions. Sure, the wards were overcrowded and the air was usually filled with clouds of cigarette smoke, yet, I was free from feeling the boots and clubs of soldiers on my body and free from hearing their insults. Though there was restriction and censorship, the administration would allow us to read the few books we wanted. We could also write letters. This was very important for me, since it opened a little window the size of paper. My sister was my only pen pal. Writing letters and receiving their replies were high moments in my prison term there. I usually would write about my curious observations on inmates, interesting events, etc. I would also share some of curious tid bits of scientific discoveries and observations, which I was learning from scientific journals. However, instead of my sister, I had a feeling that her close friend was writing her letters; I could tell from the handwriting. I could not distinguish which remark belonged to my sister or her friend, so I assumed that all belonged to my sister. Her friend was a talented author, a biologist and a passionate Muslim activist. She had been the closest friend of my sister for years. When you see one of them, you would expect the other to be nearby. They were like peanut butter and jelly or ketchup and mustard. Both dressed black cloths from head to toe, like Iranian women during revolution. Both were passionate supporters of Iran's so-called Islamic revolution and were very active in the radical Islamic revolutionary movement in Turkey. Before ending up in prison, my older sister and I were together for the same cause. So, she was not only my biological sister, she was also my comrade. Her comrade and closest friend was automatically my close friend too. During my escape to the United States, I lost my only possession, my library. The file containing our prison correspondence was among them. I lost all of them except the following letter, which was published in one of my books before my immigration. The story is about our common experience during 1963-1964. Then, we did not have TV, electricity, or even the knowledge of their existence. A Story in Summer Pastor in the Mountain I was seven or eight; you were nine or ten years old. We had moved with our family to the mountain, a place called Qulungo, to spend the summer. Our father had gone to Istanbul alone to move our family a year later. Despite his meager income he was sending us pretty gifts once a while. The news of someone coming from Istanbul and bringing a packet of gifts would give me such a pleasure that I cannot describe. Somehow, my father would not use the post office. He would send them via villagers who happened to visit Istanbul. I remember that I would always ask for a motorbike. I did not even have a scooter, nor a tricycle. But, I was seriously expecting my father to send me a motorbike. Now, I can relate to my six or seven year old children asking me You remember how the toy film slide machine would take us to colorful scenes from countries and cultures we never knew. Ah, I still remember my first colored book, the Hayat Ansiklopedisi (Life Encyclopedia). Its pages were bright and contained colorful pictures, stories and information about cars, trains, houses, etc. Its cover was like glass, hard and shining. I still remember how we were turning its pages slowly and gently. We called it "kitaba guri", that is "the wolf book" in Kurdish, because of the bizarre picture of a deceptive wolf wearing a shepherd's cloth. It was the best of times and the happiest of times. We were having such a joyful time in Qulungo. Our father had again sent us gifts from the dream world Istanbul. We were flying from joy, without caring the jealous look of children around us. How wouldn't we get excited? We, the children of mountains, strangers to plastic goods of modern technology... Our toys were stuffed dolls made of old fabrics like scarecrows, or cars carved out watermelon skins or flutes made of tree branches. I remember. Whenever a jeep or a truck came to the village we would run towards it and celebrate its visit to our town. We would stop and stare the cars in awe. We would keep our distance. Perhaps we were thinking they would kick us like horses. Or we were afraid of their owners. People may not believe us, but we were getting a bizarre pleasure from chasing the automobiles and getting lost in their dust left behind. Perhaps our lungs needed some change; the air in our town was too fresh and pure. Did we need some pollution, or just some change? At that time, we were still going to Qulungo by horses and mules. You remember. The lengthy convoys... A lengthy trip lasting for one or two days.... We would pass through nearby towns and give breaks. We would be hosted generously and wishing us good luck respectfully. Our grandfather was the most revered person in the region. He was the father figure in nearby towns and cities and he would solve the disagreements between individuals or towns. For their dispute, the people would prefer him rather than the official courts. Yes, I was going to refresh one of our common memories. I was going to tell you about that interesting incident in Qulungo. Whenever the memories of cold spring water, the clear and breezy air, and wonderful life resurrected in my mind I feel great longing for Qulungo. Weren't we very happy while playing among the giant volcanic rocks? How enjoyable moments were our climbing those giant rocks and sitting on them pretending them to be our trucks? We used to eat our watermelons on top of those rocks, didn't we? Occasionally, ten or fifteen boys we would get together for guesht (picnic) to another spring among rocks and bushes behind the hills. We would take with us a lamb, a cauldron, rice, butter, plates and utensils. We would play, collect berries, drink and eat until the sunset. We would decide: "Tomorrow we are going to guesht" and each of us would wake up early morning and take their share of items. I do not forget. Boys and girls were always going to different guesht points. If both boys and girls interested with the same guest point, then we would go there in different dates. They were unforgettable moments... Cannot be told in words. My father's presents were adding more excitement and color to this childhood life. This time, among the gifts there was a strange item. Men and women, our extended relatives were curious about this gift. You know we had a close and crowded family... Grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews, in-laws, etc... Add to these the male and female servants and maids, we were a family with more than three hundred members. This bizarre gift item had flat and colorful wings could make a third of a circle. I guess, many people expressed their idea about it. Each person had an idea and argument to support their idea about it. I do not remember the details of the discussions. Finally, the idea of a woman was accepted by the majority. This gift, according to the consensus, was cosmetic, a beauty thing. One of the women immediately collected your hair behind your head and tied it like a horsetail. Among the curious looks of the crowd, she tied that colorful thing to your hair like a ribbon. The gift item could be opened and closed. The best way, she figured out, was to tie it wide open. Before the admiring eyes of the crowd, you jumped out of the circle. You were jumping and running with that big thing on your hair waiving side to side, up and down. As if it was dancing on your head. However, it was not falling down. Evidently, it was very tightly affixed to your hair. All the eyes were on that colorful object and all girls seemed to be admiration. Well, your joy did not last long. Soon, they took off that thing from your head while everyone was loudly laughing. They had committed an error, a big one! Some male relatives had seen the civilization. When he saw you jumping with that colorful thin on your head, with all his wisdom, he informed everyone about the real purpose of the gift. The plastic gift was an oriental fan, which was being sold to tourists. The function of fan, however, was to make wind. Yes, this is the story of the fan on top of the mountain.
On the 1st of July 1986, I made the most crucial and consequential decision in my life. I came to the conclusion that the religion that I inherited from my parents, was abysmally corrupted. The introduction of my ninth book, the "Dangerous Articles," starts by mentioning the importance of that day. I had to criticize and reject most of my previous religious position published in my best-selling previous books. I rejected the conventional traditional religion. My research brought me to a startling conviction: the traditional Islam had nothing to do with Muhammad's original teaching. It could not be God's religion. Several months after that crucial day and decision, I encountered an intellectual and spiritual quandary. I found myself in a big dilemma. The SECRET was indicating some problems with the contemporary text of the Quran. However, it was a heresy to even harbor such a doubt about the textual integrity of the Quran. I was confused, I was scared, and I could not solve the problem. The facts of the SECRET, which I had no doubt about, was exposing two verses as man-made insertions. Indeed, there was some historical evidences about certain controversial arguments on those two verses. However, the consensus of Islamic community was clear. The problem needed a crucial "Yes" or "No" from me. But, that would determine my fate, in this world and in the hereafter as well. It was the most important issue in my life. I could be killed by fanatics because of my "Yes" answer. (My mentor, the discoverer of the SECRET was indeed killed by a group of Muslim terrorists affiliated with Afghanistan mujahids in 1990). But, I was mostly concerned about finding the truth. For approximately two weeks I was lost. I persistently prayed to God, asking a "sign" to save me from that dilemma. "God give me a sign" was my repeated prayer. One day, in November 23, 1986, at around 1:30, I was sitting in my office alone trying to finish the second volume of the best-selling "Interesting Questions." However, the terrible paradox was eating my soul. I prayed again: "My Lord give me a sign." Suddenly, an unusual thing happened. My heart started beating vigorously, as if I had run five miles. Shortly, I heard a very clear voice from my heart. Repeating in Turkish: Uc Kirkbir!That is, "Three Forty one, Three Forty one, Three Forty one". I don't remember exactly how many times it was repeated. My excitement
was in climax. I was shocked. I never had such an experience before and
since, so far. The only thing came to my mind at that moment was to look
at the Quran, 3:41 (Chapter Three, Verse Forty one). My excitement reached
its zenith and I felt a great relief. Verse 3:41 was exactly repeating
my Turkish prayer in Arabic with its Quranic answer:
He said, "My Lord, give me a sign." He said, "Your sign is that you do not speak to the people for three days, except by signals. You shall commemorate your Lord frequently, and meditate night and day." (3:41)This extraordinary event not only saved me from the worst situation I have ever had, but it also taught me a great lesson: Don't care much about what people think about you. Seek the truth without any personal agenda, or preset conditions. Later, somehow, I wanted to see whether there is any relation between this exciting experience and my accepting the Quran alone as the source of my religion. I was assured by an astounding mathematical relation. The number of days between 1st of July 1986 (the most important day in my life), and 23rd of November 1986 was exactly 114 days, which is the total number of the chapters of the Quran. My personal experiences are obviously nonfalsifiable subjective cases and cannot be shared by others. But, the veracity of my claims might be supported by witnesses of surrounding events and circumstantial evidence, although, with the passage of time their availability is diminishing. However, I cannot doubt that event. I know, many will come up with skeptical objections, and they should. Since I am myself a skeptic monotheist (I know, it is an oxymoron), I will list some of the potential objections: 1. The narrator's subconscious, under strong stress, may have remembered
the verse number where his prayer is mentioned.
It is good to be skeptic and I do not expect anyone to believe my story just because it is written in a book by an educated author who appears to be a genuine person. However, if you learn and witness the SECRET, I believe, you will consider this and similar experiences as rare but possible. Perhaps, a few of you might experience similar incidents. Years later some events, which were also directly witnessed by others showed me over and over that my Creator was watching me and supporting me whenever I was at an impasse. I learned a divine law: if I ask help from God alone, cutting all my hopes from anything and anyone besides God, He would be there next to me. Submission to the will of God alone, with no condition and expectation, is the key of divine help. Yet, obtaining that key, I have learned, is perhaps as difficult as finding a 114 carat diamond in the dessert, or finding an honest politician in Washington. There is also no guarantee that you will keep the key forever; you can lose it any time you are preoccupied with the worldly life, forgetting about your real purpose: to submit yourself to God. (See: Submission) After my crucial decision in 1st of July 1986, I started to struggle to get a passport. Because of my political past, I was banned from leaving the country. This ban appeared to contradict my official records. Why keep someone who is considered a dangerous dissident inside the country? Perhaps, they feared that I might transform to a Turkish Khomeini if I was allowed to go to Europe or America. But, as long as I was inside the country they could capture, torture, or evaporate me. Though, then I had two uncles in the National Congress, it took me more than a year to receive a passport. Interesting enough, the date of issue on my passport was 1 July 1988. Was it a mere coincidence selected by a biased mind? Well, succeeding events proved otherwise. I was a single virgin man until my early thirties. The verses 3:41 mentioned above was related to Zechariah and his son Yahya (John). Thus, I felt sympathy with the name Yahya. Just after I experienced the incredible paranormal experience, I gave a silly promise to God: "If I marry, and if I have a son, I will name him Yahya." This promise, with two stated Ifs and with another forgotten one--IF my wife approves the name!-- remained a secret between God and me until my wife surprised me with another coincidence: In 1989 I married here, in the US with an Iranian-American lady, whom I met in our mosque. Soon after marriage she got pregnant. I was concerned. How could I convince her to accept the name Yahya if the baby is a boy? She was a strong woman with her own mind, which was one of the reasons I chose her. This strength, though, could be fatal to my promise. I was waiting for a good day and kind mood to talk about this issue. Another incredible thing happened. One night, two or three weeks after learning of the pregnancy, she came to me and for the first time talked about the name of the baby. I was brushing my teeth and getting ready to go to the bed. She asked me: "What do you think about the name Yahya for the baby, if it is a boy." This name was rare in Turkey and rarer in Iran. I thanked God, and that night told her my story regarding my silly promise to God. In the meantime, we received two interesting letters. One was from a close friend, who just had heard of the pregnancy. He did not have any idea about my promise regarding the name. In his letter he wrote a prayer: "May God raise your child like Yahya." We have numerous heroes in our history. Why pick Yahya? Another coincidence? My wife's mother's letter (again, within several weeks of the pregnancy), contained a poem about our coming baby. The name of the poet was Yahya. She also had no idea about my promise nor about our conversation about this name. The same week, a friend of ours who also had no idea about this issue, except he knew that my wife was pregnant, came to our home and told us his strange dream. He had just seen Zachary and his son Yahya (John) in his dream. When he wakes up he remembers us. He was not sure why he made such a connection. We witnessed some other interesting cases regarding that name. Therefore,
I became convinced that our child would be a boy and he would be born on
the 1st of July, as God's reward for my sincere decision and striving.
I announced my prediction regarding the gender and birth-date of our child
to more than thirty people in a meeting. The predicted day came, and the
baby disproved the predictions of doctors and came to the world in the
morning of 1st of July 1990 at 10:53.
Twelve years ago, when I escaped to America from Turkey to save my life, as an apostate from religious fanatics and as a dissident from a repressive government, I thought I knew America. In my teenager years, America was the land of my favorite comic book heroes: Texas, Tom Mix, Captain Swing, Tom Bronx, Red Kit, etc. I was always on the side of white cowboys, hunters, rangers and soldiers who were fighting against bad guys, such as barbaric Indians crying "Voah!"s or lazy Mexicans wearing ugly hats or stupid British soldiers with funny uniforms. In my early youth, when I became a political activist promoting an Iranian-like revolution, America was transformed to the "Great Satan," the evil imperialist power that exploited the resources of Muslim countries through puppet regimes. "Yankee Go Home!" Now, I am in the same home with Yankees! After the paradigm change in my religious and political conviction, America was transformed again; this time, to the "land of the free." Yet, during my 12 year life in America, the picture of either white or black America became more complex and more colorful. America was more than the land of the free; it was the land of unfathomable opportunities. It was both the land of liberty, and the land of imprisonment. It was both hell and heaven. Here I will draw a cartoon of America in several paragraphs. This cartoon is akin to the perception of the proverbial blind man touching the tail of an elephant and describing the elephant as a hairy tail. True, Elephant is not a tail, but it has a tail. Well, I want to show you the American tail; it is one of the most visible images of America in the eyes of outsiders when they first encounter American culture. (See: The Two Faces of America) During my first days in America, I was like Alice in Wonderland. Even little details did not escape my immense curiosity. I remember how I was interested in the little TV's attached to airport seats that came to life for 15 minutes if you dropped a quarter. I remember my shock when I noticed for the first time in the airport that dog meat (hotdog!) was American's favorite food! I was baffled when I saw some men shaving in their cars while driving during rush hours. In Turkey, shaving was almost a ceremonial ritual; it would take a good fifteen minutes in homes or more in barbershops. I experienced cultural shock when I discovered a small library in the bathroom of my Iranian friends, a chemist couple working at the University of Arizona who had melted in the American pot like a piece of plastic or a cube of ice in CocaCola. Bathrooms in the Middle-Eastern countries do not have seats and their floors are usually wet, and occasionally dirty. Besides, for the people of Middle East, reading is a kind of sacred activity that does not fit in bathrooms, which might explain the miserable level of literacy in the region. Reading in a bathroom was as far-fetched as eating food there. Well, now you should see my bathroom, more accurately two restrooms: I read my magazines there and I also enjoy shaving while driving, despite the repeated protests from my cautious wife. I have too melted. Now I think I know the reason for these overlapping chores and activities. In the rush of life, Americans who are working to make more money and spend more money, have no time for many activities. Squeezing a myriad of activities into the same space-time box seems to be the only way. Why did I have more time in Turkey? In other words, why did I run out of time when I came to the USA? Why do I have to run here, while I was just doing fine by walking in Turkey? Why is life faster and time is more precious here? Why did I start reading my magazines in my rest room? The answer for these questions demands another book and I do not have supplies for it. Since I am here describing the American tail, the tail of the answer to my questions is the advertising industry. Alvin Toffler, in his book "Future Shock" (New York: Random House, 1970), describes the tail of consumerism: ".... the average American adult is assaulted by a minimum of 560 advertising messages each day." This is an old statistic, and most likely we are the targets of more commercials than ever. Under this overwhelming advertising bombardment you are forced to consume; you are forced to buy. Whenever you start thinking how to buy, you encounter the alluring "buy now, pay later" deal. Once you swallow the bait, then comes the hook, line and sinker. You start adopting the American life style. Soon, you will be showered by letters after letters, bills after bills. What happens? According to one of the principle law of physics, "if there is cause there is effect, or vice versa..." So, when you see bills, you start running. When you start running, hours become minutes, minutes become seconds! You start working a second job. And you end up shaving in your car and reading in your rest room. If you become a prey of legalized credit card schemes, like I did during my college years, then you will end up working part time for banks, the institutionalized usurers, perhaps for years and even decades. Assume that you used a credit card to buy a textbook and you were unable to keep up with your payments. Banks can legally (!) increase your debt from original 50 dollars to ??? dollars in year, by charging you 29 dollars monthly late-pay fees in addition to 21% interest rate. Your need or greed will turn you to a slave of those who have somehow accumulated money. I was once tempted to subscribe to cable or satellite TV services. Luckily, after visiting my friends who had them, I overcame my temptation. Those who can afford having hundreds of TV channels, think they are lucky. In fact, they are doomed by the abundance of choices or blessings. They can rarely watch a program with peace of mind, since most likely there are great programs in other channels. Surfing among channels, or watching several channels simultaneously via a divided screen, creates stress and a schizophrenic mind. No wonder those who have too much and do not know how to share their blessings with those who have virtually nothing, end up being punished by the very abundance they work hard to obtain. This is perhaps a divine law. They may not appreciate food, a sunset, or people around them. They are punished by abundance; bored, spoiled and aimless. Children and marital relationships are usually the collateral damage of the fast paced life-style, which is a whole different story. What about abundance of food? That's too can be both blessing and curse. American markets are filled with so many varieties of food with such affordable prices, few can resist the temptation to devour them. It took Japanese car makers a while to understand why they could not sell their cars to many Americans regardless of the quality and price of their products. "Whatever I like," had said an American, "is either immoral, or illegal, or fattening." My favorite section displays dozens of cheese from around the world. If my wife was not a nutritionist and had not consistently brainwashed me, I would most likely now be as fat as the sources of those cheese. Gulping fat from fast food restaurants and sugar from sodas, contribute substantially to the national expansion. Horizontal growth in America has effected many industries, including health, diet and textile. I wonder whether the malnourished Indonesians or Chinese who manufacture the XXL size shirts exported to America can imagine an American dinner table. Spoiled by the abundance of food, Americans enjoy trashing half of the food in their plates and occasionally through pies at each other's face! Americans are ingenious in creating ways to make money and more money. Ironically, this is their both strength and weakness. Let me explain. The drive to make money in America does not recognize any limit: from pyramid marketing schemes to incredibly innovative telemarketing frauds, from credit card issuing banks that rob those who can least afford it to a healthcare industry that steals public money through fake visitations and prescriptions. Even Pentagon may not escape; a secrew purchased by the Defense bureaucrats may cost American taxpayer several hundred dollars. Every American can be screwed by another. Add to this picture the lawyers who are hysterically looking for finding new ways to file lawsuits on behalf of anybody and everybody for anything and everything, and you will see a circus of high stress. The tail of modern American lifestyle! Did you know that there is a real company out there making money by selling stars, yes the stars that are thousand and millions of light years away! If you pay a two-digit dollar amount, a star in the heavens is named after you. You are sent a paper certificate declaring that a star, say, located on the corner of Pegasus Galaxy, belongs to you. Sure, another company can sell the same star to another name, or even any person can name a star after their names. Since obsession with possession is the most popular pastime, thousands of bored, spoiled and aimless Americans already paid real dollars to the owners of stars in the high heaven. Before buying stars in the heavens, what about starting an investment plan from the graveyard? Forever Enterprises, based in St. Louis, is outfitting cemeteries with "digital biographies" of the dead; small video monitors housed in dark wood kiosks. Already the competitor, Leif Technologies in Ohio, sells grave markers, cremation urns, and bronze plaques that come equipped with personal memorials called Viewlogies that cost between two thousand and five thousand dollars. The Viewlogies can be downloaded to a laptop computer. You might find investing in graveyards too morbid. If you have money, you cannot worry about spending it in America. Another company is selling something that I have abstained all my life from uttering or writing. Well, it seems that this time I have to break my puritan rule. Yes, the company is selling shit. More precisely, the so-popular "bullshit," as a gift item! Don't get me wrong, the company is not selling abstract insults or labels, but real bullshit. One day I saw a semi-spherical glass dome with a brown substance in it on my office desk. There was nothing to inform me about the identity of my fan, my friend, or my future wife. I did not recognize the nature of the gift either. It looked like an expensive gift. Wondering how to solve the mystery of this substance, finally I noticed a label in the bottom of the flat glass dome: 100% Natural Texas Bullshit. Wow! Later I learned that it was the "gift" of one of my colleagues who was consumed by pathological jealousy. Obviously, there was a market for shit, perhaps the most frequently word rolling in the mouth of many Americans. Their mouths smell! Who could fathom that urine would be a commodity sold on the Internet? Drug testing in high schools has recently created a urine retailing business for American entrepreneurs. Students who are worried about positive test results now can purchase prescreened urine from online purveyors. Radar-detectors, broadcasting decoders, computer programs promising to find loopholes in tax code, etc. are unique to America. The hide-and-seek game between cat and mouse has created multi-million dollar business opportunities for those who manufacture and market products designed to defy the law, which reminds me one of the most clever examples of defying legal codes. During Prohibition 500,000 were convicted of alcohol-related activities and paid $75 million in fines. Some companies found enterprising ways to skirt the law. Tom Lane, who celebrated his 101st birth day shared the following story: "You could get a cask of [pre-fermented juice] from California, and it came with a little leaflet that said something like, ‘Do not put a hose into the cask, and let it stand for one month or it will turn into wine and that is against the law.’ They told you just how to make it!" What about toys? This multi-billion dollar business is very successful in draining our wallets by using our children against us. The TV, which occupies the prime corner in our living rooms, is filled with strangers who use every trick possible to sell another new toy to our children. When I was a child in a rural eastern town of Turkey, I did not have a single plastic toy until I was seven years old. I was happy sitting for hours on volcanic rocks and pretending that they were trucks. When it was summer season, I was content by dragging the string of a cart cut from thick watermelon skin, its wheels connected with sticks. My first plastic toy was a little cat that would move and flip with its tail after it was wound up. I savored it for years. Now, my children's room is filled with plastic toys, and despite our occasional giveaways, they overwhelm us: they are all over the floor. Ironically, the life span of a plastic toy for my son is one or two days, rarely more than a week. By losing their attraction in the minds of my children, they die in their own way. My two sons’ bedroom is a graveyard of plastic toys, such as, bales of Ninja-turtles, crashes of rhinoceroses, prides of lions, troops of monkeys, clones of supermen, batmen, morphs of power-rangers, transformers of beasts, crazes of pocheman, discs of play station 2, and tomorrow God knows what! Isn't it time for parents to declare war against toy makers, toy stores and toy commercials? American people differ from many other people. Abundance, freedom, diversity
of cultures, and genetic eccentricity of immigrants, have helped in the
proliferation of a myriad of social activities. There are thousands of
organizations all around America; some are altruistic and necessary; however,
others are hedonistic and trivial. A book, "Organized Obsessions," lists
and provides detailed information about over a thousand "offbeat" associations,
fan clubs, and microsocieties in America. Surely, with the Internet, the
number of such organizations have skyrocketed. Let me give you a few examples
of organizations that millions of Americans spend their time and money
on. The following organizations, have hundreds or thousands of members.
They publish newsletters, and organize periodical events and conferences:
* Absurd Special Interest Group (ASIG): Mensa's intelligent members interested in absurd humor! It must be boring to be intelligent all the time.The list of off-beat organizations can take an entire book. (Considered all together, in fact, they are in-beat organizations). Nevertheless, this I believe, is sufficient to give you an idea about the American tail. I love America! The hairy tail of America grows everyday, and as an American I am expected to add a strand of my own hair. Who knows, after this book, my bored, spoiled and aimless American fellows will create organizations, such as, Fantastic Yuksel International (FYI), or Associated Protesters of Oppressive Statutes, Totalitarian Authorities, and Theocratic Ecclesiastics (APOSTATE). To make sure my fans will stay busy until they die, I will create "Yuksel's Last Theorems" on various issues before I die. Here are a sample: Yuksel's Last Theorem on pi is: There are only 2698 of slices of 2698
in pi.
When I visited Istanbul in 1996, after living in America for seven years and after being rejected by my family for about ten years, I went to my family's home to visit. When I arrived, I found my father seated at his battered desk in the living room, huddled over a huge, Arabic religious book. (One which I believed to be a prime cause of backwardness and dissonance in Muslim countries.) My father was now 77 years old and his eyes were failing. Seeing him so aged and afflicted filled my heart with sorrow. It was important to me that I see my father and re-establish my relationship with him in the best way that I could. To me, my father was a brave man, my hero, even though it had been his public criticism of me as a heretic that had accelerated the process of my excommunication, jeopardizing my freedom and my life ten years before. His first published criticism of my book had been unforgiving, yet I knew that he loved me. In my published answer to his criticism, though I had strongly and conclusively rebutted his arguments, I never failed to show respect for him. Now, standing in the doorway of that room so familiar from my childhood, I was apprehensive over what was to come. In my father's eyes, I had become a betraying son, an apostate, a stranger, an American. Though I could not accept his attempts to impose his religious beliefs upon me, I understood the reasons for his feelings, which, oddly, validated them. As much as I wanted to please him, I could not ignore the religious and political differences that stood between us like glass Himalayas. It was at once both humorous and tragic for me to see him hold a magnifying glass in one hand and a flashlight in the other, in the middle of the day, as he struggled to read the great volume before him. His physical deterioration was made all the more apparent by the fact that the living room remained virtually unchanged since I had been in it last some fourteen years before. In the old days, when I had been my father's disciple and followed the same teachings in that book, I had been responsible for much of his home's maintenance and the making of improvements to it. His desk, the chairs, the rotary phone, the bookshelves I’d built that once held my books and now held my brother Nedim's, all remained just as they had been. I wanted to mount a light and magnifying glass to the desk, thereby freeing my father’s hands. As much as I saw these furnishings as old and in need of improvement, I knew I would not be able to persuade my father to accept any offer of help now. I knew that, short of renouncing my views in front of him, any gesture I might make to bridge the chasm between us would be unacceptable. I approached my father and took his right hand in mine, holding it. As the traditional sign of respect one shows to one's father, I tried to kiss it, but before I could, he withdrew it from me. He was an honorable man, intellectually arrogant, but, at the same time, modest. For this reason, he would not permit his followers to kiss his hand and had always been critical of other religious leaders who routinely stretched out their hands to be kissed. He was to treat me the same way, despite our familial relationship and the years that had passed without contact between us. My mother had made my favorite dish: stuffed eggplant and meat rissole. She invited me and my wife to the middle room. As we sat down, I remembered how my father always complained of her adding too much salt to the food. He was right. My mother would fill her palm with salt and throw it into the food without measuring or reflecting on its volume. She had never changed that habit. She also put too much butter into the food. That day, although the food was salty and fatty, it was delicious. My wife, an Iranian-American nutritionist, and I both happily enjoyed a feast. The room we were dining in was the room where I used to sleep, just next to a balcony window that looked into the neighbor's backyard. On the wall I noticed one of my paintings: a huge sunflower on a black background. I’d painted it during the last year of my prison term. The bowed canvas was hanging perilously from the old frame. I was touched to see that, though I had betrayed the religion of my family, and they had rejected me for it, they retained a few reminders of me. The sunflower was a vestige of my prison years, of my family's support, my sister's weekly visitation. It had been a symbol of hope in my dark moments. For a moment, I wanted to take the withering, lonely sunflower somewhere and repair it. But my emotions stopped me; I did not want to cry there. I did not want to remind them of the old days. I knew that fixing that sunflower would not repair the branches of our broken family tree. After lunch, my father joined us and settled onto the bed by the door. He greeted my wife in a brief, official manner. We were seated on the floor, our legs folded under us like pretzels. I glanced up at my father, then over at my wife, grateful she had graciously agreed to cover her head out of respect for my parents' religious beliefs. My father was clearly nervous, and I knew what he was going to do. Looking at me with weary eyes, he began to ask me questions in a solemn tone. I was being interrogated. -- Do you believe in God?
I wanted so much to please him, but I could not lie. I was his son, and he had once thought me to be honest and brave. I had not twisted my words through semantic games or apologized in Martial Courts to save myself from years of prison. I did not restrain my words when I discovered problems in my religion. I did not lie to my readers in order to maintain my popularity as an author and youth leader. I did not abandon my new paradigm, despite receiving death threats. I would not lie now either. My father’s head drooped as he spoke to me in a downhearted voice. "You are still in disbelief." Then he rose from the bed and walked out of the room. I think he was not so much concerned about the image of our family or the political difficulties my defection from the ranks had caused. Rather, his sole worry was to secure a complete family reunion in heaven. He wanted to make sure that I, his oldest son, would gather with the rest of the family in heaven, the place of eternal peace. I could see that my mother, who always blindly followed my father, was disappointed and hurt. She had hoped I would repent, that my father would forgive me. Peace within the family was her dream, but this was not to be. She began reminding me of our shared memories, of her love and my help with household chores. In those days I would help her wash the laundry, clean the house, fix things, take her to the park at night. She told me how she and my father had keep me in their thoughts during all of the years I had been in prison and mandatory military service, how they feared for my life after I had been declared an apostate. She then complained about her health and mentioned her relatives who had died in recent years. She was still far away from her relatives, but I was further away still, from all of them. To change the subject, I asked her about my older sister. My older sister, Surayya, had severed her relationship with me in 1986, the year I rejected the orthodox form of Islam. She had visited me and written letters every week during the years of my imprisonment between 1980-1983. We had then been very close to each other. Now, I wished to see her, but she rejected me. Two years older than myself, she remained unmarried. Surayya was brilliant, perhaps a genius. The oppressive and discriminatory Turkish legal system would not allow her to attend classes wearing headscarves, thereby forcing her to get her high school diploma through graduation exams similar to the American GED. During the semester she took exams, wearing headscarves was banned even for those who attended the graduation exams. This caused a lot of trouble for us. My father found a family friend, superintendent in a rural high school, who ignored the law. Surayya later got high grades in the university entrance exams and registered in the College of Science at the University of Istanbul. She was going to study Astronomy. Unfortunately, she was not allowed to enter her classes. Somehow, she took and passed the final exams and finished two years, earning an associate degree. Still, she never received her diploma, since the administration required a photo with no headscarf . The advocates of Turkish secular policy have had a bizarre obsession with women's hair. (An ironical similarity with Muslim clergy!). The Turkish secular oligarchy was paranoid about the revival of Islam, so they had developed irrational phobic reactions against some religious symbols and words. They wanted to see women's hair! Starting in the early 1970s, banning headscarves in schools became one of the most divisive social and political issues in the country. All universities, public or private, including the theology colleges, were forced to ban headscarves, as if covering hair would cause the loss of intelligence and knowledge in a woman’s head! The Turkish elite has developed a concept of progress that is comical. In order to catch up with Western Civilization, they are fanatically obsessed with Western attire, fashion, life style and the culture of consumerism. They think that somehow the country will rise in the ranks of Western Civilization if only women will display their bodies and men drink alcoholic beverages at parties. The other imperative for progress was to erect the statutes and busts of Ataturk in every public corner, and hang his picture on every public wall. Therefore, the state controlled media fervently promoted nudity, consumption of alcohol, and Ataturk-worship. Nude pictures gained a designated corner on the front pages of daily newspapers and on the cover of news magazines. Beer commercials became ubiquitous. Factories worked around the clock to produce more and more statutes of the founder of the modern Turkish republic. These westward-looking monkeys, backed by the politicized military, turned the country into a big prison for ethnic minorities and religious segments of the population; meanwhile, they exploited and plundered its resources mercilessly. Fighting against the repressive and meaningless laws of our country made activists out many of us. We became polarized and radicalized. The government’s paranoid policy was self-fulfilling. Indeed, this and similar repressive and bigoted laws turned millions of normal citizens into radical Islamists. The more the rulers insisted on banning the headscarf, the more the number of women wearing it multiplied. Consequently, my sister had joined a women's group advocating Islamic revolution in Turkey. She started writing articles in magazines, participating in meetings and demonstrations. Ironically, the veil, a symbol of oppression of women in Iran, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, became the symbol of women's rights and freedom in Turkey. In many so-called Muslim countries, women are forced by men to wear a veil, while in Turkey, women are forced by men not to wear a veil. In either case, it is women who suffer. Exclusively male leaders of conservative political parties who exploited religion and degraded women suddenly became ardent defenders of women's rights. Well, only one right, the right to wear headscarves. The controversy also provided identity and a cause for Muslim or traditional women. They were no longer imprisoned in their homes; they were in the headlines, they were organizing campaigns, writing articles, interviewing and meeting politicians. Interestingly, this political struggle provided more justification for the paranoid, headscarf-phobic, secular elite; the headscarf was now a political symbol of radical Muslims and so ought to be banned from public life. Ironically, politicians who wanted to use women with traditional values as tools for their political agenda soon were compelled by their wives and daughters to create women's committees and listen to their other needs. Almost three decades after the headscarf battle began, the powerful religious party had no option but to list a few women candidates in elections. Though the majority of Turkish women cover their heads more or less, until 2000, they were not seen in the Turkish National Congress. In the year 2000, for the first time in Turkish history, a woman wearing a headscarf was elected to the Turkish National Congress. The day she entered the Congress, the majority of congress, mostly men, protested against her. When she tried to take the oath, the headscarf-phobic male representatives from rival parties, which comprised the majority of Congress, threw a fit. They tapped and rapped their desks, screamed and cursed, charged and blocked her way. The prime minister made an angry and threatening speech, denouncing her for entering the National Congress wearing a headscarf. Her party, the Fazilet Party, was fearful of being banned again by the ruling group of military, business, and media leaders, so she did not receive much support from them. Thus, the first representative of the majority of Turkish woman was kicked out of the Congress by the secular male representatives on her first day in office. This is the world my sister had grown up in. I remember some well-educated men offering marriage to her through my father, but she refused to marry. She was too loyal to a biologist friend who was stigmatized for her lame leg. She had decided not to marry until her girlfriend was married. I later heard that she counter-offered the men by asking them to marry both of them, but none accepted her offer. Her friend, I learned later, got married. However, my older sister is still single. Now over forty, she will probably never marry. My other two sisters, Ayshagul and Aynur, did not experience the political oppression my older sister did. Surprisingly, they did not even want to continue their education after elementary school. They were obsessed with mirrors and fashion, as opposed to Surayya, who was obsessed with books and political activities. Our apartment was on the third floor, with a little balcony looking onto a narrow street. My younger sisters, bored with their lives, were spending too many hours there. My father was strict, but uninterested in, or perhaps ignorant of, their adolescent problems. My mother was concerned, but unable to offer any solution. While I was in America, I learned that both of them ran away to join the kids in the neighborhood, both on the same day. Aynur was ??? years old, and Ayshagul was ???! This was a double shame for our family, especially for my father, who was respected by millions of people as a religious scholar. Many professional men, educated and wealthy, would have liked to marry my father's young and beautiful daughters, but did not have the courage to express such a wish. Lonely, my sisters would not stay in a boring life. They suffered under the strict rules of my father. One escaped to wed a barber, the other, a rosary-maker who later became a taxi driver. Neither was wealthy nor educated. In addition, neither was religious nor political. Knowing the condition of my family, I never blamed my young sisters for their act. They preferred the street to a home-prison ruled by unrealistic ideals and outdated man-made religious rules. Unfortunately, after having several children, both of my sisters are doomed to unhappy lives. Not being able to help them and their children has been very difficult for me. In 1997, a year after the visit made with my wife, I again traveled to Turkey, this time for a brief business trip. On this occasion, I visited my parents for a short time. I really didn’t want to, since the previous trip had been a painful experience. However, I felt a sense of duty. My two younger sisters and my mother greeted me eagerly. My brother Mufit, who is two years younger than Nedim, was there too. When I noticed him in the kitchen, I advanced to greet him, but he did not respond. Mufit had received a master degree in sociology from Middle East Technical University in Ankara. Although he was considered a great researcher, he was introverted and under the influence of Nedim, his older brother. He was not as religious and other worldly as Nedim, but he shared the same religious faith. Never considering himself knowledgeable enough to discuss religious issues with me, he developed psychoanalytic and sociological explanations for my rejection of the family form of religion. These provided sufficient reasons for him to criticize and blame me. (See: Letters/Turkish/Kitap/Mufit) As for my brother Nedim, I was avoiding him. Not because I didn’t want to talk to him, but because he was always aggressive and abusive. He was very smart and had graduated from one of the best universities in Turkey. He studied theoretical physics, but never worked in the field. Rather, he spent most of his time reading religious books, especially those of mystics and sufies. He was not cut out to be the follower of an ordinary sufi leader. Too smart and knowledgeable for that, he could easily have become the leader of a crowded religious order, but he preferred to live like a homeless person. He would wear layers and layers of clothes and a long overcoat, even in the heat of summer. He grew a long, wild beard and cut his hair short. He would also follow his religious grooming instructions and shorten his moustache. To me and many others, he was simply making himself as ugly as possible. Perhaps the root of my brother's troubles began with my mother. If there is one person I do not forgive in my family, it would be my mother. I remember clearly her negative remarks about Nedim's physical appearance when he was a young boy. She would praise the physical beauty of the rest of us and complain about Nedim's "ugliness," even in his presence. He would not protest nor express his sorrow, but I could tell from his face and demeanor that he was extremely hurt. My mother was illiterate and ignorant, coming from an environment where uneducated, "noble" women were imprisoned at home by their men, leaving them nothing to do but brag about their beauty! In our teenage years, while Matine and I played together, secretly went to movies and read comic books, Nedim and Mufit were going to the Fatih mosque. Nedim never played soccer and rarely went to theaters or read comic books. Usually alone, occasionally with Mufit, he went from one mosque to another. During my teenage years, I remember Nedim tormenting Matine and me. He would spy on us or tell lies to my father about us. Occasionally, he used Mufit to get us into trouble. Most of the time, he would succeed: my father would scold and punish Matine and me. In later years, his opposition did not change. When Matine and I got involved in the political youth movement, Nedim was against our political activities. While he was in middle school, Nedim became the prey of old sufi men, spending almost all day in a corner of the Fatih mosque, hidden away like a spider. Sufism fit Nedim perfectly. It provided him with the religious justification to be reclusive and to groom and dress in an unattractive manner. Matine and I would have many friends, while Nedim would have only one or two. His relationship with his friends in high-school and college, however, was too close, according to my standards. He would wrestle with them like a cat, give them all his pocket money, etc. Nedim has never married. Knowing his personality and religious convictions I assume he is still a virgin. Until recently, he had not held a job and lived with my parents. Interestingly, several years ago he was hired by the mayor of Istanbul, my classmate and former comrade, as a consultant to help solve disagreements among people! Though I think he could be considered handsome, my brother was acting like a 50 year-old religious peasant, as if he was trying to prove what his mother thought of him years ago. (See: physical beauty). He was four years younger than me, yet now appeared to be ten years older. Strangers seeing him walking down the street, eyes fixed to his feet, would never imagine that he was a college graduate and a highly intelligent man. His emotional development stood in stark contrast to his intellectual development; the first being small as a cat, while the latter, big as a whale. During my previous visit, Nedim had physically assaulted me. I was in my youngest sister's house, together with two of my sisters, their children and husbands. They knew that Nedim would create problems if he knew I was there. Nedim would rush to the house for two reasons: to lecture me and to save his relatives from becoming apostates like me! Somehow, each passing year increased his hatred towards me. He was begging to be my archenemy. Since my two sisters were living on the same street, just across from my parents, Nedim quickly learned of my whereabouts and forced his way into my sister's apartment. He was allowed to stay after promising my brother-in-laws that he would behave. He came in and wanted to engage in a debate on religion. I told him that I would not, since in the past he could never conduct a decent debate. He promised that he would be calm and fair. He started talking and asking me questions. It did not take too long before he became angry. He leapt at me and attempted to bite me, holding my arm with all his strength. I was not afraid of him, since I had much more strength than him. I never used excessive force in my self-defense, but I feared that I could lose control during the struggle and hurt him. He then cried so loudly that people on the street stopped and looked at our window. Nedim was a college graduate, a very smart man, a spiritual mystic, a modest man, an extremely generous and charitable individual, and, of course, my biological brother. Being attacked and bitten by such a person was embarrassing and painful beyond the tactile sense. I had come from America, and here my brother, who should normally be my happy host, was acting like a lunatic and my enemy. The sight of me, even the sound of my name, would transform Nedim, one of the most gentle and humble persons, into a belligerent and crazy man. He would simply lose his mind, his control, his humanity. To my brother, being an apostate was the worst thing that could happen to anyone. An apostate was scarier than an Indian cobra or black mamba. And in my brother's mind, to be the brother of an apostate was the worst thing which could happen to him. During this second visit, he was unfortunately present in my parents' home. He immediately started yelling at me, insulting, cursing and condemning me. My poor father tried to protect me by waving his arm and ordering Nedim to leave the room. Though my father was very old, our respect never diminished towards him. Nedim, biting his fingers from anger, moved away a few yards, hovering in the hallway like a border collie who has been prevented from attacking a burglar. My father had changed since the previous year, seeming older and more exhausted. Privately, my mother told me that he was losing his memory. He was saying that Matine, my assassinated brother, was alive somewhere in Afghanistan, and he was going to return one day. My mother too had, somehow, come to believe this delusion and was asking me whether I had heard this news. Since it was not a religious matter and would not hurt anyone, I did not hesitate to give her the impression that I believed her story. I said, "Inshallah, we will see him soon." I was happy that my parents had created such a hope for themselves. It reminded me of the returning stories of beloved leaders, such as the 12th Emam (Mahdi) or Jesus. After eating the meal my mother had cooked, again, it was interrogation time. My father sat once more on the bed next to the door and asked the questions. My mother was carefully listening, appearing to be between feelings of fear and hope: -- Do you believe in God?
After a short pause he continued: -- Do you believe in the Quran?
He then stopped in confusion and looked at the ceiling, as if he were trying to remember something. Then, he said: -- I do not know why people think you are an apostate, an infidel. It seems that you are a believer. I noticed Nedim's head peeking through the half-open door. I had not been aware of it, but he was listening to our conversation from behind the door. Filled with anger, he yelled at my father: -- He is lying! He is fooling you! He does not believe in the Hadith and Sunnah! My father did not want to listen to him, and ordered him to leave us alone. Nedim, deep into a temper tantrum, was accusing me of lying and was casting me into hell. He was wrong. My answers were correct. I never lied and would never lie regarding my religious beliefs to please anyone, including my father. Unlike during my previous visit, this time my father had forgotten to ask me questions on the divisive issues, such as my position on Hadith, Sunnah and Sectarian Jurisprudence. My answers were therefore satisfactory, and thus he considered me as a believer. My mother, who was holding her breath, looking at my father's lips and waiting for good news, suddenly erupted with emotion. She raised both hands to the sky, thanking God for guiding her son to the right path. She promised to sacrifice a lamb and distribute its meat to the neighbors in gratitude for what God had permitted her to witness this day. She was indeed justified for this emotional reaction. They had years ago, on the 23rd of February 1979, suddenly lost one of their sons, Matine, to the bullets of a racist gang. Then, they had lost me numerous times. After my brother's assassination and before the military coup of September 12, 1980, they had lost me eleven times, ranging from one week to two month periods, as a political activist and to the police stations and jails. Starting on September 12, 1980, for three and a half years, as a prisoner, to the military of the Turkish government. In 1985, for one and half years, as a "dangerous foot-soldier," again to the military of the same regime. On December 3, 1986, for four months, again as a prisoner. Then, they lost me again in 1986 as an apostate, won over, as they saw it, by the propaganda of an American heretic. This was the longest and most difficult loss, both in the physical and the spiritual sense. Now, in 1997, I was finally back Both my mother and father were so happy. So was I!
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