PICTURE CREDIT TO GO HERE

from the rest of the herd. You’re 15 years and you just

don’t want to ruin it for everybody else,” Isildar, now

50, tells me on a video call from her home in Canada.

“You’re part of that group. And they isolate you ... it’s

like a toxic relationship.”

At the time many in Turkey’s upper middle classes

saw religion as a relic of the past. After the foundation

of the Republic of Turkey in 1923, its leader, Mustafa

Kemal Ataturk, had strived to create a secular,

modern nation and banish religion from public life.

Later religious, conservative politicians such as the

current president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, would be

seen as modernising forces that were shaking off the

prejudices of the old elite — repealing the ban on

headscarves in public places and arguing that Turkey

could be an Islamic democracy.

For Isildar and her friends Oktar represented

a new way of looking at things — a modernised

version of Islam that seemed progressive and

exciting. It was, she tells me, like a thrilling secret.

But soon everything changed. Oktar began to

sexually abuse Isildar — coercing her into marrying

him when she was a schoolgirl and he was in his early

thirties. When she was 20 he forced her to have a

nose job without a general anaesthetic.

“It was horrible. Horrible. I can still remember

the hammer,” she says. “I was counting how many

times they were hitting the hammer and the chisel

to my nose.”

After eight years under Oktar’s control Isildar

managed to escape. Not long afterwards she moved to

Canada. Speaking to her I’m struck by how insightful

she is about her time in the cult. Before I started

working on this story I had believed that cults preyed

only on the very vulnerable. But I soon realised that

a lot of the people I was talking to didn’t fit that bill.

Many were smart, successful and highly educated.

“You have to understand that cults want productive

people,” says Dr Alexandra Stein, an honorary

research fellow at South Bank University in London

— and a former cult member. “They don’t want drains

on the system. They want people who are going to add

value. Education and wealth just don’t protect you.”

Yet there were still so many things I didn’t

understand. When we had met for the interview,

Oktar seemed to have little ideology short of a

garbled version of Islam, a messiah complex and his

theory about the British Deep State. What was it that

had drawn people to him?

One person who knew was Ceylan Ozgul, the

former “kitten” whose allegations had made me

contact Oktar for an interview. She had spent years

in the group, becoming one of its most prominent

members. Sometimes she would appear on Oktar’s

TV channel, where he would conduct discussions

about Islamic theology with the kittens and “lions”

— male followers — before the women would break

into dance. They would beam adoringly at him, laugh

at his attempted jokes, nod along with his convoluted

theories and praise him constantly.

When she was on TV, Ozgul would do the same.

But really, she says, the cult was a prison.

“The only image in people’s minds about Adnan

Oktar was girls in bikinis or revealing clothes and

dancing,” she says. “Unfortunately this makes the

subject really light. But it is not a subject to be taken

lightly. It is actually about how to enslave young

women and young men.”

O

zgul was 24 and in her third year at Istanbul

University when she was introduced to the

cult — though they presented themselves

as just a group of friends. The members

drew her in slowly, separating her from

her ordinary life. At that point, around

2006, there were no girls in bikinis, no

TV channel and Oktar didn’t only ramble

on about conspiracy theories.

“He was, you know, quite fun to have

a chat with. He’s like an older guy who will take you

seriously and talk about history, physics, medicine.

I liked spending time with him,” she tells me.

Ozgul grew closer to the group and began working

for them, helping build their profile in Turkey and

internationally. Their ideology was hard to pin down.

In earlier years Oktar had spouted conspiracy theories

about Jews and Freemasons controlling the world.

Later he focused more on Islamic creationism

From top: Oktar

with his male

acolytes or “lions”;

being entertained

by one of his

entourage on his

TV channel

OKTAR’S “LIONS” WOULD LURE WOMEN INTO THE

CULT. THEY CALLED IT THE TURNSTILE SYSTEM.

OVER THE YEARS HUNDREDS WERE BROUGHT IN

The Sunday Times Magazine • 23