Islam Online, UK
Feb 4 2005
Religious Education to Counter Proselytizing in Turkey
Shenar said he had been ordered as a proselytizer to intensify
missionary work targeting members of the sects of Alawiyyin, in
addition to Kurds.
By Sa’ad Abdul Majid, IOL Correspondent
ISTANBUL, February 4 (IslamOnline.net) – A Turkish academician urged
boosting religious education and launching an effective awareness
campaign to counter Christian mission work in the
predominantly-Muslim country.
The appeal followed revelations by a proselytizer who reverted back
to Islam that missionaries attempt to sow a sectarian strife in
Turkey by Christianizing a large number of its citizens.
Turks have to build on more proposals for combating Christianization
in the country, Hedayet Aydar, a professor of religious studies at
Istanbul University, told IslamOInline.net Friday, February 4.
Aydar proposed earmarking more teaching hours to religion lessons in
primary schools, and encouraging students to join imam and preacher
schools or universities of religious studies along with upgrading
their standards.
Awareness Campaign
Aydar also pressed the need for an awareness campaign to raise alarm
bells on the wide Christian missionary activities in the country and
ways they use to lure more converts in.
He underlined the media has to join the fray by dedicating programs
and articles to missionary activities and how best to combat them.
There is a need to give the true image of Islam and change
misconceptions on the religion, often touted by those calling
themselves secularists in Turkey, the prominent academician said.
`People under that category are most vulnerable to proselytizing
since they either have no religious culture or share mistaken
concepts on Islam.’
The Turkish army has said in a recent report that protestant missions
plan to proselytize some 10 per cent of Turkey’s 70 million
population by 2020.
The report, titled `Proselytizing Activities in Turkey and the
World’, said missionaries are trying to fill the `spiritual void’
left by the youths’ ignorance about the basic tenets and rituals of
Islam.
Political Targets
Meanwhile, a former 37-year-old proselytizer, who reverted back to
Islam two weeks ago after converting 20 years ago, warned against
politically-motivated plans by proselytizers.
Elgar Shenar said he had been ordered as a proselytizer to intensify
missionary work targeting members of the sects of Alawiyyin and
Kurds.
Alawiyyin are originally a sect of the Shi`ah called `Nusayriyyah’.
The Nusayriyyah is a movement that emerged in the third century after
Hijrah. They claim that Ali (may Allah be pleased with him) is
God-incarnated.
Shenar said he was dumfounded to find the Christianization in Turkey
is no more than a political work meant to sow unrest and divisions in
the community, citing that as the main reason for his return to
Islam.
The revelation echoed the Turkish army’s report that said the
proselytizers are seeking to pit the Sunnis against the Alawiyyin or
the opposite to preach about the Christian faith.
Commanding a wide media attention, the former proselytizer regretted
that thousands of Muslims, especially young men, had been
Christianized by missionaries in areas densely populated by Turks of
Arab or Kurdish descent.
He accused the US Defense Department of standing behind the
missionary work in Turkey. He further claimed that he `knew his
reverting back to Islam was reported to the Pentagon’.
Long-run Style
Shenar said International Protest Church, for which he was appointed
as a priest and proselytizer, exploit huge financial, social,
economic and psychological potentials to draw green youths to
Christianity.
Proselytizing mainly focuses on poor areas in central and eastern
Turkey, also exploiting the country’s keen interest to be a member of
the 25-member predominantly-Christian European Union.
A report presented to the Turkish government in 2004 said Christian
missionaries were sent to areas hit by the 1999 shuddering earthquake
that left hundreds dead and many others displaced.
Shenar is a member of a Turkish Muslim family before converting while
he was 17 years old at the hands of a teacher also working as
proselytizer.
He remembered how the teacher approached him for conversion. The
teacher helped Shenar in his studies before his Christianization in
1987.
After the conversion, Shenar was taken for studying theology for nine
years in the Bible Academy.
The Turkish army report said that 15,000 Turks have been converted to
Christianity, and other sects like Baha’iyyah over the past few
years.
No law explicitly prohibits proselytizing or religious conversions in
Turkey. But many officials regard proselytizing and religious
activism with suspicion, especially when such activities are deemed
to have political overtones.
Approximately 99 percent of Turkey’s population is Muslim, the
majority of whom is Sunni.
In addition to the country’s Sunni Muslim majority, there are an
estimated 5 to 12 million Alawiyyin, according to the US State
Department.
There are several other religious groups, mostly concentrated in
Istanbul and other large cities, including an estimated 65,000
Armenian Orthodox Christians, 25,000 Jews, and 3,000 to 5,000 Greek
Orthodox Christians.
The army report put at 69 the number of unofficial churches and
places of worship related to other communities, including 47 churches
for the Protestants, nine for the Baha’is and 13 for Jehovah’s
Witnesses sect.
Turkish fears are echoed by many in neighboring Iraq and
Turkoman-populated areas on the joint borders.
British reports revealed in December 2003 that US missionaries,
mainly evangelicals, were pouring into the predominantly Muslim Iraq
, shrouded in secrecy and under the cover of humanitarian aid.