Born in Ankara in 1956, Adnan Oktar writes his books under the pen name of Harun Yahya. Ever since his university years, he has dedicated his life to telling of the existence and oneness of Almighty Allah, and to disseminating the moral values of the Qur'an. He has never wavered in the face of difficulties and despite oppression, still continues this intellectual struggle today exhibiting great patience and determination.

A short biography of Adnan Oktar:

Born in Ankara in 1956, Adnan Oktar lived there through his high school years. During this period, his devotion to Islamic moral values grew even stronger. He deepened his profound knowledge of Islam by reading works of all the great Islamic scholars and decided to tell everyone about Islam's moral values and summon them to a knowledge of truth and beauty.

To continue his education, he entered Istanbul's Mimar Sinan University in 1979 coming in third from among thousands of candidates. Oktar, a talented artist since childhood who regards art as a manifestation of Allah's superior creation, painted surrealist pictures from time to time and gave away a large number of paintings as gifts to friends. In addition, Oktar numbers animals, plants and flowers among his spheres of interest, as well as horticulture, interior design, and décor.

The Mimar Sinan Years

When Adnan Oktar entered Mimar Sinan University, it was under the influence of various illegal Marxist-communist organizations. Aggressive atheist and materialist trends predominated among students as well as the academic staff. Indeed, some members of the teaching staff would seize every opportunity to propagandize on behalf of materialist philosophy and Darwinism, even though these subjects had nothing to do with the curriculum.

This environment accorded religion and moral values no respect, and rejected them almost entirely. The materialist view predominated. But Adnan Oktar began telling those around him of the existence and oneness of Allah, and was the only person who prayed openly in the Molla Mosque, adjacent to the university.

At night-as his mother, Mediha Oktar, relates-Adnan Oktar would sleep only a few hours and spend the rest of his time reading, taking notes and writing. He read hundreds of works including those dealing with Marxism, Leninism, Maoism, communism and materialist philosophy, and carried out detailed studies of the classics as well as more seldom-read texts. He also performed wide-ranging research into the theory of evolution-the alleged scientific foundation of these ideologies. Oktar collected considerable quantities of documents and detailed information revealing the increasing dilemmas faced by these superstitious philosophies-their quandaries, contradictions and falsehoods, all based on a denial of Allah-and used his accumulated knowledge to invite people to reality and truth. He spoke to everyone, university students and staff alike, about the existence and oneness of Allah and the moral values of the Qur'an. In conversations at the university canteen, and in breaks between classes, he outlined the deceptions of materialism and Darwinism, citing direct quotations from these ideologies' original texts.

Adnan Oktar attached special importance to refuting the theory of evolution. That was because he saw that ever since Darwinism's first appearance, it had been subsumed by materialism and atheism. Aware that today, those same circles are still defending Darwinism and striving to keep it alive for ideological reasons, Adnan Oktar believes that eradicating Darwinism will hand those movements a major defeat.

Mr. Oktar's intellectual struggle was subjected to many smear campaigns. Several times, groundless slanders and accusations led to his being arrested and detained for months, though eventually he was always found innocent. This photograph shows him being led into detention by police.

The First Pamphlet to Deal Darwinism a Body Blow

To that end, Adnan Oktar concentrated on proving the invalidity of this deception that for more than a century had turned people away from religious moral values. He realized that since Darwinism advanced itself in the name of science, the most effective means of revealing its true face was through science itself. Based on that viewpoint, he brought out a pamphlet entitled The Theory of Evolution, a summary of his wide-ranging research and study, and personally bore all the printing costs by selling property inherited from his family, and distributed the pamphlet free of charge to other university students.

Using an accessible and comprehensible style, this pamphlet demonstrated that evolution was a deception, with no scientific validity. Many people who read the pamphlet and spoke with Adnan Oktar came to agree that no living thing could come into being by chance, and that Almighty Allah created the universe and all living things in it.

Nonetheless some students in the university, blindly devoted to materialist thought, continued in denial, despite having seen the clear truth. Some militant students openly threatened Oktar, saying his life would be in danger unless he ceased his activities. Yet this only increased Oktar's determination and devotion to Allah. The harsh reactions and alarm evinced by materialist circles were significant proof that he was on the right path.

In a university in which terror ruled, dominated by atheist and materialist movements, devout individuals were harassed for their beliefs. During those years, while many young people in Turkey were ruthlessly slaughtered because of ideological tensions, Adnan Oktar openly preached the existence and oneness of Allah and of the truth of the Qur'an. In a university where no one had the courage to state his beliefs openly, he continued to pray regularly at the mosque, unwavering in the face of reactions and threats.

Spreading Religious Moral Values at Mimar Sinan University

When Adnan Oktar began communicating Islamic values, he was quite alone. For more than three years nobody at Mimar Sinan University backed up his views, yet that did not alter his determination. Knowing that Allah was his only friend, he did all these things solely to gain His approval.

He devoted all his time, energy and means to a single purpose: earning the good pleasure, mercy and Paradise of Allah, and telling all mankind about religious moral values.

In 1982, the first few students at Mimar Sinan University decided to support Adnan Oktar in his intellectual struggle. As months passed, the numbers of people adopting these ideas rose. Adnan Oktar held conversations with these young people on love of country; the importance of following in the great leader Ataturk's path; the proofs of creation; the exemplary moral values of our Prophet (saas); the provisions and moral values revealed in the Qur'an by our Lord; and the invalidity of the then-prevailing ideologies of materialism, atheism and Darwinism. From this time onward, Adnan Oktar was a vehicle by which many people came to believe.

The First Smear Campaign and Torture in a Mental Hospital

His intellectual activities opposing materialism and atheism began to elicit reactions from wider circles. Certain groups, alarmed by Adnan Oktar's nationalist and religious activities, set up a major conspiracy against him. Their plot coincided with the publication of his work Judaism and Freemasonry, which provoked an enormous response.

In the summer of 1986, Adnan Oktar was arrested for having stated, "I am a member of the Turkish nation, and of the community of Ibrahim," in an interview carried by a newspaper. Again under the influence of the circles mentioned above, misleading reports, false information and slanders about him began appearing in various publications.

Adnan Oktar was first arrested and imprisoned, then transferred to the Bakirkoy Mental Hospital on the grounds of being mentally unhealthy and placed under observation in ward 14A, poorly maintained, filthy, and used to house the most dangerous inmates. Ward 14A could be entered only by passing through a number of locked iron doors, since killings among patients were viewed as nothing out of the ordinary. Adnan Oktar was chained to his bed by his ankles for six weeks and forcibly given drugs blurring consciousness. Young colleagues who managed to visit him witnessed that he had lost none of his determination and enthusiasm. Postgraduate students, nurses and even doctors were prohibited from seeing him, out of concerns that he would turn them to Islamic moral values. Shortly afterwards, his family and relatives were also banned from visiting him, and even telephone calls were forbidden. He was threatened with spending the rest of his life in the hospital unless he abandoned his activities. Certain circles strongly suggested that if he ceased publication of Judaism and Freemasonry, he could immediately be released from hospital and spend the rest of his life in comfort. Financial incentives were also offered if he would hand over all the book's research materials. But he rejected all these offers, refusing to bow to the threats and pressure that only enhanced his determination.

After Oktar had been detained for 19 months, the Prosecutor's Office determined there was "no offence in the statements uttered." He was declared innocent and released.

During this period, Oktar continued his work on revealing that Darwinism is a terrible deception. In 1986 he collected all his research on Darwinism's true face in the book Living Things and Evolution, which for many years, remained the sole reference showing the scientific invalidity of the theory of evolution .

The Cocaine Conspiracy

Again in mid-1991, certain circles made uneasy by his cultural activities made him the target of a conspiracy. At the time, he was preparing a most important manuscript on the history of Freemasonry and world-wide Masonic organizations. Police, searching the home he shared with his mother in Istanbul's Ortakoy district, discovered a packet of cocaine in the very first book they opened-in a library of some 2,000 books!

Adnan Oktar was immediately detained in Izmir where he was together with a few friends, then transferred to the Istanbul Security Directorate, and after 62 hours, was sent to the Forensic Medicine Institution for drug testing. It was announced that Adnan Oktar's blood showed a high level of a cocaine by-product.

However, all the evidence submitted later showed that this was nothing more than slander; and that the cocaine allegedly found in Adnan Oktar's library was part of this conspiracy. Shortly before the arrest, he had felt that secret moves against him were afoot. Leaving his home in Ortakoy he called his mother Mediha Oktar to warn her of a likely plot against him and asked her to clean and search his house with a few other people as witnesses. His mother called her neighbor and janitor, and together they cleaned her son's home from top to bottom, dusting all the books in his library. Although Adnan Oktar did not return after that cleaning, 16 police officers carrying out the search operation "found" a packet of cocaine among his books as soon as they entered the house. The neighbor and janitor later made a sworn statement, saying jointly that "We cleaned Adnan Oktar's library together, and there was no such packet there."

The second phase of the conspiracy-the cocaine by-product in Adnan Oktar's blood-was refuted by scientific and forensic evidence. Adnan Oktar was kept in the Security Headquarters for 62 hours before the analyses was performed. Scientifically, however, it can be calculated how much cocaine a man has taken and how many hours before by measuring the cocaine by-product in his blood. In Adnan Oktar's blood, that level was so high that had he taken that much cocaine 62 hours before, it would have killed him. This showed that the cocaine had entered his body much sooner, by being mixed with his food while he was in detention.

This was confirmed by some 30 international forensic medicine institutions, including Scotland Yard. To the file sent to them for examination, all gave a common response: The cocaine had been administered while Adnan Oktar was in detention by being mixed with his food.

Subsequently, the Turkish Forensic Medicine Institution confirmed that the incident was a conspiracy, that the cocaine had been administered during the detention period, and Adnan Oktar was cleared by the court and released.

However, this incident revealed that forces hostile to Adnan Oktar intended to employ all kinds of dirty tricks. These forces, who previously sought to intimidate Adnan Oktar with prison and oppression, were now conspiring against him.

Adnan Oktar's Work on His Books

After 1991 Adnan Oktar dedicated all his time to writing and spent all his time at home.

Under the pen name of Harun Yahya, he has written hundreds of valuable books. Those that presented scientific refutations of Darwinism provoked particularly strong reactions in the scientific world. The 22 April 2000 issue of New Scientist called Mr. Oktar an "international hero" for communicating the fact of creation over the fallacy of evolution. The author's intellectual struggle against materialism and Darwinism has often been mentioned in such mainly evolutionist publications as National Geographic, Science, New Scientist and NSCE Reports. The English and German editions of National Geographic's November, 2004 issue referred to his works concerning the fact of creation, and included the following quotation from The Evolution Deceit: "The theory of evolution is nothing but a deception imposed on us by the dominators of the world system."

Adnan Oktar's works have been translated into many languages, including English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Urdu, Chinese, Arabic, Albanian, Russian, Serbo-Croat, Uigur, Indonesian, Azeri, Bengali, Bulgarian, Danish, Polish and Malay, and enjoy a world-wide readership in a great many countries, from India to America, Great Britain to Indonesia, from Poland to Bosnia, Spain and Brazil.

Through these books, a great many people have come to appreciate and to grow more deeply in their faith. Everyone who reads and studies his work is affected by this profound difference and benefits from his sincere, wise and easily accessible style. Each book is characterized by proven, definitive facts presented with honest clarity, which nobody can refute-features that doubtlessly stem from a striking wisdom vouchsafed by Allah.

Adnan Oktar Again Encounters Oppression

Various circles grew alarmed at all of his selfless activity. Unable to rebut Adnan Oktar's works on an intellectual level, materialist and Masonic circles incited a slander campaign to prevent any scientific work that might undermine the theory of evolution, aiming to neutralize it through slander and imputation.

In November 1999, exactly when reports were circulating that his three-volume work Global Freemasonry, was about to be published, Adnan Oktar came under renewed pressure. The forces that had sought to hinder the spread of religious moral values with smears, plots, false reports and accusations ever since Adnan Oktar first embarked on his intellectual struggle, had again entered the picture.

As a result of their incitement and misinformation, on 12 November, 1999, police raided the homes and workplaces of members of the Science Research Foundation. They found no evidence of criminal activity, and observed no immoral activity. Nonetheless, day after day, the press ran unbelievable falsehoods and mutually contradictory slanders. As a result, Adnan Oktar was remanded to prison for nine months, in the absence of any legal evidence.

During all these trials, he has always constituted a role model maintaining his trust in, and submission to, Allah, recalling that throughout history, believers have all been tested with similar incidents, that every event takes place in a destiny determined by Allah, in a wise and auspicious manner. No matter what may befall them, he has always said that believers must always be moderate, joyfully determined, and submit to Allah's will.

He has always been forgiving and compassionate towards those who have conspired to blacken his name with irrational and illogical slanders. Acting in the light of the morality revealed by Allah in the verse "Repel the bad with something better" (Surah Fussilat, 34), he was totally cleared by the court of all accusations made against him on 12 November, 1999. He is still actively engaged in his literary activities today, calling on his readers to live by proper moral values.

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