“Turkish religiosity” … “Ankara” is due to lose in Syria with the help of Muslim Brotherhood

It seems that the expectations put forward by observers regarding the failure of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s dream of the return of the Ottoman caliphate by the Syrian scene, which is moving towards the restoration of the Syrian state to recover at the expense of the Turkish-backed factions, will not receive much of the right, in the city of Idlib (the last area of extremist influence), to create a religious presence equivalent to its military presence.

This began since Turkey announced its control of the Afrin region in northern Syria in March 2018 following a military confrontation with the city’s indigenous Kurds in a battle known as the “olive branch” that began in January of the same year.

Turkey began to implement the policy of exporting religious concepts cloned from the “Turkish religiosity” (dreams of the return of the Ottoman caliphate), which paves the way for the souls of the Syrians in the north to accept the idea of the return of the caliphate, relying on the imams’ Religious Affairs “, the first religious body in Turkey, known as” Dianat “, and spending on mosques destroyed by the war.

The policy that the Syrian media calls “make identity full Turkish” did not stop at the areas of direct influence of Turkey, but extended to the areas of indirect influence, which is the northern cities controlled by the armed factions backed mainly Turkey, where Ankara intensified religious activities and legal sessions, based on the Syrian Islamic Council, MB formed in 2014, under the auspices of Turkey, in addition to «the Authority for Religious Affairs.

Contrary to Turkey’s ease in exporting these concepts in areas such as Afrin, the crisis was in the areas of faction control, specifically Idlib, which has the largest pool of militant militias.

The religious discourse that Turkey is trying to export to the north of Syria contrasts with the rhetoric of the factions that deal with Turkey as a secular and infidel state with which it has no interest but to monitor reports of Turkey’s attempts to tighten the grip on the religious discourse of the ” In Idlib, in exchange for the opportunity to the Syrian Islamic Council.

Under the justification appears to be a charity to compensate for the educational collapse in the north of Syria, the Council of MB through its bodies represented by (Homs Scholars Association, Association of preachers of the Sham, the Union of graduates of forensic science, the Association of Syrian scientists, the Association of scholars Idlib, The Islamic Council of Aleppo), activities ranging from the introduction of scientific lessons offering the Turkish understanding of religion, the opening of institutes for the memorization of the Koran, in addition to holding legal sessions and competitions.

Although the targeting of the minds of the Syrians of the North is a Turkish goal, all the educational, religious and health institutions in most of the northern cities are under the control of the Turkish Religious Affairs Commission.

There are Syrian refugees who have been living in Turkey for years and Ankara is brainwashing.

The Turkish religious body, along with the Syrian Islamic Council, bears the brunt of this task, as it continues to organize competitions for them and to build religious schools for religious content that matches Turkish religiosity.

What is « Turkish Religious Affairs Commission » means?

Throughout the period leading up to the arrival of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Turkish Religious Affairs Commission, a mere religious body established in 1924, sought no more than an evaluation of the religious behavior of the Turks.

The situation remained so until Erdogan dissolved his dream in The return of the Ottoman Caliphate in power, and created a new role for the body is to serve the Ottoman dream, the export of Turkish religiosity, in what is known as “soft power.”

It is attributed to the former president of the Commission, Muhammad Gormaz (2010: 2017) that when he visited a visitor to Jerusalem, he spoke to the Jerusalemites about the Ottoman role in protecting the city, , Hinting that the liberation of the city is taking place after the return of «Ottoman».

The role of the Commission does not depend on the Syrian scene. It monitors its events in western societies, targeting the Muslim communities, especially the reception of its president by religious and official religious delegations from African and Asian countries. On the role of the Commission in Europe, the Council of the European Union, two days ago, opened an investigation into the letters and funding of the Turkish “Religious Affairs Commission”, to ascertain whether it was related to extremism or not.

Germany, in turn, was the forerunner of these investigations. In January 2017, it announced that it had received information about the involvement of imams from the Religious Affairs Commission in informing the Turkish consulates there about 28 Turks who believed that they belonged to Fathallah Gulen.

The religious concepts that the Commission is engaged in connect to in terms of Turkey’s role in the service of Islam and intersect with the messages of the Muslim Brotherhood, which explains their reliance on imams believed to be associated with the international organization of the Muslim Brotherhood.

For this reason it is believed that this body receives funding not only from the Turkish state, but from MB.

This is explained by the information published by the opposition newspaper Al-Zaman this month that the Turkish state is moving towards raising the allocations of the Authority in the budget of 2019 from 7.7 billion Turkish liras to 10.5 billion liras, which means exceeding its share for both the Ministry of Investment and the Intelligence Service.

This reflects the importance of the body not only in fighting dissidents such as Fathallah Gulen, but also in presenting a religious speech encapsulated in Turkish nationalism and defending the policies of the Turkish president, as it did during the failed coup attempt in Turkey in 2016, repeating the prayer to the Prophet to encourage the citizens to descend and defend the ruling regime, as it played a role in the economic crisis experienced by Turkey recently, as the Turks demanded the purchase of Turkish products.

The Syrian newspapers express their concern about the adoption of the Commission in the management of the cities of the north, if there is no Syrian military action to clear the terrorists, the group of Syrians working within its organs and ensure loyalty to them. The newspapers argue that Turkey, if used by these Syrians, would guarantee the continuation of the Turkish identity series in the north.