After spending a few hours at the Center for Islamic Studies yesterday I trekked back to the European side of Istanbul to meet with Ahmet Yukleyen, a recent PhD grad in anthropology from Boston University. His dissertation was on Turkish religious communities and their understanding of Islamic activism in the Netherlands and Germany, so I […]
Entries Tagged 'DITIB' ↓
Religious Markets & 31 Flavors
August 2nd, 2006 — Muslims and Islam, DITIB
Cologne, Bonn, and Essen
July 31st, 2006 — DITIB, Research in Germany
My trip to Cologne last week went well. Even though many DITIB workers were away on holiday I managed to interview DITIB’s general secretary, Mehmet Yildirim, and DITIB’s director of interfaith dialogue, Bekir Alboga. I also met again briefly with Ridvan Cakir, DITIB’s outgoing president. Although everyone was super busy and only had 3-days notice […]
Muslims in Germany Receive Threat Letters
July 31st, 2006 — DITIB, Turkish immigrants
A few hours before I flew to Turkey I was in the office at my neighborhood DITIB mosque talking to the son of the religious attache. I had run into Metin (not his real name) a couple times before, but this was our first chance to sit down and have a conversation by ourselves.
There were […]
Sermon of the Day: Lying and Taking Bribes is Bad
July 19th, 2006 — DITIB, Islamic sermons
Last Friday’s sermon was another twofer. The topic of the first informal message was lying and the topic of the ritual sermon was bribery.
The preacher started by lamenting the fact that lying is all too common in the community and gave a couple examples of what he had in mind.
First, he described a situation […]
Interview with Ridvan Cakir, President of DITIB
July 12th, 2006 — DITIB, Research in Germany
Today’s meeting with Ridvan Cakir went quite well. He didn’t have a lot of time to spare, but we still spent a solid 45 minutes discussing DITIB, integration, and Islamic sermons. Mr. Cakir definitely helped answer my key questions, but I also came away puzzled about some things.
When I showed up at the mosque and […]
Meeting Tomorrow with Ridvan Cakir, President of DITIB
July 11th, 2006 — DITIB, Turkish immigrants
Today I was finally able to speak directly with Ridvan Cakir, the president of DITIB. His office is in Cologne, which has complicated things, but more importantly he was in Turkey for the past couple weeks. Although he’s back on the job, he told me over the phone that many DITIB employees in Cologne, […]
Sermon of the Day: Respect Your Parents
July 10th, 2006 — DITIB, Islamic sermons
Last Friday I listened to the sermon at my neighborhood mosque, partly because I had interviewed the imam the day before and partly because the acoustics at Sehitlik Mosque, while beautiful, can make it hard for a non-native Turkish speaker sitting in the back to catch the whole thing.
Both the message delivered before Friday prayers […]