Adnan Oktar

Adnan Oktar
Born	Adnan Oktar 1956 Ankara, Turkey
Other names	Harun Yahya, Adnan Hoca
Occupation	Author
Known for	Advocate of Creationism
Website	www.harunyahya.com

Adnan Oktar a.k.a Adnan Hoca (born Ankara, 1956), also known by his pen name Harun Yahya, is a prominent advocate of Islamic creationism in the creation-evolution debate. He is considered by some to be the leading Muslim advocate of creationism. He subscribes to Old Earth creationism. He is against Zionism and Freemasonry and sees them as very interrelated movements, though he denounces anti-Semitism and terrorism, which he says is a product of Darwinism, not religious fanaticism.

Adnan Oktar founded the Science Research Foundation (SRF, or BAV in Turkish), whose objective is "to [establish]...peace, tranquility and love," though the BAV is described in the media as "a secretive Islamic sect" or a "cult-like organization, that jealously guards the secrets of its considerable wealth." In 2008 he was sentenced by a Turkish court to three years in prison for "creating an illegal organization for personal gain."

Oktar had defended his views by litigation; he is responsible for the blocking of numerous, high-profile Web sites.

Biography

Born in Ankara, Turkey in 1956, Adnan Oktar lived there through his high-school years. In 1979, he moved to Istanbul to attend an interior-design course at Mimar Sinan University but left before graduation.

In the early 1980s, he gathered young students around him to share his views of Islam. According to his former mentor, Edip Yüksel, Oktar was attempting to "[mix] mysticism with scientific rhetoric". These students belonged to socially-active and prosperous families of Istanbul. From 1982 to 1984, a group of 20 to 30 was formed.

In 1986, Adnan Oktar published the book, Judaism and Freemasonry. The book suggests that the principal mission of Jews and Freemasons in Turkey was to erode the spiritual, religious, and moral values of the Turkish people and, thus, make them like animals, as stated in what Oktar refers to as the "Distorted Torah." Oktar asserts that "the materialist standpoint, evolution theory, anti-religious and immoral lifestyles were indoctrinated to the society as a whole" by Jews and Freemasons.

Following the publication of Judaism and Freemasonry, Adnan Oktar was arrested and imprisoned. He was transferred to Bakırköy Mental Hospital and placed under observation. According to his official biography he was released after 19 months. In a 2007 interview on Al Jazeera, he blamed Freemasons saying it was a "message" for him not to write about them anymore.

In 1990, he founded the Scientific Research Foundation (SRF, or, in Turkish, Bilim Araştırma Vakfı, or BAV), through which he still effectively functions. Members of the SRF are sometimes referred to as Adnan Hocacılar ("Adherents of Adnan the Hodja") by the public. Then in 1995, he founded Millî Değerleri Koruma Vakfı (Foundation for Protection of National Values), through which he networks with other traditional Islamist and nationalist organizations and individuals.

Antisemitism

In 1996, the SRF distributed a book which was originally published the previous year, entitled Soykırım Yalanı ("The Holocaust Lie"). The publication of Soykırım Yalanı sparked much public debate. This book claims that “what is presented as Holocaust is the death of some Jews due to the typhus plague during the war and the famine towards the end of the war caused by the defeat of the Germans.” In March 1996, a Turkish painter and intellectual, Bedri Baykam, published a strongly-worded critique of the book in the Ankara daily newspaper Siyah-Beyaz ("Black and White"). A legal suit for slander was brought against him. During the trial in September, Baykam exposed the real author of the book as Adnan Oktar. The suit was withdrawn in March 1997.

In 2004, the Stephen Roth Institute, of Tel-Aviv University, expressed the opinion that Adnan Oktar had increased his tolerance toward others, asserting that "he now works towards promoting inter-religious dialogue".

Oktar nowadays states that anti-Semitism has pagan and Darwinist roots. Although he believes that the Old Testament "has been altered by individuals for the sake of all kinds of gain", he publicly calls upon all Muslims to have "a tolerant and friendly attitude toward other religions".

Campaign against evolution

In early 1998, Adnan Oktar and the SRF launched a campaign against Darwinism. Thousands of free copies of Adnan Oktar's book, The Evolution Deceit, and the booklets based on this book were distributed throughout Turkey.

The SRF also spearheaded an effort to attack Turkish academics who taught evolutionary theory. A number of faculty members were harassed, threatened and slandered in fliers that labeled them "Maoists" for teaching evolution. In 1999, six of the professors won a civil court case against the SRF for defamation and were each awarded a large sum of money.

In 2005, Professor Ümit Sayın summed up the effect of the SRF's campaign when he said to The Pitch:

In 1998, I was able to motivate six members of the Turkish Academy of Sciences to speak out against the creationist movement. Today, it's impossible to motivate anyone. They're afraid they'll be attacked by the radical Islamists and the BAV.

In September 2008 Oktar issued a challenge offering "10 trillion Turkish lira to anyone who produces a single intermediate-form fossil demonstrating evolution". Biologist PZ Myers responded: "The US government should immediately send a plane to pick up Mr Oktar, bring him to our country, and take him on a guided tour of the Smithsonian and the American Museum of Natural History, accompanied by Niles Eldredge, Kevin Padian, Jerry Coyne, Sean Carroll, and the entire scientific staff of those museums. Afterwards, they can accept the check from Mr Oktar, run down to the local bank and cash it, and use one trillion dollars to resolve the current financial crisis, seven trillion can be sunk immediately into the American educational system, and they can send the change left over to me as a reward for coming up with this brilliant plan." Oktar's offer is similar to creationist Kent Hovind's $250,000 offer, which has been dismissed by creationists and scientists as a misleading gimmick where those who applied for the challenge have questioned his sincerity about paying and understanding of evolution.

Writings

One of the books written under the name Harun Yahya

Oktar has written numerous books under the name Harun Yahya (Harun (Aaron) and Yahya (John)), arguing against evolution. He also asserts that evolution is directly related to the claimed evils of materialism, Nazism, communism, and Buddhism. Most of his anti-evolution resources are identical to Christian creationist arguments.

He also has produced various works on Zionism and Freemasonry, accusing Zionists of racism and arguing that Zionism and Freemasonry have had significant negative effects on world history and politics.

Oktar's books on faith-related topics attempt to communicate the existence and oneness of God according to the Islamic faith, and are written with the main purpose of introducing Islam to those who are strangers to religion. Each of his books on science-related topics stresses his views on the might, sublimity, and majesty of God. These books attempt to display for non-Muslims what Oktar claims to be signs of the existence of God, and the excellence of his creation. A sub-group within this series are the series of "Books Demolishing the Lie of Evolution", a critique of the ideas of Materialism, Evolution, Darwinism, and atheism.

Many of Oktar's books have been made into high-resolution videos which are freely downloadable on the Internet.

Oktar asserts that Buddhism as being a false religion built upon idolatry and falsehood. He calls Buddhist rituals "meaningless" and "empty". He has also charged that intelligent design is a tool of Satan.

The Atlas of Creation

His latest publication, The Atlas of Creation, was published by Global Publishing, Istanbul, Turkey in October 2006. The book contains over 800 glossy pages and weighs 12 pounds (5.4 kg). Tens of thousands of copies of the book have been delivered, on an unsolicited basis, to schools, prominent researchers and research institutes throughout Europe and the United States. Some of the schools that received copies were in France as well as prominent researchers at Utrecht University, University of Tilburg, University of California, Brown University, University of Colorado, University of Chicago, Brigham Young University, the University of Connecticut, the University of Georgia, Imperial College London, Abertay University and several others. When the book was sent to French schools and universities, controversy resulted and the book sparked further concern about Islamic radicalism in France. In 2007, Harper's Magazine contributor Scott Horton reported that 35th U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez has Oktar's Atlas of Creation on a stand at the entrance to his US government office.

The arguments used by the book to undermine evolution have been criticized as not logical while evolutionary biologist Kevin Padian has stated that Oktar has no understanding of the basic evidence for evolution. Biologist PZ Myers wrote: "The general pattern of the book is repetitious and predictable: the book shows a picture of a fossil and a photo of a living animal, and declares that they haven't changed a bit, therefore evolution is false. Over and over. It gets old fast, and it's usually wrong (they have changed!) and the photography, while lovely, is entirely stolen."

Richard Dawkins reviewed the book (later translated into Turkish) noting that it contains a number of factual errors, such as the misidentification of a sea snake as an eel (two unrelated species) and in two places uses images of fishing-lures copied from the internet instead of actual species. A number of other modern species are mislabelled. However, Oktar himself claims that Nicholas Sarkozy, Jacques Chirac and Tony Blair were influenced by his book.

Blocking of Internet sites

In April 2007, Oktar filed a libel lawsuit against the owners of ek$i sözlük, a virtual community similar to everything2. The court reviewed the complaint and ordered the service provider to close the site to public access. The site was temporarily suspended so the entry on Oktar could be expunged and locked. Access to another news Web site was also restricted following Oktar's complaint.

In August of the same year, Oktar was able to get a Turkish court to block internet access to WordPress.com to all of Turkey. His lawyers argued that blogs on WordPress.com contained libelous material on Oktar and his colleague which WordPress.com staff was unwilling to remove.

On April 10, 2008, Google Groups was blocked in Turkey following a libel complaint by Adnan Oktar. As of May 5, 2008, the ban remains in effect for TTNet users.

On September 19, 2008, a Turkish court banned Internet users in Turkey from viewing the official Richard Dawkins Web site after Oktar claimed its contents were defamatory, blasphemous and insulting religion, arguing that his personality was violated by this site. In response, Dawkins posted a Turkish translation of his "Venomous Snakes, Slippery Eels and Harun Yahya" article ("Zehirli Yilanlar, Kaygan Yilanbaliklari ve Harun Yahya") on his website. Then one week later a complaint by Oktar led to the banning of the internet site of the Union of Education and Scientific Workers (Türk Eğitim Sen). This was followed by a block of the country's third-biggest newspaper site, Vatan, in October.

Legal issues, arrest, trial, and sentencing

In September 1999 Adnan Oktar was arrested following multiple scandals and further allegations that were fully covered by the Turkish media. In that court case, Oktar was charged with using threats for personal benefit and creating an organization with the intent to commit a crime. One complainant, a fashion model named Ebru Simsek claimed she was blackmailed., and then slandered as a "prostitute" in fax messages sent to hundreds of different newspapers, TV channels, major business companies, foreign consulates and government offices for refusing to have sex with Adnan Oktar. The judicial process lasted over two years, during which most of the complainants' retracted their claims, repportedly because of threats or bribes from SRF members. As a result most of the cases against Oktar and SRF members were dismissed, with only two members receiving jail sentences for 1 year each.

According to the indictment of the prosecutor’s office, cited by the daily Cumhuriyet, Adnan Oktar and associates raped young women many of whom were under the age of 18 on camera and blackmailed them by threatening to release the sex tapes to their friends and family members. Many of these young women were then forced to entice select young men from wealthy families with the promise of sex in exchange for attending events organised by the BAV. The court heard how in turn these girls were formed into a group called of what they referred to as "odalisques" (cariyeler) and were ordered to videotape their sex sessions with these young men and deliver the tapes to Oktar.

Amidst ambiguous circumstances all charges were dropped by that court only to be picked by another court 8 years later. In 2008 Oktar was convicted a variety of crimes including engaging in criminal threats. On May 2008 Oktar and 17 other members of his organisation were sentenced to 3 years in prison. Oktar intends to appeal these charges.

Bibliography

Main article: Adnan Oktar bibliography

Dozens of books have been published under Oktar's name.

External links

• Official Harun Yahya site
• Harun Yahya and Islamic Creationism
• Richard Dawkins on Harun Yahya's Atlas of Creation