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The following Misplaced Pages contributor may be personally or professionally connected to the subject of this article. Relevant policies and guidelines may include conflict of interest, autobiography, and neutral point of view. 78.191.22.73 (talk · contribs) / Adnan Oktar This user has contributed to the article.

His atricles on Imam Mahdi and End Times Prophecies

AO has competition in the online world.

Farook Mohammed aka Al-Faarooq who founded the UMN Intl (United Muslim Nations International)

Look at Al-Faarooq's article ( Ark of the Covenant/ Tabut Al Sakina and Imam Mahdi Prophecy)

More logical evidence...

AO is out to gain worldly wealth, name and fame whereas FM is freely handing out for all mankind to inherit from him a wealth of wisdom and knowledge.

A blog on wordpress posts his articles only by his permission much of his works is withheld from the public. AO's move to block wordpress from Turkey is probably a strategy to keep FM's online works from reaching his local audiences.

AO will shrink in finances if FM had to write Books for publishing as his works are becoming the latest craze. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 169.202.5.104 (talk) 13:18, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Removal of information from lead

I would like to know why the resident editors don't find it important to include pivotal information about the allegations against the subject of the article, his subsequent arrest and imprisonment in the lead paragraph?

For now that material is going back up in the lead.

ephix (talk) 21:32, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

His prison sentence is noted. We66er (talk) 15:46, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Not charged with rape

Harun Yahya alias Adnon Oktar was not charged with rape, etc. read this article by Reuters: http://www.reuters.com/article/artsNews/idUSL0992091620080509?sp=true —Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.146.135.49 (talk) 15:38, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

That is referring to a more recent case. We66er (talk) 15:46, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely Ridiculous "profile information"

This was an absolute sham of character sketch on this man. Is wikipedia becoming an exclusive club for the anti-muslim junkies ! Who are these authors and what are their credentials. Absolute ridiculous use of the English language in providing a neutral depiction of this individual. Rest assured individuals putting this crap here only lower wikipedia's quality and reduce wikipedia authors as unprofessional loons with wiki skills. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.25.112.184 (talk) 14:55, 25 September 2008 (UTC)

Specifically, what needs fixing? Cite some errors and we'll correct them. We66er (talk) 01:07, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

You can read the reference number 12. A.O blames freemasonry to be a problem for Turkish Society but Jews are not included. The name of the book is Judaism and Freemasonry but the book is making a connection between them. I repeat, A.O always said that Jewish people are the people of book and we believe in the same God.

It is a mistake made on purpose to say that immoral lifestyles were indoctrinated to the society as a whole by Jews. A.O never said something like this.

READ THE REFERENCE MORE CAREFULLY, and show me the sentence that A.O is blaming the jewish people for being the cause of immoral lifestyles. Sasha moss (talk) 12:52, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, but as it was explained below, the sources clearly show you are wrong. We66er (talk) 16:30, 11 October 2008 (UTC)

ONLY FREE-MASONRY IS THE CAUSE OF IMMORAL LIFESTYLES, NOT JEWS...

You can read the reference number 12. A.O blames freemasonry to be a problem for Turkish Society but Jews are not included. The name of the book is Judaism and Freemasonry but the book is making a connection between them. I repeat, A.O always said that Jewish people are the people of book and we believe in the same God.

It is a mistake made on purpose to say that immoral lifestyles were indoctrinated to the society as a whole by Jews. A.O never said something like this.

READ THE REFERENCE MORE CAREFULLY, and show me the sentence that A.O is blaming the jewish people for being the cause of immoral lifestyles.

Sasha moss (talk) 12:54, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Let me quote the part:

Judaism and Freemasonry

By this time, Adnan Oktar's researches about Jews and Freemasonry were ready for publishing. Adnan Oktar concentrated all his efforts on this subject since in the Qur'an, Allah draws the attention of Muslims and mentions the name of the Jews, as one of the greatest enemies of believers. The conclusive result of his researches showed that the activities of Zionism in Turkey were carried out by freemasonry, a hidden group. There was a covert yet profound influence of freemasonry on state offices, universities, political groups and media.

Their principal mission was to gradually alienate the Turkish nation from spiritual, religious and moral values and make them like animals as stated in the verse of Distorted Torrah. To achieve this goal, materialist standpoint, the evolution theory, anti-religious and immoral way of living were indoctrinated to the society as a whole. Freemasons in the government, media and educational institutions assumed a leading role in carrying out this massive indoctrination.

In the way I read it, A.O. sees jews as enemies of believers. To destroy faith, the henchmen of the jews, the freemasons, destroy faith in Turkey. Take note that Oktar nowhere makes a distinction between Freemasons and jews in this fragment. Furthermore, I do not understand why Freemasons should use a "Distorted Torrah" if jews were NOT involved.Jeff5102 (talk) 14:57, 3 October 2008 (UTC)

Sasha says: "since in the Qur'an, Allah draws the attention of Muslims and mentions the name of the Jews, as one of the greatest enemies of believers". Is this Adnan Oktar's argument or argument of Quran? I still cannot see any proposing of Adnan Oktar to say that Jews are the reason of the immoral lifestyles in Turkey . This can be the opinion of this website also. But I have watched many interviews of Adnan Oktar and he insist on saying that Jewish people are the grandchildren of Moses and they are considered as people of the book in Quran. He even says that the Jewish people should continue living in Israel and Jerusalem because it is also a holy land for them like it is holy for Muslims. Maybe he is the only Muslim person to say such a thing in Muslim society.

Jews maybe the biggest enemies of believers in the time of Prophet Mohammed and this seems very logical because their authority were being collapsed because of Islam. There was a big challange between Jewish Rabbi and Muslim believers. Jewish Rabbis tried to show Islam as a fake belief. This subject is a historical thing and I think it is not a problem of today. Turkish people and Jewish people lived in peace for centuries together.

Adnan Oktar always said that he is not against the Jewish people he always said that he is against the athesist-zionists who are actually free-masons who are using the religion to reach their secret targets. Freemasons always use the religion to alter things in the society. Can we say that freemason is not using Islam. Using it does not mean believing in it.

If I can find the English translation of the Adnan Oktar's interviews about the Jews, I will post it here for proof.

Daabbah (talk) 07:15, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I do not need interviews with A.O; his current views on Judaism have changed positively a lot from those of 22 years ago. I would be glad if I found a complete version of the 1986 text of "Judaism and Freemasonry" in English. So far I only found summaries, and in those summaries was stated that "Masonry is an international movement closely akin to Judaism". It is strange that Oktar sees Masonry and Judaism as movements with similar aims, EXCEPT for indoctrinating the Turkish soceity. Anyway, if you can provide me a full version of Judaism And Freemasonry in English, we discuss further. I am particularly interested in the chapters "How does Masonry serve Judaism for their goal of World Government?", "The original resources of Masonry confess the covert relationship between Judaism and Masonry" and "Sexual perversion and barbarism in the distorted Old Testament"Jeff5102 (talk) 09:58, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

I totally agree with that. Judaism is, by the way, the oldest known religion in the world. It has given rise to the other two dominant religions. This sort of condemnation is not right.--116.73.130.81 (talk) 15:51, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Neutrality of this Article?

Okay, just one look at this article and I see "bias" written all over it. But what does matter, there are tons of articles on Misplaced Pages that are the same. Why bother helping this lost cause that is Misplaced Pages. <end depressing rant> —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.232.248.67 (talk) 01:54, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, prolific editor. --Adoniscik 03:03, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Okay, just one look at your comment and I see "wild accusation, wholly lacking specifics or verifiable evidence" written all over it. But what does it matter, there are tons of such useless drive-by comments on Misplaced Pages article talkpages. Why bother to write something that might be useful to improving the article? Hrafn_Stalk 03:19, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

What is biased or incorrect? BBiiis08 (talk) 23:30, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

The lead is euphemistic and reads like a press release okayed by Oktar. --dab (𒁳) 12:16, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Admonishment

no matter what opinion one may have on this man. it is obvious that there is a lot of critizism of him, his views and actions. this needs to be objectively and honestly included in the article.82.117.110.159 (talk) 10:41, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Certainly. We try to do that following the general Misplaced Pages guidelines for dealing with contentious matters. __meco (talk) 15:25, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

A disgrace for Islam?

I think something along the lines of "Many of Oktar's illegal actions are against the teaching of Islam, such as blackmailing, forced sex, drugs etc. Simply for the sake of clearing that up. Misplaced Pages has to remain neutral and informative. From the current phrasing of the article, it seems that his activities are, at the very least, not discouraged by the Islamic world. If there are no objections in the next few days, I'll add it myself. If someone else who is more experienced could add it, it would be better. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.152.202.231 (talk) 22:08, 15 November 2009 (UTC)

Such an opinion would need a (preferably prominent) WP:RS stating it. Hrafn_Stalk(P) 02:50, 16 November 2009 (UTC)

images

the article currently has seven images, two book covers and five showing the author. All of these are taken from Oktar's website, with permission. Judging from the huge galleries presented in the "about the author" sections of the website, there is a considerable amount of vanity involved here, and our article is given the appearance of a Harun Yahya publication by using so many "approved", and in part heavily photoshopped, images of the subject. --dab (𒁳) 14:08, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

Bibliography

I tried to compile a brief bibliography, but with hundreds of items, we should only list selected publications of note. On harunyahya.net, the earliest English publication dates to 2000, and the earliest Turkish one to 1991. But we have evidence of English translations appearing from the 1990s, and at least one Turkish book, "Judaism and Freemasonry", dating to 1986. "Judaism and Freemasonry" apparently was not translated, but it remains also unlisted on www.harunyahya.net, and I wonder if there are other pre-1991 publications the article is presently unaware of. --dab (𒁳) 14:43, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

It appears that the 1986 book was his first publication, and the only one unambiguously by Oktar. After 1990, the prodigious output of "Harun Yahya" appears to be due to the fact that this is not so much Oktar's pen name, but the pen name used by the "Scientific Research Foundation" as a group. --dab (𒁳) 15:12, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

DAVID ICKE

David Icke is going to kick your sorry ass Adnan!!! Don't you know that HE is the son of god and came up with all this lizardy/alien/jesus crap WAY before you did dude. You are roadkill, baby. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.218.216.157 (talk) 21:17, 25 May 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.47.200.249 (talk)

Usage of blogs as sources

Looking through the references for this article, I can see quite a bit of content that’s cited to blogs, particularly the blogs of P.Z. Myers (Pharyngula) and Richard Dawkins. This goes against Misplaced Pages’s policy for articles about living people: “Never use self-published sources—including but not limited to books, zines, websites, blogs, or tweets—as sources of material about a living person, unless written or published by the subject. ‘Self-published blogs’ in this context refers to personal and group blogs.”

Some of this content has been in the article for several months, and I’m kind of surprised that nobody has complained before now about it violating BLP policy. Does anybody have any objections to me removing it? --Captain Occam (talk) 15:17, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

In a BLP any blog that is not the blog of the subject and is challenged or considered by any editor to be controversial can be removed under WP:SPS. If the Dawkins blog represents the view of an organization rather than being a personal blog, then this is more tricky as it may be the organization's published and notable opinion (rather than any claimed facts) that is being sourced and it could be argued to be a reliable source for that opinion. In general if the opinion is notable then it would be published or quoted in a secondary source, and consequently the blog could be replaced in order to fully meet the spirit of the guidance. In summary, I'm agreeing with removal but suggest it is copied here for comment and to help find alternative sources. Fæ (talk) 15:44, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I think the Dawkins blog would be considered a group blog, per the sentence that I quoted. The only types of blogs that are considered acceptable are online columns from news organizations, which are still subject to the newspaper’s editorial control, and Dawkins’ blog doesn’t seem to be an example of that.

There were a few places in the article where a sentence was cited to both a reliable source and one of questionable reliability, and where the reliable source was sufficient on its own. I’ve fixed all of those. There are also several parts of the article that are badly sourced and where there isn’t anything immediately apparent for the current sources to be replaced with, though. Here are the examples of this that I’ve found:

In the early 1980s, he gathered young students around him to share his views of Islam. According to his former mentor, Edip Yüksel, Oktar was attempting to " mysticism with scientific rhetoric".

Following the publication of Judaism and Freemasonry in 1986, Adnan Oktar was arrested and imprisoned for 19 months.

Oktar propagates a number of anti-Zionist and anti-Masonic conspiracy theories, beginning with his 1986 Yahudilik ve Masonluk (Judaism and Freemasonry), following the publication of which he was arrested and imprisoned.

All three of these passages are cited to this page, which appears to have been self-published. The page also states, “The following article is mostly a personal attack.” I suspect that this source isn’t sufficient for a BLP article.

This book claims that "what is presented as Holocaust is the death of some Jews due to the typhus plague during the war and the famine towards the end of the war caused by the defeat of the Germans."

This is cited to a page at Fortunecity, which means it’s self-published.

Biologist PZ Myers responded: "The US government should immediately send a plane to pick up Mr Oktar, bring him to our country, and take him on a guided tour of the Smithsonian and the American Museum of Natural History, accompanied by Niles Eldredge, Kevin Padian, Jerry Coyne, Sean Carroll, and the entire scientific staff of those museums. Afterwards, they can accept the check from Mr Oktar, run down to the local bank and cash it, and use one trillion dollars to resolve the current financial crisis, seven trillion can be sunk immediately into the American educational system, and they can send the change left over to me as a reward for coming up with this brilliant plan." Oktar's offer is similar to creationist Kent Hovind's $250,000 offer, which has been dismissed by creationists and scientists as a misleading gimmick where those who applied for the challenge have questioned his sincerity about paying and understanding of evolution.

This whole paragraph is badly sourced. Part of it is cited to P.Z. Myers’ blog Pharyngula, which is self-published, part of it is cited to “No Answers in Genesis”, which is also self-published, and part of it is cited to Drdino.com, which is not a reliable source by any standard.

Larry Arnhart has pointed out that Oktar is not only a critic of evolution, but is critical of intelligent design, which he has called Michael Behe's work "a product of a Masonic conspiracy for promoting atheism and Deism."

The Larry Arnhart article being cited is at blogspot, meaning it’s obviously a blog.

Most of his anti-evolution resources are identical to Christian creationist arguments.

This is cited to this page at Tabsir.net, which appears to be a blog post.

Biologist PZ Myers wrote: "The general pattern of the book is repetitious and predictable: the book shows a picture of a fossil and a photo of a living animal, and declares that they haven't changed a bit, therefore evolution is false. Over and over. It gets old fast, and it's usually wrong (they have changed!) and the photography, while lovely, is entirely stolen."

This is cited to P. Z. Myers’ blog Pharyngula again.

Richard Dawkins reviewed the book (later translated into Turkish) noting that it contains a number of factual errors, such as the misidentification of a sea snake as an eel (two very different species) and in two places uses images of fishing-lures copied from the internet instead of actual species. A number of other modern species are mislabelled. However, Oktar himself claims that Nicolas Sarkozy, Jacques Chirac and Tony Blair were influenced by his book.

This parargraph is cited to Richard Dawkins’ blog, a blog entry at Wordpress.com and this article in the Arab Daily News. I suppose Arab Daily News might be a reliable source, but it doesn’t support most of what’s stated in this paragraph.

Oktar increased his pleas to block websites throughout 2008. On April 10, 2008, Google Groups was blocked in Turkey following a libel complaint by Adnan Oktar.

This is cited to this page, which is a dead link.

In response, Dawkins posted a Turkish translation of his "Venomous Snakes, Slippery Eels and Harun Yahya" article ("Zehirli Yilanlar, Kaygan Yilanbaliklari ve Harun Yahya") on his website.

This is cited to Richard Dawkins’ blog again.

I don’t know all that much about the subject of this article, so I don’t know whether reliable sources exist for some of these claims. But the bad sourcing on this article has bothered me for a long time, so one way or another it’ll need to be fixed. What I’d recommend is that other people who are more familiar than I am with Adnan Oktar find reliable sources for as many of these statements in the article as possible, and replace the existing citations with those. And if there are any of these statements for which no reliable source can be found, they’ll need to be removed. --Captain Occam (talk) 18:58, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

That would be a problem. Mr. Oktar has a special talent in removing internet pages with unfavourable information about him. Thus, one has to dig deep in the internet to find some information about him.

But on the other hand, I wonder what the problem is. PZ Myers, Richard Dawkins, Larry Arnhart and Edip Yüksel have comments on Adnan Oktar's books and career. These are not presented as facts in the article. Just as comments by PZ Myers, Richard Dawkins, Larry Arnhart and Edip Yüksel. If this is a problem, I wonder what we should think of the inclusion of Roger Ebert's view on particular movies in the aticle of those movies. And in the other hand, if articles are placed in a blog-format, does this aumatically dicredit them from being a valid source?

And I have no clue what the problem is with the page at Fortunecity. Because a) this was a page that was made mr. Oktar's people, and b) a quick look shows that fortunecity-pages were about 1200 times used as a source for a wikipedia-article. What would be the problem in this specific case?

Nevertheless, we should look for replacements for the dead links.Jeff5102 (talk) 09:32, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

In this specific case, the problem with citing blogs and pages at Fortunecity is that it’s an article about a living person. Misplaced Pages’s policy about what sources are acceptable in articles about living people is different from what it is for most articles.

I recommend that you read the linked page (BLP policy), and see whether you still disagree that citing blogs and pages at Fortunecity is still a problem here. If you do, we can ask about this at the BLP noticeboard. --Captain Occam (talk) 23:31, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Concerning the blogs: I am discussing this at the BLP-talk-page at the moment. The Fortunecity-page is a completely other thing. As the guidelines say: Living persons may publish material about themselves, such as through press releases or personal websites. Such material may be used as a source only if it is not unduly self-serving. In this case, the link to Oktar/Yahya's old Fortune-city-page is only here to illustrate his previous views concerning the Holocaust. See also this old page, which is identical to the Fortunecity-page. By the way, please take a look at the dates on the site. It clearly is an old webpage from the old days, when serious institutions were usinggeocities- and Fortunecty-pages.Jeff5102 (talk) 09:23, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

The appropriate place to bring up questions like this is the BLP noticeboard. If you have questions about this, you should probably post them there.

If you don’t, I’ll probably bring it up there myself, but I’ll give you the chance to be the one who introduces this topic there in case you prefer that. --Captain Occam (talk) 09:46, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I beg to differ. The BLP noticeboard is for individual cases. Like I wrote elsewhere, Myers's blog is used as a source in the articles of Cheri Yecke, Jonathan Wells, Richard Dawkins, Caroline Crocker Guillermo Gonzalez, Ken Ham, Kent Hovind, Kary Mullis, Michael Egnor, John G. West, Casey Luskin, Randy Olson, Richard Cohen, Carl Baugh, Christine Comer, Antony Flew, Ray Kurzweil, Stephen C. Meyer, Monica Crowley, Rom Houben, Hugh Ross, Jonathan Sarfati and Lonnie Latham.

By the way, Dawkins's site is used as source in the articles of Ray Comfort, Pat Condell, Mark Ravenhill, John Lennox, Matt Dillahunty, PZ Myers, Dinesh D'Souza,Ben Stein, Nicholas Humphrey, Jonathon Keats, William A. Dembski, Bill Maher, Todd Thomsen, Andrew McIntosh and many others.

Thus, we have a fundamental problem here, which goes beyond this Adnan Oktar-article alone. And that is why I believe that the BLP noticeboard wouldnot apply here.Jeff5102 (talk) 10:59, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

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