{"id":26803,"date":"2014-09-25T18:10:38","date_gmt":"2014-09-25T10:10:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=26803"},"modified":"2014-09-25T12:25:15","modified_gmt":"2014-09-25T04:25:15","slug":"fired-by-zeal-turks-move-with-children-to-family-friendly-islamic-state-territory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2014\/09\/25\/fired-by-zeal-turks-move-with-children-to-family-friendly-islamic-state-territory\/","title":{"rendered":"Fired by zeal, Turks move with children to \u201cfamily friendly\u201d Islamic State territory"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>
Photo by Michal Przedlacki \/ Flickr.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

ISTANBUL, Turkey\u2014The Islamic State group is run by religious zealots and marked by war, mass killings, crucifixions and beheadings.<\/p>\n

But for a growing number of fundamentalist Muslim families, the group\u2019s territory is home.<\/p>\n

\u201cWho says children here are unhappy?\u201d said Asiya Ummi Abdullah, a 24-year-old Muslim convert who travelled to the group\u2019s realm with her infant son last month. She said that living under Shariah, the Islamic legal code, means the boy\u2019s spiritual life is secure.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe will know God and live under his rules,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Ummi Adullah\u2019s story, told to The Associated Press in a series of messages exchanged via Facebook, illustrates how, despite the extreme violence which the radical group broadcasts to the\u00a0world, the territory it controls has turned into a magnet for devout families, many of them Turkish, who have made their way there with children in tow.<\/p>\n

Ummi Abduallah said her move to the militant group\u2019s realm was in part to shield her 3-year-old from the sex, crime, drugs and alcohol that she sees as rampant in largely secular Turkey.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe children of that country see all this and become either murderers or delinquents or homosexuals or thieves,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

The Islamic State group, the self-styled caliphate straddling Iraq and Syria, appears eager to attract families. One recent promotional video shows a montage of Muslim fighters from around the\u00a0worldcuddling their children in Raqqa against the backdrop of an amusement park where kids run and play.<\/p>\n

A man, identified in the footage as an American named Abu Abdurahman al-Trinidadi, holds an infant who has a toy machine-gun strapped to his back.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook at all the little children,\u201d al-Trinidadi says. \u201cThey\u2019re having fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

It may promote itself as a family-friendly place, but the Islamic State group\u2019s bloody campaign for control of Syria and Iraq has uprooted hundreds of thousands of people in a wave of destruction that involves gruesome punishments and spectacular acts of cultural vandalism.<\/p>\n

None of that matters to Ummi Abdullah.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe blood and goods of infidels are halal,\u201d she said, meaning she believes that Islam sanctions the killing of unbelievers.<\/p>\n

Ummi Abdullah\u2019s story has already made waves in Turkey, where her disappearance became front-page\u00a0news\u00a0after her ex-husband, a 44-year-old car salesman named Sahin Aktan, went to the press in an effort to find their child.<\/p>\n

Many others in Turkey have carted away family to the Islamic State group under far less public scrutiny and in much greater numbers. In one incident earlier this month, more than 50 families from various parts of Turkey slipped across the border to live under the Islamic State group, according to opposition legislator Atilla Kart.<\/p>\n

Kart\u2019s figure appears high, but his account is backed by a villager from Cumra, in central Turkey, who told AP that his son and his daughter-in-law are among the massive group. The villager spoke on condition of anonymity, saying he is terrified of reprisals.<\/p>\n

The movement of foreign fighters to the Islamic State group – largely consisting of alienated, angry or simply war-hungry young Muslims – has been covered extensively. The arrival of entire families, many but not all of them Turkish, has received less attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s about fundamentalism,\u201d said Han, a professor of international relations at Istanbul\u2019s Kadir Has University. The Islamic State group\u2019s uncompromising interpretation of Islam promises parents the opportunity to raise their children free from any secular influence.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a confined and trustable environment for living out your religion,\u201d Han said. \u201cIt kind of becomes a false heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ummi Abdullah\u2019s journey to radical Islam was born of loneliness and resentment. Born Svetlana Hasanova, she converted to Islam after marrying Aktan six years ago. The pair met in Turkey when Hasanova, still a teenager, came to Istanbul with her mother to buy textiles.<\/p>\n

Aktan, speaking from his lawyer\u2019s office in Istanbul, said the relationship worked at first.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore we were married we were swimming in the sea, in the pool, and in the evening we would sit down and eat fish and drink wine. That\u2019s how it was,\u201d he said, holding a photograph of the two of them, both looking radiant in a well-manicured garden. \u201cBut after the kid was born, little by little she started interpreting Islam in her own way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aktan said his wife became increasingly devout, covering her hair and praying frequently, often needling him to join in. He refused.<\/p>\n

\u201cThank God, I\u2019m a Muslim,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I\u2019m not the kind of person who can pray five times a day.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked why she became engrossed in religion, Aktan acknowledged that his wife was lonely. But in Facebook messages to the AP, many typed out on a smartphone, Ummi Abdullah accused her husband of treating her \u201clike a slave.\u201d<\/p>\n

She alleged that Aktan pressured her to abort their child and said she felt isolated in Istanbul. \u201cI had no friends,\u201d she said. \u201cI was constantly belittled by him and his family. I was nobody in their eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aktan acknowledged initially asking his wife to terminate her pregnancy, saying it was too early in the marriage to have children. But when she insisted on carrying the pregnancy to term, Aktan said he accepted her decision and loved the boy.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile Aktan\u2019s wife was finding the companionship she yearned for online, chatting with jihadists and filling her Facebook page with religious exhortations and attacks on gays. In June, she and Aktan divorced. The next month, a day before her ex-husband was due to pick up their son for vacation, she left with the boy for Gaziantep, a Turkish town near the Syrian border. Aktan, who had been eavesdropping on her social media activity, alerted the authorities, but the pair managed to slip across.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t clear how many families have followed Ummi Abdullah\u2019s path, although anecdotal evidence suggests a powerful flow from Turkey into Syria. In Dilovasi, a heavily industrial town of 42,000 about halfway between Istanbul and the port city of Izmit, at least four people – including a pair of brothers – recently left for Syria, three local officials told AP. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to talk to the media, said that dozens of people from surrounding towns were believed to have left as well.<\/p>\n

Aktan says he is in touch with other families in similar circumstances. He cited one case in the Turkish capital, Ankara, where 15 members of the same extended family had left for Syria \u201cas if they\u2019re going on vacation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even with U.S. bombs now falling on Raqqa, Ummi Abdullah says she has no second thoughts. \u201cI only fear God,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

For Aktan, who says he hasn\u2019t seen his son since his ex-wife took the boy, her decision is a selfish form of fanaticism.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to die, you can do so,\u201d he said. \u201cBut you don\u2019t have the right to bring the kid with you.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one can give you this right.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hours after the AP first published this story, Ummi Abdullah\u2019s Facebook account disappeared. Her messages to the AP were also removed, replaced with a message from Facebook saying they were \u201cidentified as abusive or marked as spam.\u201d<\/p>\n

Facebook did not immediately return a message seeking comment.<\/p>\n

Suzan Fraser contributed from Ankara, Turkey.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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