"If Turkey ever turns fully Islamist ... " "If? ... Turkey is already fully Islamist."

Submitted by Ianus (Poland), Apr 9, 2009 at 16:33

Hi, Vijay !

You wrote :

> If Turkey ever turns fully Islamist, the US would have played no small part in it. <

Turkey is a 99,8% Moslem monoculture. If you don't believe, check e.g. the CIA Factbook. There are more than 85,000 active mosques there, one for every 350 citizens, which is the highest number per capita in the world. With 90,000 imams it has more imams than doctors or teachers. Spending by the governmental Directorate of Religious Affairs has grown five fold, from 553 trillion Turkish lira in 2002 (approximately US$325 million) to 2.7 quadrillion lira during four-and-a-half years and it has a larger budget than eight other ministries combined.The Friday prayer attendance rate in Turkish mosques exceeds that of Iran's, and religion classes teaching Sunni Islam are compulsory in public schools...' - to paraphrase one analyst.

If you still believe that Turkey isn't fully Islamist yet, then probably you will say that there is a potential danger that Saudi Arabia may one day turn fully Islamist too.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".