The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) recently declared Mehmet Görmez, the head of Turkey’s Presidency of Religious Affairs – the “Diyanet” as it is often referred to – an apostate. The Diyanet is in charge of Turkey’s nation-wide network of mosques, making this an attack on mainstream Sunni Islam in Turkey. The third issue of ISIL’s Turkish-language magazine argued that the Diyanet was Turkey’s tool of “adjusting the religion of Islam to the new religion of secularism.” The article featured photos of Görmez with the Pope and the Bishop of the Eastern Orthodox Church, as well as photos of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the secularizing leader of modern Turkey, all of which, to ISIL, is akin to shaking hands with the devil. “The mosques of Diyanet are these people’s schools of jahiliya [the time of ignorance before the prophet],” the article says, “and its teachers are the regime’s imams who have sold their religion for a pittance.”
ISIL has never been shy about expressing its opinions about Turkey’s government, but it did not start this particular fight. The Diyanet did.
| Interesting read for a Saturday about the religious tensions in Turkey, and how this means that the Turks oppose ISIL and yet yearn at the same time to wear the curly-toed slippers. |
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