Muslim Creationist Preaches Islam and Awaits Christ - United Kingdom/Reuters

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Muslim Creationist Preaches Islam and Awaits Christ - 19.06.2008
United Kingdom/Reuters

The world famous press agency Reuters, whose news reports serve 1 billion people every day, carried a story containing extracts from an interview with Adnan Oktar by Tom Heneghan, the agency’s senior religious correspondent based in its Paris office. Titled “Muslim Creationist Preaches Islam and Awaits Christ,” the report said:

Harun Yahya is one of the most widely distributed authors in the Muslim world. … His glossy books and DVDs on religion and science sell in Islamic bookshops around the globe. He … lets readers download much of his work from his websites for free.

… Adnan Oktar -- the 52-year-old Turk behind the pseudonym Harun Yahya -- caught the attention of scientists and teachers in Europe and North America by mass-mailing them his 768-page "Atlas of Creation".

His lavishly illustrated book preaches a Muslim version of creationism…

Harun Yahya speaking during the interview with Reuters in Istanbul on 21 May, 2008. Yahya is one of the most widely read authors in the Muslim world. His glossy books and DVDs about religion and science are on sale at bookstores throughout the Islamic world and can be downloaded again and again over the Internet.

"Every academic I know says they've got one of those," retired University of Edinburgh natural history professor Aubrey Manning told the Glasgow Herald when "The Atlas" turned up in Scotland early this year. …

"This huge impact shows the influence of the book," the author, stylishly turned out in a white suit, red tie and clipped beard, said through an interpreter.

The controversy stirred up by "The Atlas" has turned the spotlight on a publishing empire that boasts about 260 books in 52 languages, over 80 DVDs and dozens of websites.

Well-illustrated and free of theological jargon, they preach that Islam is the one true faith and Darwinism, by undermining religious belief, has led to the discord, atheism, terrorism and extreme political ideologies plaguing the world.

… Oktar offers his works for free download, even the huge Atlas which in printed form sells for $99 on his website. His other printed books are standard size and sell at more modest prices. …

JESUS RETURNS AS A MUSLIM

… Oktar says the "Atlas of Creation" campaign and Harun Yahya publishing empire are part of his religious vision of the end of the world in which he plays a role hinted at in his pseudonym.

Harun is Arabic for Aaron, the brother of Moses. Yahya is Arabic for John -- in this case, John the Baptist, he said.

"Harun was the helper of the prophet Moses. Yahya was also the helper of Jesus Christ," Oktar said. "When Jesus Christ comes to the world, we also would like to be helping him ... You might say this is a prayer for that."

Oktar said Koran verses and sayings of the Prophet Mohammed about the end of the world revealed Jesus would return soon as a Muslim to help Islam's savior, the Mahdi, defeat the Dajjal or Islamic Anti-Christ and establish Islam around the world.

"Our biggest project right now is to lay the grounds for the coming of Jesus Christ," he said. "We understand this is going to be in the next 20 to 25 years."

The idea of Jesus returning as a Muslim is standard Islamic teaching about the end of times. But Muslims normally stress the end times less than evangelical Christians do, and Oktar's focus on this has prompted rumors he thinks he is the ad, some people have thought I could be him... but in Islam it is forbidden for me to make such a claim."

Asked if he planned another enormous book like "The Atlas", Oktar said he would simply continue to turn out anti-Darwin books. "I am preparing a book about skulls," he said. "I show skull fossils as evidence that there was no evolution."

Harun Yahya’s book “The Skulls That Demolish Darwin,” referred to in the interview, can be read free of charge by clicking here.

THE SKULLS THAT DEMOLISH DARWIN - Harun Yahya