Does Erdoğan really support an al-Qaeda preacher?
In my previous column, I tried to analyze some of the debates surrounding the radical Islamic Tahşiyeciler (Annotators) organization. In this column, I will try to explain, working with the 2003 book from Abdulkadir Badıllı, “İfhamname,” how Mehmet Doğan actually supports al-Qaeda.
For those not familiar with the topic, let me provide some background: Mehmet Doğan was arrested in 2010 on charges that he was an al-Qaeda member. He stayed in prison for 17 months, and was then released. During the operation in which both Ekrem Dumanlı and Hidayet Karaca were arrested by police, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the pro-government media groups suddenly began defending Doğan. For example, Erdoğan said of him, “An innocent and blind religious man was forced to spend 17 months in prison by the Gülen group.”
When in fact, the real truth is that Doğan was actually arrested by his own government. What's more, Dogan's lawyer, Osman Yıldırak, was someone who was tried alongside Erdoğan in 2002 for corruption. In other words, he is someone Erdoğan knows well. Thus, when Doğan was first arrested, it was to be expected that, at the very least, his lawyer and Erdoğan's friend Yıldırak would head straight to Erdoğan to tell him how wrong this was.
But let's return to the topic at hand, and take a look at how Badıllı, who still supports the Justice and Development Party (AKP), says Doğan supports al-Qaeda and its leader. From what I can gather from Badıllı's book, Doğan takes passages and hadiths and twists them, using the books of Said Nursi, to explain why al-Qaeda should be supported. Some examples:
1) As Badıllı sees it, Doğan accepts the al-Qaeda movement as a true jihadist movement, and presents Osama Bin Laden then as a leading power. In fact, he goes back and finds previous occurrences to boost and promote legends about Osama Bin Laden, and show the jihad he leads as being a right and true one.
2) Doğan's message in the three books published by the Tahşiyeciler organization is the same: “Right now there is a guerilla war unfolding, and the leader of this struggle against America is the power Osama Bin Laden, who is the forerunner of the Prophet to come. This Osama will soon become even stronger, and will overcome America in the Middle East, and will then go to Palestine and form an Islamic state. Later, he will turn over the leadership of this state to the Mehdi. And after that, the Mehdi will create an Islamic reign alongside Prophet Jesus, throughout the world.”
3) In his book “Esrarname,” Doğan inserts a hadith onto his 14th page, basically interpreting it partially in order to connect it to the US invasion of Afghanistan, and the wheelchair-bound Richard Meyers.
4) Again, in his “Esrarname” book, Doğan interprets a hadith he includes on the 16th page of this work as such: “…A flag will arise from Masrikt, and the person making this flag wave will be Suayb Bun Salih from the Temim tribe.” Doğan applies this to Osama Bin Laden, and asserts that in fact, the Temim tribe lives in Yemen.
5) Doğan interprets yet another hadith to find support for Bin Laden: “During Ramazan, there will be a loud voice, and screams during the war in Şevval, and warring also among the tribes in Zilka. What this foretells is a great war in Mina, will blood running, and this blood will run as far as cemre [where Satan is stoned]. The man of the Muslims will run from the from the warlord, and then, people will obey him somewhere between Rukun and Kabe.”
Here is how Doğan interprets this hadith: The “loud voice” heard during Ramazan is the sound of television and radio. He goes on to interpret this hadith as talking about the war in Afghanistan.
6) Doğan also skews words from the leader of the peaceful Nur movement, Said Nursi, for the sake of Bin Laden. Let me present this from the explanations offered by Badıllı: “I heard once long ago from a wise man that a leader would rise from the east...” While Said Nursi interprets this to mean Risale-i Nur, Doğan says this is in fact Bin Laden. Because as he sees it, Osama Bin Laden is instrumental in the struggle in Afghanistan.
7) Doğan also sees the “Ashab-i Kehf” example in hadiths about the people who are to assist the Mehdi to mean Osama Bin Laden hiding in the caves of Afghanistan to fight in the guerrilla war unfolding there.
8) Badıllı gives another example: the mention of Babylon and a whore that is made in a hadith is used as a comparison to America and Washington.
In the end, it is quite clear that Doğan interprets these hadiths in favor of supporting Osama Bin Laden. In this sense, calling him a preacher for al-Qaeda is in fact no exaggeration. This is what Badilli himself, who supports the AKP, says. So that when Erdoğan and his pro-government media express support for Doğan, they also blame Ekrem Dumanli and Hidayet Karaca for having this so-called innocent man thrown into prison, using this as an excuse to arrest them.
This is perhaps a very confusing topic for Westerners, but perhaps I could better explain it like this. Erdoğan supports Doğan, who has skewed even the hadiths of the Prophet in order to summon support for Bin Laden. Then,
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