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In its 3 August, 2007, edition The Christian Science Monitor, which enjoys enormous prestige among Christians and American conservatives, made the Atlas of Creation its cover story. The report in the journal, which is distributed worldwide and has a circulation of 100,000, was titled “Islamic creationist group launches glitzy, global blitz.” The Internet site containing the same report is noteworthy for its large number of visitors – 1.8 million a month. The report, which occupied a full page, read:

A household name in Turkey, the "Foundation for Scientific Research" is now distributing its books – published in 59 languages including Chinese and Swahili – to 80 countries.

On a recent afternoon inside Istanbul"s busiest subway station, a young man beckoned commuters into a subterranean "fossil exhibit" full of skulls and insects dating back millions of years.

But this was no mainstream scientific display. One colorful poster advertised the "myth" of the evolution of the horse. Another, displaying a flying pterodactyl, denounced the evolution of birds as "fake."

The display is one of many traveling shows put on by the Foundation for Scientific Research, an Islamic creationist group that has become a household name in Turkey. Now, the groups [sic] says it is distributing its books – published in 59 languages including Arabic, Chinese, Swahili, and Polish – to 80 countries.

"Turkey is now the headquarters of creationism in the Islamic World. This is no longer only Turkey"s problem, it is now the problem of the whole civilized world," says Haluk Ertan, a professor of molecular biology at Istanbul University. He"s one of a handful of Turkish scientists who have been working to counter creationism"s spread in the country.

Emboldened by its success at home over the past decade, the foundation, known by its Turkish acronym BAV (for Bilim Arastirma Vakfi), is now aggressively trying to export its unique brand of Islamic creationism well beyond the borders of Turkey to the Middle East, Europe, and even the United States.

In the past year, BAV has blanketed several European countries and the US with its glossy "Atlas of Creation," a lavish 768-page tome weighing more than 13 pounds, sending it to scientists, professors, journalists, and schoolteachers.

One member of the organization estimates that it distributed well over 20,000 copies of the "Atlas," which, like all of the group"s books, is written under the name of Harun Yahya. Amazon.com hosts a virtual bookstore that sells "Atlas" ($99) and other Yahya books, and booksellers across Europe have it on their shelves.

"Every Islamic bookshop I know of stocks Harun Yahya"s material. It is so glossily produced. It is very attractive and very colorful and outclasses everything else," says Inayat Bunglawala, assistant secretary-general of the Muslim British Council, speaking by phone from London.

"It is having an effect. Even among Muslim medical students there are a number now who are speaking out against Darwin."

In France, the Harun Yahya book offensive led the government to issue a warning for schools to be on the look out for the "Atlas" before it makes it into their classrooms. Meanwhile, the increasing European activity of the BAV, as well as of Christian creationist groups, recently prompted a committee of the Council of Europe – a 47-nation group that acts as a kind of continental watchdog – to issue a report strongly warning about its dangers to education.

"Today, creationists of all faiths are trying to get their ideas accepted in Europe. As a result, we have seen several initiatives from these various movements on the Eurasian continent in the last few years, with schools apparently the main target," the report, released in June, said.

Blames Darwinism for terrorism

In real life, Harun Yahya is a 51-year-old former interior design student named Adnan Oktar. Since founding the BAV in 1990, Mr. Oktar has been responsible for ushering more than 250 books into print… The series includes titles such as “The Dark Spell of Darwinism” and “Why Darwinism is Incompatible with the Koran.”

“Oktar’s brand of creationism is not only religious, but also political and even messianic, seeing most of the world’s ills – terrorism and fascism among them – as stemming from Darwin’s theory of evolution.

"Hitler, Mao, and Lenin were Darwinists. At the root of wild capitalism is also Darwinism. I think if we no longer believe in Darwinism, people will no longer be conditioned to believe in those things," the normally reclusive Oktar said during a recent press conference, held aboard a hired yacht cruising Istanbul"s Bosphorus strait.

"Folks, there is no such thing as what you call evolution. If there was, it would be in the Holy Bible or the Koran," added Oktar, dressed in an ivory-white raw silk suit and wearing gold cufflinks and a matching gold belt buckle with Arabic inscriptions on them.

"The sweet dream of the Darwinists and the world is to ban my books," Oktar said, sipping glass after glass of sour cherry juice. "What I"m saying is true. They cannot disprove it."

Unlike fundamentalist Christian creationists, Oktar does not claim the earth was created only a few thousand years ago. Instead, he argues that fossils show that creatures from millions of years ago looked just like the creatures of today, thus disproving evolution.

Harmonizing modernity, Islam

…

Professor Edis says the success ofthe Harun Yahya books, at least in the Islamic world, can be attributed to a need for harmonizing modern life with traditional Islamic beliefs.

"Something has to reconcile these two things and it becomes very attractive when someone comes out with a well-packaged message, that they can have both – be fully modern and at the same have science … affirm most of their very deeply held religious and ethical perceptions," says Edis…

"That"s a pretty attractive package and that"s mostly what the Harun Yahya material provides," he says.

In Turkey, Oktar and his books certainly appear to be having an impact. When Science magazine conducted a survey of 34 countries last August, Turkey had the second-lowest acceptance rate of the theory of evolution (the United States had the lowest).

Personal views of Yigal Schleifer, the correspondent of the journal who wrote the report, were related under the title “Floating Press Conference”:

Correspondent Yigal Schleifer gives the Islamist creationist Adnan Oktar credit for flair and securing a captive audience. He hosted a press briefing for about 20 journalists on a boat on the Bosphorus Strait near Istanbul. "We boarded, then picked him up on the other side of the Bosphorus. He arrived dressed in a white suit with gold cuff links and belt buckle," he says. Several hours and a luncheon buffet later, the journalists left with a "gift bag" of DVDs and more books on creationism.