The Versace Harem

A group of Muslim women with tight shirts, bright lipstick, a feminist mission, and total devotion to a creationist guru. 

By Jenna Krajeski

The Slate - Thursday, May 2, 2013

I first agreed to meet Ece, Ceylan, Aylin, and Ebru because I didn't really believe they existed. They host the Turkish talk show Building Bridges and had recently gotten some attention, but not for the interviews. The women look astonishing. They are mostly bottle blonds, save for Ece, who has raven hair. Neon lipstick gives their lips a whole extra dimension. They coordinate outfits. At one of our meetings, they wore brightly colored satin pantsuits and T-shirts with designer brand names that stretched over their chests. What they talk about on Building Bridges—interfaith dialogue, women and Islam, the greatness of Turkey—isn't particularly sexy, but their outfits are designed to make up for that. They are also devout Muslims—conservative, even—a supposed contradiction that is also the show’s allure.

Guests often appear—usually by Skype—with their eyebrows arched in the manner of a serious person certain he is the victim of a practical joke. But they proceed. The women sweetly dare the guests to suggest the hosts are anything but what they claim to be—activists, political commentators, Muslims—because of how they dress. During one interview, which I observed in the studio, Ceylan right away asked a German diplomat if a "true religious education" could "combat bigotry."

The reaction in the Turkish media and among viewers of the show has been mostly centered on the weirdness of the program and its hosts, and the weirdness runs deep. A9, the television channel that broadcasts Building Bridges, is owned by Adnan Oktar, a once-prominent Turkish theologian known best for his ardent preaching of Islamic creationism and, more controversially, for the strong allegiance of his followers. The women of Building Bridges are among his cohort, unabashed in their allegiance to him, and his reputation is their reputation. Oktar has lately faded from the public eye after a series of controversies. The most calamitous of these was a book called The Holocaust Deception,  published in 1996 under Oktar's pen name, Harun Yahya. Oktar vehemently denied having written it—and to me when I asked him—but the association lingered.

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