Turkish Forum

Category: Saudi Arabia

  • Turkish soap opera flop takes Arab world by storm

    Turkish soap opera flop takes Arab world by storm

    By Farah al-Sweel

    RIYADH (Reuters) – A Turkish soap opera that flopped when first broadcast in its native Turkey three years ago has taken the Arab world by storm, provoking a flood of Gulf Arab tourists to Turkey that even includes royalty.

    “Noor” became an immediate hit when Saudi-owned MBC satellite television began airing it earlier this year, partly because of its unconventional usage of colloquial Arabic dubbing — and because its blond-haired, blue-eyed leading man had women swooning.

    Turkey is expecting the number of Saudi tourists this year to top 100,000, including King Abdullah’s wife Hissa al-Shaalan, who has been the subject of YouTube videos showing her swanning through the markets and sweet-shops of Istanbul.

    “From 41,000 (tourists) last year to 100,000 this year — the same year this show became phenomenally successful,” said Turkish diplomat Yasin Temizkayn. [sic.] “It’s more than just a coincidence.”

    Spanish-language soap operas have been shown on Arab television in the lucrative Saudi and Gulf markets in recent years with classical Arabic voice-overs.

    But with “Noor” — the main character whose name means “light” — the names of the characters in the original Turkish soap “Gumus” have been swapped for Arabic, and Syrian vernacular has replaced the formal classical Arabic of modern media and religion.

    “I don’t like all that Maria Mercedes nonsense,” says Dania Nugali, 16, referring to a popular Mexican soap. “I feel like I am in Arabic literature class when I watch Mexican shows. But when I watch Noor, I definitely feel that it is entertainment.”

    Yet the main pull has been the co-star Muhannad, 24-year-old Turkish actor and model Kivanc Tatlitu.

    “It seems most viewers are female,” said Hana Rahman, who runs an Arab entertainment blog (waleg.com). “They’re so swept away by the main character. He’s become a heartthrob here! He has even caused divorce cases in Saudi Arabia.”

    The drama, which made poor ratings when first shown in Turkey in 2005, centres around a family whose patriarch strives to ensure his sons focus on the family business and maintain cohesion without straying into romantic temptation.

    “We made the series with a Turkish audience in mind,” Tatlitu told al-Arabiya Television during a recent visit to Dubai. “The fact that it has amassed such a following in the Arab world just proves how much our cultures have in common.”

    Many Saudi women explained their devotion to the show as a form of escapism from stifling, love-less marriages.

    “Our men are rugged and unyielding,” quipped a 26-year-old house-frau who preferred to remain unnamed. “I wake up and see a cold and detached man lying next to me, I look out the window and see dust. It is all so dull. On Noor, I see beautiful faces, the beautiful feelings they share and beautiful scenery.”

    (Editing by Summer Said and Mary Gabriel)

    Source: Reuters, Jul 26, 2008

    [2]

    Saudi cleric slams Turkish soaps as “wicked”

    RIYADH (Reuters) – Saudi Arabia’s top religious figure has slammed Turkish soap operas as “wicked” and “malevolent”, despite the wild popularity of one show, a paper said on Sunday.

    Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul-Aziz Al al-Shaikh told a seminar in conservative Saudi Arabia this week that Arabic television channels airing the soaps were un-Islamic.

    “Any channel that helps to further perpetuate the popularity of these shows is ultimately a warrior against God and his Prophet,” he said in comments cited by al-Watan newspaper.

    “It is not permitted to watch Turkish series … They are replete with wickedness, evil, moral collapse and war on virtues that only God knows the truth of.”

    He said he was speaking in the name of the Higher Council of Religious Scholars, the government body charged with advising on religious affairs.

    It was not clear what specific objection the Mufti had to the programmes. Saudi clerics demand gender segregation in public places and women are not allowed to drive cars.

    They have previously objected to young Saudis taking part in popular music talent shows along the lines of American Idol.

    The show “Noor” this year became an overnight sensation in the Arab world when it was first aired on Saudi-owned satellite channel MBC. It it was a flop when first shown in Turkey in 2005 with the title Gumus.

    It has since spurred a large number of Gulf Arab tourists to visit Turkey, including the Saudi first lady Princess Hissa Al-Shaalan. Its blonde and blue-eyed star Kivanc Tatlitu has become a heart-throb for many Arab women.

    Source: Reuters, Jul 27, 2008

  • Mozart in Arabia

    Mozart in Arabia

    By Peter Hannaford
    Published 7/22/2008

    Mozart’s music gets around a lot, but never before in Saudi Arabia where it was recently on the program of a first-ever concert of European music to be performed in the desert kingdom. Not only that, the German quartet was playing before an audience composed of both men and women in the same hall.

    In Saudi Arabia’s carefully gender-segregated society, the event was unprecedented. This came on the heels of King Addullah’s call for an interfaith dialogue between Muslims, Christians and Jews — this in a country where conducting religious services other than Islamic can land one in prison.

    The king followed through with his call, first by convening in June a group of 500 Muslim scholars — Sunni and Shiite — in Mecca to exchange views about interfaith dialogue. The conference closed with an endorsement of such a dialogue.

    This led to King Abdullah’s invitation to 200 Muslim, Christian and Jewish clerics to meet with him last week in Madrid to discuss areas where all could find common ground. While this meeting produced no breakthroughs, it was not intended to. Spain was chosen for the meeting site because, from the 8th to the 13th century, Muslims, Christians, and Jews lived more-or-less in harmony there.

    The conference reflects Abdullah’s own growing moderation in the face of terrorist attacks on Saudi soil four and five years ago. While he has considerable support for moderation of Saudi Arabia’s austere Wahhabist version of Islam as well as liberalizing some social customs, he also has critics among hard-line clerics within his country, so he must move with some care.

    Abdullah discussed his idea for the interfaith initiative with a group of visiting Japanese scholars last spring. He said his goal would be “to agree on something that would maintain humanity against those who tamper [with] religions, ethics and family systems.” He told them he had discussed his ideas with Pope Benedict XVI.

    In Saudi Arabia major decisions are made by consensus, developed cautiously. King Abdullah, with a strong base of tribal support, is well positioned to take such initiatives and to gradually introduce reforms in Saudi society.

    MEANWHILE, MODERATE VOICES in Islam are beginning to speak out elsewhere. In Late May, several thousand Indian Islamic clerics and madrassa teachers met in New Delhi for an Anti-Terrorism and Global Peace Conference. The major event was the issuance of what has been called the world’s first unequivocal fatwa against terrorism. The fatwa states, “Islam is a religion of peace and security. In its eyes, on any part over the surface of the earth, spreading mischief, rioting, breach of peace, bloodshed, killing of innocent persons and plundering are the most inhuman crimes.” The fatwa was developed at Darul Uloom Deoband, the world’s second largest Islamic seminary which controls thousand of Islamic seminaries in India. The fatwa was validated with pledge by the approximately 100,000 people at the conference.

    Other Muslim groups are speaking out against Islamist terrorism. The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, with 20 million members worldwide, routinely takes the position that there is nothing in the Koran to justify violent jihad in modern times.

    In Britain, which tends to handle matters pertaining to its Muslim minority with kid gloves, the government is developing a plan to send imams into schools to teach students that extremism is wrong and to emphasize citizenship and multiculturalism.

    In Pakistan, an idea of a Turkish Islamic scholar, Fethullah Gulen, himself steeped in the Sufi tradition of introspection, has materialized in the form of seven schools in Pakistan cities. There, Turkish teachers dispense a Western curriculum of courses, in English, from math to science to literature. They also encourage the maintenance of Islam in the schools’ dormitories. In a country with a weak public school system which competes with many hard-line madrassas, the Turkish schools have found a strong following.

    While suicide bombings may capture the attention of the evening news’s cameras, the forces of moderate Islam are finally beginning to emerge vocally and in numbers.

    Peter Hannaford is a member of the Committee on the Present Danger.

    Source: The American Spectator, 22.07.2008