• Why Jihad Watch?
  • About Robert Spencer and Staff Writers
  • FAQ
  • Books
  • Muhammad
  • Islam 101
  • Privacy

Jihad Watch

Exposing the role that Islamic jihad theology and ideology play in the modern global conflicts

Turkish police: “Our path is the path of Allah. And our army is the army of the Prophet.”

Dec 24, 2016 11:37 am By Robert Spencer

How did Mevlut Mert Altintas, the Turkish police officer who assassinated Russian ambassador Andrey Karlov, become a jihad murderer? He went to Turkish schools and underwent Turkish police training, both of which manifest a sensibility decidedly different from what one might expect in a supposedly secular republic.

“We have nothing to do with salaries, money or worldly things,” said one police officer. “Our path is the path of Allah. And our army is the army of the Prophet [Muhammed]. As long as we have this faith and determination, nobody — no state, no organization, no terror group — can destroy us. They can’t even dare do that.” And “on December 11, the pro-government newspaper Yeni Akit covered the statements of the police officer, calling it ‘a speech by a special forces police officer that articulated the feelings of millions of people.’”

Indeed. And Mevlut Mert Altintas was one of them.

“Turkey: How a Police Officer Turns Into a Jihadi Murderer,” by Uzay Bulut, PJ Media, December 23, 2016:

Russia’s ambassador to Turkey, Andrey G. Karlov, was assassinated at an Ankara art exhibit on December 19 by a Turkish gunman shouting “Allahu akbar” [Allah is the greatest!].

The assassin, who was a special forces police officer, quoted the Hadith, a record of the words of Islam’s founder Muhammad: “We are those who have given a pledge of allegiance to Muhammad that we will carry on jihad.”

One of the first bits of information that came out following the assassination was that the murderer had worked as one of the top security guards of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on at least eight occasions.

But how did a police officer and former security guard of the president of Turkey, which is a NATO member, end up being the jihadi murderer of a diplomat whose protection was the responsibility of Turkey?

A few days before the assassination, a video of another Turkish police officer, who completed a special forces class in August, was widely posted on social media.

“We have nothing to do with salaries, money or worldly things,” said the police officer. “Our path is the path of Allah. And our army is the army of the Prophet [Muhammed]. As long as we have this faith and determination, nobody — no state, no organization, no terror group — can destroy us. They can’t even dare do that.”

Other members of the special forces were heard repeatedly chanting “Allahu akbar” during their training.

On December 11, the pro-government newspaper Yeni Akit covered the statements of the police officer, calling it “a speech by a special forces police officer that articulated the feelings of millions of people.”

Another video of Turkish schoolchildren chanting an Islamic song at a hight school that offers an Islamic curriculum to pupils in the Bagcilar neighborhood of Istanbul was also posted on social media recently.

The children chanted: “The Koran is in our hands, the faith is in our hearts, we are Muslims, Muslims. Long live Islam! Allahu akbar, Allahu akbar!”

Yeni Akit included a link to the video on its website, under the headline: “A video of Imam Hatip students that makes one proud: Long live Islam.”

The children had their index fingers on their right hands pointing skywards, which represents their affirmation of Islam recited before every prayer: “There is no God but Allah, and Muhammad is his Prophet.”

The salute is also used by members of the Islamic State (IS) and was even used by its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, during his first speech at Friday prayers after the takeover of Mosul. Moreover, it is not only used by fighters and supporters of IS but by those celebrating weddings in IS-held areas.

The salute “has a solid jihadi pedigree,” said Rita Katz, director of the SITE Intelligence Group. “The gesture has been used by jihadis for years, including high-profile ones like Osama bin Laden. Within the jihadi context, the raised index finger takes on political meaning as well, widely rejecting any form of government not under Shariah law.”

Mustafa Yilmaz, the head of the directorate of national education of Bagcilar, however, told the newspaper Hurriyet: “There is no abnormality in the video. The children did such a thing on their own in the break. This is an Imam Hatip school. There is nothing wrong with what the children said. It is a melody sung by Muslims. And the children sing that melody. It is nothing ideological; the children are just reading a poem.”

Meanwhile, a Turkish elementary school teacher, Aydin Erekmen, working in Istanbul’s Basaksehir district, posed with his students holding nooses. He shared the picture on his social media account, saying they “want justice,” shortly after the December 10 terror attack in Istanbul.

The teacher and his students were asking for the death penalty to be reinstated. In another photo the teacher posted, the students are also seen making the “Islamic index finger salute.”

Erdogan, then the prime minister, made headlines in 2012 when he said he aimed to raise “a pious generation.” But raising “pious” (or, in other words, Islamic) generations already began a long time ago with the founding of the officially “secular” Turkish republic in 1923. This process was facilitated and escalated by exterminating more than 3.5 million Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek Christians during the genocide between 1913 and 1922.

First Imam Hatip schools founded in 1924

The first Imam Hatip schools in Turkey were opened in 1924 during the rule of the country’s first president, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. The word hatip comes from the Arabic khatib, meaning the one who delivers the khutba, the Friday sermon in the mosque. As the name suggests, the schools were founded as vocational schools to train government-employed imams and Islamic scholars.

Under Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP), the number of Imam Hatip schools has ballooned from 493 in 2010 to 3,500 today, with enrollment surging from 63,000 to 1,500,000 since the AKP first came to power. The number of Islamic theology departments (Ilahiyat Fakultesi) at universities, moreover, now stands at 14,100, according to Turkey’s state-funded Presidency of Religious Affairs (the Diyanet).

Mandatory Islamic education in Turkish schools

Islamic courses are compulsory in Turkish schools despite the country’s so-called legal commitment to secularism. The “Religious Culture and Moral Knowledge” classes are predominantly based on Sunni Islam, and all school children in primary and secondary schools across Turkey including Alevis, an oppressed religious minority, must attend them.

Representation of the Alevi faith in textbooks

There are serious problems in the textbooks of these classes .

When the Alevi faith is mentioned in any textbook, it is often in very negative terms. For example, a book sent to all teachers across Turkey in June upon the recommendation of the Ministry of National Education (MEB) to be studied and discussed at year-end seminary teacher training refers to the Alevi faith as “tainted” and “rotten.”

“The evil force that has gnawed at tariqas [Islamic paths or doctrines] right at their hearts for centuries is Alevism,” the book states. It adds: “The Islamic world has been the wreckage of those rotten mindsets.”…

Share this:

  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • More
  • Click to share on Skype (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Telegram (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pocket (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)

Follow me on Facebook

Filed Under: Turkey Tagged With: Alahu akbar, Mevlut Mert Altintas


Learn more about RevenueStripe...

Comments

  1. Mark Spahn (West Seneca, NY) says

    Dec 24, 2016 at 12:20 pm

    Looking at the photograph at the top of this article, the shooter has an unusually long index finger, longer than his fist is high. Also, what is that object in the background near the baseboard? Is it the ambassador’s eyeglasses? It seems implausible that when the ambassador fell backwards, his eyeglasses would have flown off his head and traveled so far across the floor. Is there video that would explain how the eyeglasses (if that’s what they are) landed where they did?

  2. Tradiguy says

    Dec 24, 2016 at 12:52 pm

    What the F are they doing in NATO? More chance of being shot in the back if there is ever a conflict wouldn’t you say???

    • Angel Gabriel says

      Dec 24, 2016 at 12:54 pm

      They belong in NATO like a porcupine belongs in a balloon factory.

  3. Christianblood says

    Dec 24, 2016 at 1:04 pm

    (..Turkish police: “Our path is the path of Allah. And our army is the army of the Prophet..)

    Will US and Nato who are allied with the genocidal islamic Turks take note of this islamic jihadist statement? Thinking about The 50 Million Victims Of The Orthodox and Eastern rite Catholic Christians Holocaust: http://www.serfes.org/orthodox/memoryof.htm

    • Angel Gabriel says

      Dec 24, 2016 at 1:12 pm

      The history of the Muslim slaughter of Christians is diabolical — thank you for reminding us. I hope Trump’s entrance onto the world stage marks the beginning of the end of such Islamicly motivated atrocities.

    • Angemon says

      Dec 24, 2016 at 1:44 pm

      CB, you hate the West, NATO and Turkey. Why are you concerned about what they do, or not, instead of worrying about your country enabling and supporting a suicidal, genocidal Iran, who promised, on numerous occasions, to wipe Israel, the only safe haven for Christians in the entire Middle East, off the map?

  4. duh swami says

    Dec 24, 2016 at 1:06 pm

    ‘The Path of Allah’, leads to a gate with a sign that reads…’Abandon hope all ye who enter here’…only those with a pressing need for punishment need apply…

    • Kenneth T Tellis says

      Dec 25, 2016 at 6:04 pm

      Which means that now Christian groups can train and arm themselves to go and kill Muslims and send them to Allah! If Muslims have a choice and a duty to kill people of other religions, then the same avenue is also open to other faiths..

  5. EmHotep says

    Dec 24, 2016 at 3:03 pm

    Not only the police force and army but all of the government institutions became radical islamist. If you are a secular person or from other religion you do not have a chance to survive here.

    Thanks to islamic dictator erdogan we became second Iran or worse …. I only hope that Mr Trump will understand Erdogan’s motives for global jihad ..

  6. Proud Non-Muslim says

    Dec 25, 2016 at 8:38 am

    He was told by Allah, his moon god, who is Satan the devil, to kill the Russian Ambassador. Allah is NOT the God of Heaven. One of God’s 10 commandments says “THOU SHALT NOT KILL”. In the Koran, it says to kill infidels, which is still killing people. Later, the killer has been shot by the Turkish security forces. Now, the killer is in hell forever.

  7. Islam the religion of killers says

    Dec 25, 2016 at 8:05 pm

    SAS are trained to do as they are directed …… NO QUESTIONS

    This has to have bee an order from a higher authority !

    BOOT TURKEY OUT OF NATO,

    OUT, OUT OUT

FacebookYoutubeTwitterLog in

Subscribe to the Jihad Watch Daily Digest

You will receive a daily mailing containing links to the stories posted at Jihad Watch in the last 24 hours.
Enter your email address to subscribe.

Please wait...

Thank you for signing up!
If you are forwarding to a friend, please remove the unsubscribe buttons first, as they my accidentally click it.

Subscribe to all Jihad Watch posts

You will receive immediate notification.
Enter your email address to subscribe.
Note: This may be up to 15 emails a day.

Donate to JihadWatch
FrontPage Mag

Search Site

Translate

The Team

Robert Spencer in FrontPageMag
Robert Spencer in PJ Media

Articles at Jihad Watch by
Robert Spencer
Hugh Fitzgerald
Christine Douglass-Williams
Andrew Harrod
Jamie Glazov
Daniel Greenfield

Contact Us

Terror Attacks Since 9/11

Archives

  • 2020
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2019
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2018
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2017
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2016
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2015
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2014
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2013
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2012
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2011
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2010
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2009
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2008
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2007
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2006
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2005
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2004
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • September
    • August
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2003
    • December
    • November
    • October
    • March

All Categories

You Might Like

Learn more about RevenueStripe...

Recent Comments

  • Michael Copeland on New study reveals that Muslim religiosity strongly linked to hatred towards the West
  • Westman on New study reveals that Muslim religiosity strongly linked to hatred towards the West
  • gravenimage on Erdogan: ‘Turks must defend the rights of Jerusalem, even with their lives’ for ‘the honor of the Islamic nation’
  • gravenimage on Erdogan: ‘Turks must defend the rights of Jerusalem, even with their lives’ for ‘the honor of the Islamic nation’
  • gravenimage on Erdogan: ‘Turks must defend the rights of Jerusalem, even with their lives’ for ‘the honor of the Islamic nation’

Popular Categories

dhimmitude Sharia Jihad in the U.S ISIS / Islamic State / ISIL Iran Free Speech

Robert Spencer FaceBook Page

Robert Spencer Twitter

Robert Spencer twitter

Robert Spencer YouTube Channel

Books by Robert Spencer

Jihad Watch® is a registered trademark of Robert Spencer in the United States and/or other countries - Site Developed and Managed by Free Speech Defense

Content copyright Jihad Watch, Jihad Watch claims no credit for any images posted on this site unless otherwise noted. Images on this blog are copyright to their respective owners. If there is an image appearing on this blog that belongs to you and you do not wish for it appear on this site, please E-mail with a link to said image and it will be promptly removed.

Our mailing address is: David Horowitz Freedom Center, P.O. Box 55089, Sherman Oaks, CA 91499-1964

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.