European Turkish Organizations Selling Book Endorsing Killing Those Who Insult Islam- “Light Beating” Of Wives Also Ok”

Aus­tri­an media is report­ing that orga­ni­za­tions con­nect­ed to the Turk­ish gov­ern­ment have been sell­ing a book call­ing for death to those who insult the Prophet Mohammed and approv­ing “light beat­ing” for women. Accord­ing to the Oberöster­re­ich­es Volks­blatt report:

March 10, 2021 What do the Islamist Mil­li Görüs com­mu­ni­ty (IGMG), a Ger­man Salafist store, and the Inter­net giant Ama­zon have in com­mon? They are dis­trib­ut­ing a book call­ing for what hap­pened to teacher Samuel Paty in France in Octo­ber: an Islamist bes­tial­ly mur­dered him for alleged­ly insult­ing the Prophet by show­ing car­i­ca­tures of Mohammed. The mur­der­er did what the book “Ilmi­hal für Frauen — Islamis­ches Grund­wis­sen für Frauen” (Ilmi­hal = Cat­e­chism), pub­lished by the Istan­bul-based Uysal pub­lish­ing house, pos­tu­lates: “Any­one who insults the Prophet, or den­i­grates his reli­gion in any way, must be killed,” it says on page 177. […]

Accord­ing to the book, a woman will enter par­adise if she “prays five times a day, fasts dur­ing the month of fast­ing, guards her shame, and fol­lows her hus­band.” After all, the book states on page 54: “Islam for­bids harsh wife-beat­ing as a pun­ish­ment.” How­ev­er, one chap­ter is devot­ed to “light beat­ing.” In Turkey, the book has the sanc­tion of the high­est author­i­ty. The Turk­ish ver­sion is offered (in the same pre­sen­ta­tion as the Ger­man) both by the Turk­ish reli­gious author­i­ty Diyanet and its Ger­man branch DITIB. The Ger­man edi­tion is well priced at Ama­zon for 14 euros. In the Mil­li Görüs book club (Kitap Kulübü) it costs one euro more.

[Trans­lat­ed by DeepL with edits]

Read the rest here.

Sub­se­quent report­ing not­ed that IGMG has since stopped sell­ing the book and has dis­tanced itself from its contents.

The Turk­ish Direc­torate of Reli­gious Affairs, also known as the Diyanet, is a Turk­ish state insti­tu­tion respon­si­ble for man­ag­ing reli­gious affairs. It writes the ser­mons deliv­ered to all of Turkey’s mosques, and their imams are civ­il ser­vants employed by the state. It also sends imams abroad to work at the mosques of The Turk­ish-Islam­ic Union for Reli­gious Affairs, also known as DITIB, which oper­ates in Ger­many and France.

Islamis­che Gemein­schaft Mil­lî Görüş (IGMG) is the Ger­man branch of Mil­lî Görüş, a Turk­ish reli­gious and polit­i­cal move­ment found­ed by Necmet­tin Erbakan, Erdoğan’s polit­i­cal men­tor, and which has called for an end to the sec­u­lar regime in Turkey. The GIOR has report­ed that the Ger­man gov­ern­ment is assert­ing that Pres­i­dent Erdoğan’s AKP par­ty has inten­si­fied its rela­tions with Mil­lî Görüş in Germany.

Recent GIOR report­ing about DITIB and Mil­lî Görüş include:

• In March 2021, we report­ed that the head of a Ger­man DITIB branch resigned over accu­sa­tions of antisemitism.

• In Jan­u­ary 2021, we report­ed that a “front” for DITIB and the French branch of Mil­lî Görüş reject­ed a “char­ter of prin­ci­ples” writ­ten by French Mus­lim lead­ers intend­ed to fight extrem­ist teach­ing blamed for a spate of jihadist attacks.

• In Decem­ber 2020, we report­ed on coop­er­a­tion between DITIB and Mil­lî Görüş in France.