# What do you think of Harun Yahya and his books?

*Harun Yahya: the scientific-miracles dawah and Adnan Oktar's 1,000-year sentence*

- URL: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/1zghntbmpis/s/13/
- Date: 2021-01-12 · Kind: question · Transcript tier: machine · Recording: Monday Nights with Mufti #197 | Q&A Unscripted & Unrestricted! 😉 | Mufti Abu Layth (51:30–59:36)
- Status: general teaching
- Watch from the start of the segment: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1zgHntbMPis&t=3090s
- Recording page: https://muftiabulayth.org/r/1zghntbmpis/

**Topics:** Quran and science; Dawah and debate culture; Views on contemporary scholars

**Question as asked:** What about Adnan Oktar (Harun Yahya)?

**Summary (not a quotation; machine-made, unchecked):** Mufti Abu Layth says Harun Yahya's scientific-miracles books spread a lot of wrong information, and mocks the 1,000-year sentence given to Adnan Oktar.

## Longer summary

Prompted by a chat mention of Adnan Oktar, Mufti Abu Layth says Harun Yahya came at a time when Muslims in the West, generationally young, suffered from an inferiority complex, and his glossy, well-produced books on the scientific miracles of the Quran took people by storm. He recalls working at about seventeen in an Islamic bookshop in Birmingham affiliated with Ahmed Deedat's IPCI, where these books outclassed everything else. He says the du'at and even Salafis jumped on it, and that the dawah of people like Mohammed Hijab is in a sense an extension of it though not affiliated, but science moved on, the community matured, and a lot of wrong information was spread. He describes Oktar as a Turkish tycoon who he thinks believed he was the Mahdi, surrounded by women he calls his 'kitties', and mocks the judge who sentenced him to a thousand years.

## Sources and names cited

- Harun Yahya (Adnan Oktar)
- IPCI (Islamic Propagation Centre International)
- Ahmed Deedat
- Mohammed Hijab
- Mahdi

## Transcript (machine tier, 51:30–59:36)

[51:29] [Laughter] i have those of you that have known him in the past or his influence as harun yahya harun yahya to be fair uh really it's one of those things that like i mentioned before that not that how things which may be bad are not a hundred percent bad so he came at a time when muslims were suffering

[52:07] from an inferiority complex and in many ways i'm not trying to blame people for bl you know for suffering from an inferiority complex uh it's just that muslims were still kind of very young they're still kind of very young i mean generationally young not individually but in the west they we were very young and at that time people were insecure about their faith so along comes all these glossy well-produced you know kind of salafi because the salafi books are well

[52:46] produced and harun yahya books were well produced on the miracles the scientific miracles of the quran using biological technological scientific language for the day and age for that day and age you gotta remember this is going two decades ago or more more than two decades ago now at that time this it came as a wow because muslims didn't you know i when i was about 17 i worked in an islamic bookshop

[53:25] i worked in birmingham it was called islamic vision at the time but it was the uh ipci store which is a which is the base or the representative of ahmedidat kind of or it's an affiliate to ahmadi that's that was so at that time all the ahmadine literature that was being disseminated within the uk would have been coming from uh ipci so i worked there for i i can't remember now i may have but it was under a year

[54:03] that i was there so and it was very interesting time i have to say because you know you you meet all kinds of people you're working at a bookshop so you're seeing what's what's relevant you get to listen to a lot of lectures and this was just before i set off on my road to damascus um to study and right now see i've lost my oh yes so at that time all this stuff i remember we had all these books there harun yahya books they were just wow because the other

[54:41] quality of books we had in the store were nothing compared qualitatively to this to this material even the texture of the book so he came at a time and he caught people by storm all the duat jumped on it the salafiya even jumped on it which they're still kind of on it today borderline so people like muhammad hijab um or although i don't think he's in any way affiliated to harun yahya's books but he and that kind of dawah people uh that kind of

[55:18] kind of da'wah was an extension of the harun yahyadawa even though they're not affiliated but that's what it was because those people were all about you know the scientific miracles of the quran and then these kind of people you know continued that the problem is science kind of caught up not caught up sorry moved on way moved on and obviously now that the generation of muslims in in the west has also matured um because that would have been a time that i was a teenager and i think about it i'm second generation

[55:57] now this third generation that you know there's fourth generation maybe in some places so people have kind of matured and they've learned that right that was actually the wrong way and a lot of wrong information was disseminated you know through this harun yahya salvation project and yeah but surprisingly nobody knew at the time who was behind who was harun yahya but now we do know

[56:33] [Music] of kitties but um and he's like this huge tycoon in turkey that's always been at odds with the authorities but somehow they've got him now and they've sentenced him for i don't know exactly what they sentenced him for i think corruption and all kinds of stuff um and he was kind of really delusional i think he believed he was the mahdi and he had all and if you watch any of his kind of things he's always surrounded by his kind of dolls

[57:13] [Laughter] mind you that that is why if anybody was watching him was only watching him and he had them always like kind of like do these dances and all this kind of stuff and and he believes that you know it's fine they don't need to i think they were pretty much you know in miniskirts and stuff like that all the time very dulled up always and yeah that's it really and so um and he's been arrested but he's been sentenced for a thousand years

[57:51] i mean you don't know what's more preposterous you know if the judge had said that i mean does this judge live in the time of the name the judge thought that you know this i don't know who is this is this is this i need to give something heavy you know it's like they the the the legal clerk must have kind of said to him make sure you know you go in a bit firm

[58:29] he goes going firm thousand years all the biologists and the scientists are like and the physicists are like yeah how does we need to question time again daddy time your time catch easy thousand years to this this poor bastard over here

[58:59] i mean how does that even work so you don't know what's more of a mockery i mean for a judge to say that can that person even be a judge i don't know but anyway that's uh it's all fun and games people it's all fun and games but i guess for adnan sab the party [Applause] the party has ended and the kitties must go home that's one big shame you know the kitties [Music] so guys let's take a look at some of

## Cite

Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 1zgHntbMPis/s/13. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/1zghntbmpis/s/13/

Not a fatwa: these answers were given to specific people at specific times. Ask a qualified scholar about your own situation.