TURKEY’s directorate of religious affairs, known as the Diyanet, has a knack for odd and outrageous pronouncements. The body had already made it known that celebrating the new year, playing the lottery, feeding dogs at home, and purchasing Bitcoin were incompatible with the principles of Islam; men should not dye their moustaches, nor couples hold hands. (Divorcing one’s spouse by text message, however, is OK.) But when the Diyanet declared, in a glossary entry spotted on its website at the start of this year, that according to Islamic law girls as young as nine were able to marry, the ensuing outcry was bigger than in recent memory. Some critics called for the institution to close. The Diyanet protested that it was only cataloguing, not endorsing, principles laid down by Islamic jurists, and soundly condemned child marriage in a sermon. (The legal age in Turkey is 18.) The offending post was taken down.
To critics of the Diyanet the...Continue reading
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