Turan Dursun

Turan Dursun (1934 – 4 September 1990)

Just look at those beautiful warm eyes, so full of humanity and intelligence! Turan Dursun was a Shia Islamic scholar and writer. His work is very critical of Islam and the founders of its major branches.

He worked as an Islamic cleric before becoming an atheist during his study of the history of monotheistic religions. He was a well-known critic of religion and was frequently threatened by Islamic fundamentalists.

Whilst preparing for a meeting with the Pope, Dursun studied Christianity in more depth and was immediately struck by the deceitfulness of Islam when he compared his vast knowledge of Islam with the Christian sources.

After drawing negative conclusions about religion, he became angry that Muhammad robbed people of their childhood and youth. He said:

So many people can't live their childhood properly because of him. So many people are sufferers of his disasters. So many people know what's right as wrong and what's wrong as right because they think the darkness that he chose exists. Human emotions and human creations haven't progressed in many ways, because of him.

For 2 or 3 years Dursun was a theist and during this time reached the conclusion that: If there is a God, he's not Muhammad's.

After this he became an atheist and accepted the findings of evolution. He was a keen student of anthropology.

After his resignation as a mufti, Dursun struggled to earn a living in Istanbul and even became a binman. His decision to quit as a mufti was a tough one, but Dursun stated that his principle was always "never to have a contradiction between what I thought and what I did."

He wrote many books during the 1980s collating his vast knowledge of Islam and languages of the Middle East. He opened the religion to internal criticism through the mass media, perhaps for the first time in the religion's history.

On 4 September 1990 Dursun was assassinated by two gunmen in Istanbul. It was later discovered that many items were missing from his bookshelves. On his bed was found a book entitled, "the Holy Terror of Hizbullah" which did not belong to Dursun and was probably left as a message by the terrorists.

As a result of the investigation, 15 suspects were arrested but they were immediately released after their first appearance in court.

Adapted from wikipedia.