Adnan Oktar (born Ankara Ankara is the capital of Turkey and the country's second largest city after Istanbul. The city has a mean elevation of 850 metres , and as of 2007 the city had a population of 3,763,591. Ankara also serves as the capital of Ankara Province, February 2, 1956), also known by his pen name, Harun Yahya, is a Turkish The Turkish people , also known as the "Turks", are a nation and ethnic group native to the Republic of Turkey but also refers to the sizeable Turkish minorities who are still present in the former lands of the Ottoman Turkish Empire[citation needed] (mainly in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Georgia, Greece, Iraq, Kosovo, Macedonia, Romania and Syria) proponent of Islamic creationism Islamic creationism is the belief that the universe was created by God as explained in the Qur'an, anti-Zionism Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism and the State of Israel, and a term which has been used to describe various religious and political points of view, both historically and in current debates which all oppose Zionism and the Jewish state, but their diversity of motivation and expression is different enough that "anti-Zionism" cannot and Holocaust denial Holocaust denial consists of claims that the genocide of Jews during World War II—usually referred to as the Holocaust—did not occur at all, or that it did not happen in the manner or to the extent historically recognized. Key elements of these claims are the rejection of any of the following: that the German Nazi government had a policy of.[1] and, more particularly, supports Old Earth creationism.[2][3] Oktar denounces Zionism Zionism is a nationalist Jewish political movement that, in its broadest sense, calls for the self-determination of the Jewish people and a sovereign, Jewish national homeland. Since the establishment of the State of Israel, the Zionist movement continues primarily to support and advocate on behalf of the Jewish state, and its current existence as racism CDE · CEDAW · CERD · ILO C100 · ILO C111 · ILO C169 · Protocol No. 12 ECHR and Freemasonry Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 in Scotland and Ireland, over a quarter of a million under the Jurisdiction of the United, and Darwinism Darwinism is a set of movements and concepts related to ideas of transmutation of species or evolution, including ideas with no connection to the work of Charles Darwin. The meaning of Darwinism has changed over time, and varies depending on who is using the term. In the United States, Darwinism is often used by creationists as a pejorative term as the source of terrorism Terrorism is the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion. At present, the International community has been unable to formulate a universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition of terrorism. Common definitions of terrorism refer only to those violent acts which are intended to create fear , are perpetrated for a.[4] He has created controversies in the past few years by sending out thousands of unsolicited texts advocating Islam and creationism to schools and colleges in several European countries and USA.[5][3] Oktar had defended his views by litigation; he is responsible for the blocking of numerous, high-profile Web sites in Turkey Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( Türkiye Cumhuriyeti (help·info)), is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in western Asia and Thrace (Rumelia) in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe. Turkey is one of the six independent Turkic states. Turkey is bordered by eight countries: Bulgaria to the.
Oktar runs two organizations: Bilim Araştırma Vakfı ("Science Research Foundation", BAV, established 1990), which promotes creationism and Milli Değerleri Koruma Vakfı ("Foundation to Protect National Values", established 1995), which focuses on "moral issues".[6]
Oktar has spent 19 months in jail for writing provocative and inflammatory articles about Jews and their customs in his book Judaism and Freemasonry and in 2008 he was convicted of creating an illegal organization for personal gain, and he and 17 other members of his organisation were sentenced to three years in prison.
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Biography
Born in Ankara in 1956, Adnan Oktar lived there through his high school years. Oktar started his activities in 1979, while he was trying to finish his Interior Design The interior design process follows a systematic and coordinated methodology, including research, analysis and integration of knowledge into the creative process, whereby the needs and resources of the client are satisfied to produce an interior space that fulfills the project goals-education at Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts. Three years later, he decided to go on with the philosophy department in Istanbul.[7]
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 Mysticism is the pursuit of communion with, identity with, or conscious awareness of an ultimate reality, divinity, spiritual truth, or God through direct experience, intuition, instinct or insight. Mysticism usually centers on a practice or practices intended to nurture those experiences or awareness. Mysticism may be dualistic, maintaining a with scientific rhetoric".[8] These students belonged to socially-active and prosperous families of Istanbul.[9] From 1982 to 1984, a group of 20 to 30 was formed.
Following the publication of Judaism and Freemasonry in 1986, Adnan Oktar was arrested and imprisoned for 19 months.[8] According to the New Humanist, Oktar was arrested, charged with promoting a theocratic revolution for which he served 19 months, though he was never formally charged.[10] In a 2007 interview on Al Jazeera Aljazeera is an international news network headquartered in Doha, Qatar. Initially launched as an Arabic news and current affairs satellite TV channel with the same name, Aljazeera has since expanded into a network with several outlets, including the Internet and specialty TV channels in multiple languages. Aljazeera is accessible in several world, he blamed Freemasons saying it was a "message" for him not to write about them anymore.[11]
Oktar has been diagnosed paranoid schizophrenia Paranoid schizophrenia is a sub-type of schizophrenia as defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM-IV code 295.1 in seven different reports issued by different hospitals from 1983 to 1993.[12]
In 1990, he founded the Scientific Research Foundation (SRF, or, in Turkish, Bilim Araştırma Vakfı, or BAV), through which he still effectively functions. Oktar founded the Science Research Foundation "to [establish]...peace, tranquility and love",[13] though some media describe the BAV as "a secretive Islamic sect"[14] and a "cult-like organization, that jealously guards the secrets of its considerable wealth".[15] Members of the SRF are sometimes referred to as Adnan Hocacılar ("Adherents of Adnan the Hodja") by the public[16]
In 1995, he founded Millî Değerleri Koruma Vakfı (Foundation for Protection of National Values), through which he networks with other traditional Islamist Islamism also Arabic: إسلام سياسي al-Islām al-Siyāsiyy, lit., "Political Islam") is a set of ideologies holding that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system, and that modern Muslims must return to their roots of their religion, and unite politically and nationalist Turkish nationalism is a political ideology that promotes and glorifies the Turkish people, as either a national, ethnic or linguistic group and puts the interests of the state over all others influences, including religious ones organizations and individuals. Adnan built his organizations and by the mid-1990s his "Followers were especially active in the swanky summer resorts along the shore of the Sea of Marmara The Sea of Marmara , also known as the Sea of Marmora or the Marmara Sea, and in the context of classical antiquity as the Propontis (Greek: Προποντίς), is the inland sea that connects the Black Sea to the Aegean Sea, thus separating Turkey's Asian and European parts. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Black Sea and the Dardanelles.[10]
In 2008, Oktar was sentenced by a Turkish court to three years in prison for "creating an illegal organization for personal gain".[17]
Conspiracy theories
Oktar propagates a number of anti-Zionist and anti-Masonic conspiracy theories, beginning with his 1986 Yahudilik ve Masonluk (Judaism and Freemasonry), following the publication of which he was arrested and imprisoned.[8] According to his self-published biography he was released after 19 months.[18] 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."[9][19] Oktar asserts that "the materialist standpoint, evolution Evolution is the change in the inherited traits of a population of organisms through successive generations. This change results from interactions between processes which introduce variation into a population, and other processes which remove it. As a result, variants with particular traits become more, or less, common. A trait is a particular theory, anti-religious Antireligion is opposition to religion. Antireligion is distinct from atheism and antitheism , although antireligionists may be atheists or antitheists. The term may be used to describe opposition to organized religion, or to describe a broader opposition to any form of belief in the supernatural or the divine and immoral lifestyles were indoctrinated to the society as a whole" by Jews and Freemasons.[9]
Oktar's theory of a global conspiracy of Freemasonry is expounded in his book Global Masonluk (English Global Freemasonry) and on his websites masonluk.net and globalfreemasonry.com. According to Otkar, Freemasonry is "the main architect of the world system based on materialist philosophy, but which keeps that true identity concealed." Otkar claims that the theory of evolution Evolution is the change in the inherited traits of a population of organisms through successive generations. After a population splits into smaller groups, these groups evolve independently and may eventually diversify into new species. A nested hierarchy of anatomical and genetic similarities, geographical distribution of similar species and the is a Masonic conspiracy initiated by the Rosicrucians Rosicrucianism is the theology of a secret society of mystics, said to have been founded in late medieval Germany by Christian Rosenkreuz. It holds a doctrine "built on esoteric truths of the ancient past", which, "concealed from the average man, provide insight into nature, the physical universe and the spiritual realm." It is.
In 1996, the BAV distributed a book which was originally published the previous year, entitled Soykırım Yalanı (The Holocaust Lie).[20].[4] The publication of Soykırım Yalanı sparked much public debate.[21] 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."[22] In March 1996, a Turkish painter and intellectual, Bedri Baykam Bedri Baykam is an internationally acclaimed Turkish artist and intellectual. His father Dr. Suphi Baykam was a deputy in the Turkish parliament and his mother Mutahhar Baykam an architect-engineer. He started to paint when he was only two years old, and has had several exhibitions since the age of six in Bern, Geneva, New York, Washington, London,, 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.[21] The suit was withdrawn in March 1997.[23][24]
After 1998, Oktar stopped his attacks on Judaism, promiting "inter-faith dialogue" instead,[25] calling upon all Muslims to have "a tolerant and friendly attitude toward other religions".[26]
His main target now became Darwinism Darwinism is a set of movements and concepts related to ideas of transmutation of species or evolution, including ideas with no connection to the work of Charles Darwin. The meaning of Darwinism has changed over time, and varies depending on who is using the term. In the United States, Darwinism is often used by creationists as a pejorative term and Materialism In philosophy, the theory of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance. As a theory, materialism is a form of physicalism and belongs to the class of monist ontology. As such, it is, which he makes out to be Masonic conspiracies responsible for anti-semitism Antisemitism is prejudice against or hostility towards Jews, often rooted in hatred of their ethnic background, culture, and/or religion. In its extreme form, it "attributes to the Jews an exceptional position among all other civilizations, defames them as an inferior group and denies their being part of the nation[s]" in which they and terrorism Terrorism is the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion. At present, the International community has been unable to formulate a universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition of terrorism. Common definitions of terrorism refer only to those violent acts which are intended to create fear , are perpetrated for a.[10][27]
An example of Oktar's inter-faith dialogue is "An Open Letter To The Jewish People", published in the Islamic Times in 2006, where he argues that the Hebrew Bible The Hebrew Bible is a term referring to the books of the Jewish Bible (Tanakh) as originally written mostly in Biblical Hebrew, with some Biblical Aramaic. It is also called the Hebrew Scriptures. The term closely corresponds to contents of the Jewish Tanakh and the Protestant Old Testament (see also Judeo-Christian) and does not include the " "contains references that encourage bloodshed, mass slaughter and ruthlessness" as it "has been altered by individuals for the sake of all kinds of gain".[28]
Creationism
Promotional image of Oktar, from the harunyahya.com website.In early 1998, Adnan Oktar and the BAV launched his first campaign against evolution/Darwinism Darwinism is a set of movements and concepts related to ideas of transmutation of species or evolution, including ideas with no connection to the work of Charles Darwin. The meaning of Darwinism has changed over time, and varies depending on who is using the term. In the United States, Darwinism is often used by creationists as a pejorative term.[10] Thousands of free copies of Adnan Oktar's book, The Evolution Deceit, and the booklets based on this book were distributed throughout Turkey.[29] Oktar regularly runs full-page ads against evolution in daily Turkish newspapers and even ran an ad in the U.S. magazine TIME Time has been defined as the continuum in which events occur in succession from the past to the present and on to the future. Time has also been defined as a one-dimensional quantity used to sequence events, to quantify the durations of events and the intervals between them, and to quantify and measure the motions of objects and other changes.[6]
The SRF also spearheaded an effort to attack Turkish academics who taught evolutionary biology Evolutionary biology is a sub-field of biology concerned with the origin of species from a common descent and descent of species, as well as their change, multiplication and diversity over time. Someone who studies evolutionary biology is known as an evolutionary biologist. To philosopher Kim Sterelny, "the development of evolutionary biology.[30] A number of faculty members were harassed, threatened and slandered in fliers that labeled them "Maoists Maoism, also known as Mao Zedong Thought , is a variant of Marxism, which is itself a form of communism, derived from the teachings of the Chinese political leader Mao Zedong (1893-1976). Developed during the 1950s and 1960s, it is widely applied as the political and military guiding ideology in the Communist Party of China (CPC) from Mao's" for teaching evolution. In 1999, six of the professors won a civil court case against the BAV for defamation and were each awarded a large sum of money.[31]
In 2005, Professor Ümit Sayın summed up the effect of the BAV's campaign when he said to The Pitch:[31]
Exhibition of Oktar's publisher, Global Publishing, at an unidentified book-fair.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 The Turkish lira is the currency of Turkey and the de facto independent state of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. The lira is subdivided into 100 kuruş. The symbol is TL and the ISO 4217 code is TRY to anyone who produces a single intermediate-form fossil demonstrating evolution The following charts give a brief overview of several notable primate fossil finds relating to human evolution. As there are thousands of fossils, this overview is not meant to be complete, but does show some of the most important finds. The fossils are arranged by approximate age as determined by radiometric dating and/or incremental dating. The".[32] 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 The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. Admission is free and the museum is open 364 days a year and the American Museum of Natural History The American Museum of Natural History , located on the Upper West Side of Manhattan in New York City, is one of the largest and most celebrated museums in the world. Located in park-like grounds, the Museum comprises 25 interconnected buildings that house 46 permanent exhibition halls, research laboratories, and its renowned library, accompanied by Niles Eldredge Niles Eldredge is an American paleontologist, who, along with Stephen Jay Gould, proposed the theory of punctuated equilibrium in 1972, Kevin Padian, Jerry Coyne Jerry Allen Coyne is an American professor of biology, known for his commentary on the intelligent design debate. He is currently a professor at the University of Chicago in the Department of Ecology and Evolution. His concentration is speciation and ecological and evolutionary genetics, particularly as they involve Drosophila, 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 Education in the United States is mainly provided by the public sector, with control and funding coming from three levels: federal, state, and local. Child education is compulsory, and they can send the change left over to me as a reward for coming up with this brilliant plan."[33] Oktar's offer is similar to creationist Kent Hovind Kent E. Hovind is an American Young Earth creationist and conspiracy theorist famous for his creation science seminars that aim to convince listeners to reject modern theories of evolution, geophysics, and cosmology in favor of the Genesis creation myth as found in the Bible. Hovind's views are criticized by the scientific community at large as's $250,000 offer Kent E. Hovind is an American Young Earth creationist and conspiracy theorist famous for his creation science seminars that aim to convince listeners to reject modern theories of evolution, geophysics, and cosmology in favor of the Genesis creation myth as found in the Bible. Hovind's views are criticized by the scientific community at large as[34], 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.[35]
Larry Arnhart has pointed out that Oktar is not only a critic of evolution, but is critical of intelligent design Jewish · Roman Catholic , which he has called Michael Behe's work "a product of a Masonic conspiracy for promoting atheism and Deism."[36][37]
