The ultra-conservative Ismail Agha community in Turkey is considered closely linked to the ruling AKP party. Now the forced marriage of a six-year-old girl is raising serious questions.
“That it is not normal to get married at the age of six, I realized it by searching the Internet from my mobile phone,” the young woman, 24 years old today, declares in her testimony. When she was six years old her father had forced her to marry a 39 year old man. Both the father and the son-in-law were prominent members of the Turkish ultra-conservative Ismail Aga community. They were married in traditional Islamic etiquette, with an imam blessing their marriage.
In Turkey this ceremony is not considered legally binding. However, many couples, after the civil marriage, want it as a sign of respect for tradition. This applies to both religious Muslims and those who keep a distance from religion. In this particular case, however, the civil marriage took place when the girl came of age, turning 18. In the meantime, the couple has separated.
His story was only made public when the woman decided to file a lawsuit and the journalist of the left-wing newspaper BirGün, Timur Soykan, dared to look into the matter. At the time when the woman was still a child the man already had sexual intercourse with her. In other words, he sexually abused her. The prosecutor’s office has launched an investigation against him and accuses him of “rape of a minor”. Part of the evidence is a photo from the wedding day.
Supporters of the ruling AKP party
The case was debated at length in Turkey, but it took the government several days to make a public statement. Finally, the representative of the ruling AKP party criticized the “abuse of a minor” in general, but did not even mention the Ismail Aga community, which in the elections supports the AKP.
The Ismail Aga community is considered one of the largest Sunni communities in Turkey. It declares its opposition to the separation of state and religion, which is a cornerstone of the modern Turkish Kemalist state. It obliges women to cover their bodies and men to grow beards. It maintains its own religious schools, but also student residences. It was founded in 1980 by Imam Mahmoud Ustaosmanoglou, who directed it for 42 consecutive years. His funeral in June was attended by the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had repeatedly visited Ustaosmanoglu at the community grounds in Istanbul, as well as many ruling party ministers.
Lately the community has been trying to expand beyond the borders, even into Germany. The competent authorities are monitoring it. The Agency for the Protection of the Constitution in Baden-Württemberg accuses her of “pro-Sharia propaganda”. With the establishment of the Turkish state 100 years ago, religious communities were banned in Turkey, but they have been making a comeback in recent decades, increasing their influence and maintaining good relations with far-right parties.
Ismail Agha instead of… Gulen?
One of the most influential communities was the Gülen movement. Its influence began to be felt after the failed coup attempt in 2016, when Tayyip Erdogan began removing the movement’s followers from key positions in the state apparatus. The result was huge gaps in public service staffing, many of which were filled with followers of the Ismail Aga community. In the judiciary, the police, the army, the Ministry of Education and elsewhere.
In 2007, Ilhan Şihaner, a prosecutor in the Erçinkan province of Eastern Turkey at the time, began a judicial investigation against the local authorities on suspicion of fraud, illegal fundraising, but also the illegal conduct of classes for school and pre-school children. But the government intervened, ended the judicial investigation and requested the arrest of Sichaner himself. Today the former prosecutor is a member of parliament for the opposition Kemalist party CHP. “Before, the Gülen movement controlled everything, the economy, the bureaucracy, the justice system, the army,” he tells DW. “And this, even though he did not represent more than 3% of the population in Turkish society.”
Competition to attract followers
A recent survey by the polling company Metropoll shows that only 4.3% of Turks currently have a close relationship with a religious community. However, these communities play a much more important political role than the number of their members would indicate. This happens, among other things, because they know how to properly promote their activities, argues sociologist Ihsan Taghi from Istanbul Technical University. “Thus they increase their ability to negotiate directly with high-ranking politicians,” he points out.
There are many extreme communities, which maintain a fiercely competitive relationship with each other, as they all attempt to attract as many believers as possible. In the case of the Ismail Aga community, the faithful reacted strongly to Timur Soykan’s journalistic complaints, while Islamist circles demanded his arrest. As for the unfortunate woman who had filed the lawsuit, her fate is currently unknown. Her brother and sisters have posted videos on YouTube in which they claim the allegations are unfounded.
DW – Burak Unveren/ Yiannis Papadimitriou
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With a wealth of experience honed over 4+ years in journalism, I bring a seasoned voice to the world of news. Currently, I work as a freelance writer and editor, always seeking new opportunities to tell compelling stories in the field of world news.
