I wouldn’t have thought that the word “tedbir” (precaution), which is of Arabic origin and means “thinking and planning”, would shape and engulf my entire life from my childhood. I would like to tell you a part of my life, in which I have been recruited in my childhood to seemingly serve the Holy Quran and religion, was unable to leave at my own will, and I wish that had never happened. And I would like to call out to all parents: take care of your children, take care of them.
How did they find me?
I was the middle child of a family with three kids from Kayseri. My father was a middling shopkeeper with a little hardware store, my mother was a housewife. My elder brother wasn’t like me and my sister. He was a naughty, disobedient and a lazy student at school. I was the most successful at home. We were going to elementary school in the neighborhood. The neighborhood we lived in was one of Istanbul’s new but irregular “slum” neighborhoods. On the one hand, I wanted to study, go to college, become a doctor, and on the other hand, the neighborhood, my environment and the financial impossibilities prevented it. Even our maths teacher at school said, “Son, I’m afraid your talents are going to be wasted in this neighborhood, I wish you could go to a preparatory school.”
One day, they handed me a pamphlet that was delivered outside the school: “Anafen (a preparatory school) placement test for 5th, 6th and 7th graders.” However, I didn’t focus on it that much. Next week in class, my friends asked me whether I had applied for the placement test. I asked how and where they had applied. I learned from my fellow applicants how they went and what to do. “Dude, they attentive towards us. They even bought us some toasts. Maybe we will be granted a discount,” said my friends. Then, I went to Anafen, as I found the idea of applying attractive. They were very attentive towards me, like what happened to my friends, asking about my grades, saying that Turkish-maths and science class averages were important. When I said that all my Turkish, maths and science classes were 10/10, they started to act even more attentive. The person was doing the application for the exam started to converse with me. He asked where I was from, about my siblings, my family, whether I liked doing sports, reading books, how my health was while adding that he got frequently sick during his childhood. (I was able to understand when I went to medical examinations at Maltepe Military High School that my TMF (Turkish-Maths-Science) grades and health conditions were some of the requirements for entrance to military high school exams.)
How did I fall into their network – the first step into the quicksand
I took the test on a Sunday morning. The questions were really hard and I wasn’t very hopeful. When I called the preparatory school to learn my test results, they asked me to come to the preparatory school. So, I went to the school with my classmate. The person who registered us had a young man beside him and he explained our results in detail. I didn’t get a discount. They give us something to eat and drink, then they told us that “they provided free study sessions to successful and smart students, who has financial issues, and that they could do a repeat the subjects of classes before exams.” When I told my mum about the situation, she said it was a good opportunity and I could join. He told my dad about it at dinner. My dad wasn’t that interested in the subject. (I wish my father had been more attentive about our education and us.)
We started classes the next week. The lessons were fun. There were 4 other friends from the same school with me. “Let’s play football one day,” said Yasin Abi. He said “don’t call me “teacher”, you can call me Yasin Abi (elder brother)” the first lesson and added “don’t mention this free study to your other friends in school, we cannot offer this opportunity to all those who come, but we can support smart and successful students like you who are not in a good financial situation, and the ideal way to learn is with a group of 4-5 people like this. This is scientific.” We had a football match the next week. There were friends of Yasin Abi and a couple of high school brothers I knew from the neighborhood that went to high school. We had so much fun. After the game, we went to eat meatballs from nearby street food vendor. Other friends of Yasin Abi said, “when will you start studying at home?
The preparatory school is far away and we live nearby. It will be easier, and there is not always an available classroom at the preparatory school.” Yasin said he wanted to meet our families, that he would ask our parents to let us continue our lessons at their house. He came to all of our homes, including me, for tea on a weekday, introduced himself, talked about his family, education and hometown. There was Metin Abi, who we met at the football match and was Yasin Abi’s roommate. When my parents saw how eager I was, they didn’t mind me studying at their house. When my father asked, “are there conflicts at the university,” Yasin Abi said that they don’t get involved with such things and that when they see there is an event, they walk away immediately.
First time at the Işık House– the beginning of the catastrophic end
The next day we met outside the football and went to the brothers’ house. There were 4 other brothers living with Yasin Abi at the house. There was a blackboard, study tables, test books, all kinds of pens… everything you needed. The brothers were teaching very well, they were focused on questions we didn’t understand until we understood them. In the early days, they offered a variety of biscuits along with tea. Older brother was always talking about the importance of reading books. “The person who doesn’t read books is like an empty log, and the first condition for exams is to love reading books,” he said, while reading short chapters from the books he liked very much. (As a child, I didn’t think that we were going through a systematic process in this house that would affect the life of my entire family, not just me.)
The World of Mysteries begins
Later on, when we went to the house, they told us to not mention about our private sessions to our friends or our teachers at school, and that it would be better if we came to the house with books in a store bag, not a backpack. They warned us that neighbors could complain about “you have turned this place into a private school” and that a friend of ours could see it on the way to the house. The words I couldn’t forget were, “What we talk about here, what we do here, will stay here. There are secrets between friends, and this’s our secret. Remember, keeping a secret is like preserving your honor, and you can imagine what kind of a person would blow his secret away.” (The concepts of keeping a secret, precaution and discretion came into my life from this moment onwards. And, slowly this dual personality became a core part of my self.) I’ve heard this sentence so many times that I couldn’t forget it. I was doing as they say, of course. I was evading my siblings’ curious questions by saying, “we’re just studying and working on exams.” We never talked about the “brothers” and the house at school or other places. In the garden, sometimes we were just talking about what time we were going to the house after school, whether we read the books or not.
One day, when we went to the brothers again, Yasin Abi, in the middle of the class, said, “you guys, work on this test. I will do my prayer and return to you,” and we looked at each with other with friends, completely surprised, because he had never said anything about his prayers until that day. But I did remember that Yasin Abi was a man who didn’t smoke or drink, who didn’t curse or use profanities. Maybe the missing piece of the puzzle was the prayer. Someone like that should have done prayers. When we solved the test, Yasin Abi returned with a takke (a small headwear that is put on the head before prayers) and said, “oh, I forgot this on my head.” After the lesson, he asked us whether we could read the Qur’an from Arabic texts, whether we went to Quran courses at mosques, whether there were family members who pray. My mother used to do her prayers, but my father would only do it on Friday prayers and he wouldn’t pray at home. I used to go to Fridays and Bayram (Eid) Prayer with my dad sometimes, but honestly, I didn’t know how to pray. (All these so-called religious and moral motivations were actually meant to turn us into robots. In the years that follow, I have seen many things that cannot be part of religion.)
Istanbul Trip – Why so much attention/interest?
Yasin Abi talked about the historical fabric of Istanbul and its beauty and asked whether we visited the Topkapı Palace, Hagia Sophia, Basilica Cistern, Bookseller’s Bazaar or Grand Bazaar. None of my friends knew those historical areas in detail, I’ve never been to a museum in my life. We agreed to travel by saying, “let’s take a trip and see these places so we can understand our history and culture better.” “If you can’t bring money to enter the museum, don’t worry, the trip is important,” he stressed. We met on Sunday for the trip and took the bus to Beyazıt Square. There we walked to Sultanahmet Square, looking at the entrance of Istanbul University, the calligraphy written on the arch, the square, the bookseller’s bazaar and the closed bazaar.
We entered the Museum of Turkish and Islamic Arts and then back to the Sultanahmet Square, then came to the courtyard of the Sultanahmet Mosque (Blue Mosque) and said, “we shouldn’t just go back without praying at a mosque built by our ancestors, let’s take abdest (wudu).” We took abdest and entered the mosque, there was a group preparing to pray, and we ran and pray with the people. After the mosque, we bought and ayran from the Sultanahmet Köftecisi (Meatball) and ate at the entrance to Topkapı Palace. My favorite trip to that day in my life was our trip that day. We had so much fun and were so tired. (Time has shown that what we have perceived as gratuitous attention and interest towards us actually had a cost; our very lives.)
The first prayer lesson: rights and justice – the result: A life full of lies
When we went to the brothers after school the next day, we did an assessment of the trip, how many monuments were left from our ancestors, the spiritual atmosphere in Sultanahmet, then the brothers said “let’s do the prayers together as we can”, we were motivated. While waiting for prayer in the living room, Yasin Abi came with something white in his hand, and when he unfolded it, I realized it was some kind of clothing for prayer which was white and had golden lines on the side. Yasin Abi wore the robe. After the prayer, the other brothers prayed out loud, then Yasin Abi took a small book from the library and read a chapter from it. The title of that chapter, which I’ll never forget, was “Right and Justice.” “Even if right is a sword that descends on you, just submit to it. The one who is fighting against right will eventually fall,” it said. When he realized that we were interested in the robe after the prayer, he said, “I pray with this, because of our Prophet’s sunnah and it improves the good deed of prayer. If you want, you can wear takkes during prayers.” Then he added that he would gift us with takkes but warned us not to take these takkes to home. This religious lifestyle of brothers wasn’t something unfamiliar, as my family had a similar lifestyle, and as I had known Yasin abi and other brothers for a while along with their attentive behavior towards us, I didn’t think much about it.
Those who turned away from the verge of the abyss
The next day after school, I changed my outfit at home and went straight to the brothers. My other friends started to come. We waited about 1 hours, but two friends of the group hadn’t arrived yet. Yasin abi became agitated, his anxiety and panic could be felt in the house. “Erkan lived very close to you, didn’t he? Drop by him tomorrow, see why he didn’t show up. I’ll stop by Metin’s house,” he said. The session was quite still and unmotivated that day. Yasin abi was very upset. When all the programs were over, I stopped by the Erkan’s house on my way home, and I heard the words that would be engraved in my mind after many years, from Erkan’s father that night. When I rang the bell, Erkan answered the door and I asked “how are you? You didn’t show up today, are you sick or something?” Then, Erkan’s father came and said, “Erkan will not come again, my child. It’s not normal for these college kids to be so interested in you, to teach you so much, to talk about such subjects. Look, you go and tell your family everything so you won’t regret it later,” in a fatherly tone. All evening, Erkan’s father’s words were in my head. On the one hand, I was a little worried and I was scared, but on the other hand, I didn’t want to miss the opportunity to prepare for the exams. The idea of being forced to go to a regular high school or a vocational high school scared me more. I didn’t tell my parents what was going on because of these thoughts. (I wish I hadn’t underestimated Erkan’s father because he was a construction worker and just told my family everything that happened.) The next day, we were still intimate with Erkan in class, talking with each other as if nothing had happened, playing ball at recess. “Will you come today,” I asked him. Erkan said “My father definitely forbade it, and he told my mother to watch me, I want to come, but it’s not possible,” and we separated in front of his house. Erkan’s father worked as a foreman in construction sites but he had books and read a lot of books. I was surprised to see that they had a library when I went to the Erkan’s house. World classics have become the most interesting books for me. I changed at home and went to the brothers’ house; everyone was there but Erkan. Metin, who didn’t show up yesterday, was there. I told Yasin Abi what happened, he got upset, and then he thought about it. He said, “He will do what he wants, it’s his loss. Don’t tell the others so they don’t get upset, I’ll go talk to his father sometime.” While talking with Metin during recess, he told me that Yasin Abi came to his house at evening, talked with his father for a long time, and that his father was convinced to send him to the brothers’ house, even though it was a hard decision.
My life is ruined because of a book
After the study session, Yasin Abi said, “let’s stop to pray,” as if we had been doing this our whole lives. We had an abdest without question and we performed the prayer together. Yasin emphasized the importance of reading a book after prayers, how many books the great statesmen and scientists read, our Prophet’s emphasis on learning, the first order of the Quran being “Read!”, and that he and other brothers in the house read books at least 2 hours a day, and that we should read books on a regular basis, while adding that it would make it easier for us to succeed. He explained that there are books in his libraries that we can read and that we should read at least one book every week. He added that it would be very helpful to make a book chart so that we don’t mix what books we read, so that he could give a prize to the person who read the most books every month, even to measure how much we understand books.
The first book I ever read from that library was called “Düşün, Anla ve Ağla (Think, Understand and Cry)” (I wish my family, people around me could think and question the situation, so I could understand the truth in those days. I wish I didn’t have to write these lines while crying, from Sincan Prison.)