THE MUSLIM WOMEN OF TURKEY ARE ON THE CHOPPING BLOC…….

A container ship traverses the Bosphorus

In the upcoming elections not only is Turkey going to decide to go secular versus Islamic but the fate of half the population of Turkey is on the bloc.

What is a hidden secret is the fact that Muslim women in Muslim Turkey have not been allowed education if they cover their hair with a scarf, until the secular government was partially ousted out of office.

This law affected most of the women in Turkey. Here is the story of a young woman that I met. She is a brilliant outstanding medical doctor who who just graduated with high honors. In the recent era she had to take admission in a Romanian medical school, and the reason is heartbreaking.

“Why did you go to Romania to study medicine? “ I asked. Usually in the United States when students cannot make it into a mainstream American Medical school they pay large sums of money to go to an offshore second class medical school to get into the system.

This was not the case with her. When she reached high school age she was not allowed to sit for her high school examination because she wore hijab, thus she had to wear a wig with a hat to take the high school examination. She was told to remove the hat and even the wig was looked upon askance.( I am told that if a man is wearing a hat he is not allowed in the University examination either)

However she was barred from entering medical school at the University of Istanbul where she lives because she chose to obey Allah rather than be dictated about her dress by a secular regime.

There fore she learned English on the fast track and applied for medical school in Romania so as to be close to her family and fulfill her dream of becoming a doctor and she did………When Erdogan officially lifted the hijab ban, she was still afraid to return in case the new parliament would reverse his lifting of the ban. After waiting till she felt comfortable that Erdogan was going to be true to his word, she returned and graduated from the University of Istanbul with high honors and the rest is history.

Women students in hijab stand-in line to take the University Examination in the official building in Uskudar, Asian Istanbul. Something that was impossible just a few years ago.

It has not been long when change came to Turkey to free the muslim women from the shackles of the hijab ban.

When Erdogan came into power he evened the scale for practicing Muslims and secularist Turks by permitting the Muslim women to wear the hijab freely and sit for the high school and university exams.

He integrated basic Islamic studies in the mainstream curriculum instead of just leaving it for schools that trained imams called Imam Hattepe schools. “The graduates of those schools, or those sporting a Muslim beard or going to the mosque, when seeking jobs were looked down upon by the secularists in power” ( information from a young engineer I met on the ferry) .

Even today a secularist school principal fired a young well qualified teacher who chose to wear hijab after she started working in that school.(source: a close friend of the teacher who lost her job)

Thus Turkey will have to decide in the upcoming elections if they are going to keep half of their women uneducated, illiterate, barefoot and pregnant or are they going to allow them into mainstream educational institutions on an equal footing with their secular sisters. Will the girls who choose to obey Allah and wear the headscarf be allowed to compete for positions in medicine, law, technology and education evenly with their secular counterparts?

In a conversation with an older secular well educated women I asked “ Don’t you consider it unfair that women are not allowed in medical school and University if they wear hijab?”The answer stunned me, she is a well educated woman in her late seventies. “They don’t have to wear hijab outside, only when they go to mosque or a gathering which is religious that is what I do too” she replied, crossing her bare legs and smoothing her skirt over her knees.

A chic girl in modest clothes and Hijab, waits for her husband

All along the Asian side of Istanbul at the Bosphorus shore, I see young women making a statement with their elegant modest attire. They wear long elegant skirts with well cut jackets and expertly tied scarfs propelling them into the new world of “modest chic”.

Strolling the marine drive of the Bosphorus Asian shoreline, they look as if they have stepped out of a bandbox, fresh, feminine and elegant but modest.

Several fashion lines including some Parisian and British designers (e.g. H&M) have come out with modest attire for women. Large department stores in Istanbul are booming with a new line of business. They all carry a whole floor or part of it called “modest”

The most popular line is an online store called “Modanisa” whose executives I met recently, one wearing a scarf and one without. They market for Modanisa and have a very busy office on a main street in Uskudar which is on the Asian side of Istanbul. They stated their business has rocketed in the last five years as the young women in Turkey have taken modest clothing which does not expose skin, to a higher level of fashion.

Some secularists hate Erdogans guts and will oppose him no matter what he does. Secularist intelligentsia are driven by the fear of the disappearance of alcohol and cigarettes from the street and restaurants. Others who have toed the line to their colonial masters since the Lausanne treaty do not want to rock the boat with the west, and may even go as far as renewing the slavery of their country’s future with a continuation of the Lausanne treaty which is scheduled to end in 2023.

A young turkish woman in hijab poses for friends along the Bosphorus

It is not clear whether the young girls growing up in the obedience of Allah depicting it in their demeanor and their clothing realize that their future is about to be stamped at the polls.

Turkey will make a choice for its female population by either allowing them to attend university with modest clothes or walk the halls of University only if they peel off their clothes and show skin publicly for all to see and uncover their hair.

The polls will decide the fate of the Turkish Muslim women. The vote will be cast to either shut out the women who choose to obey Allah from the halls of Universities in Turkey or not. If they do so, they will be relegating these muslim women to remain uneducated and illiterate in the professional, political and educational fields and will thus be limiting the horizons of their children. Therefore Turkey will create a generation which is easily manipulated by the lascivious colonial forces of the west.

The west is waiting with baited breath to renew the Lausanne treaty which expires in 2023 at which time they will have to relinquish the treasure trove of Taxes on the ships on the Bosphorus as well as their current ability to keep Turkey from using their own oil from their own soil.

The hope of the irreligious west is to renew the Lausanne treaty which the secularists seem most amenable to. If the secularists win at the polls it will give the colonizing west the power to suck the life blood of the incoming generations of the Turks crippling them economically by restraining them from using the natural resources in their own land.

The west knows that the only way that the polls can be tipped in favor of the secularists is if the people are convinced that religion is bad and there is no need to level the playing field for all Turks, religious or secular. There is thus great hype in the western media with scare tactics which are very successful with the secular Turks.

Two friends in hijab pose for each other to catch the setting sun on the Bosphorus.

I sip coffee by the Bosphorus and watch the happy young girls with colorful hijabs laughing and taking pictures together with the maiden tower in the background. They are too young to have known the history of their mothers and grandmothers who were stripped of their right to dress modestly not so very long ago.

They are also completely unaware that their freedom to obey Allah is getting ready to be tested as the predators eye the treasures of Turkey in more ways than one.

May Allah have mercy on Turkey especially the Muslim women whose life and education is on the chopping bloc in this upcoming election.

Turkish girls both with and without hijab enjoy the ferry ride on the Bosphorus