For the past two years, Arab satellite television has seen a surge of a new arrival to the airwaves.  Turkish soap operas (TSOs) have become the new craze devoured by the millions as highlighted in a recent NY Times article.  Their popularity has increased so much that numerous other satellite channels are taking contracts for re-run Turkish soap operas and constantly debuting new shows. Making them a new favorite for Muslims in the West. The storylines are familiar to the traditional soap lines: murder, love, conspiracy, and wealthy family patriarchs.  However the Turkish shows have a more common theme tied into their plots-Muslim names, backgrounds, and traditions.  

Millions of women, men, and youth are intrigued by these TSOs.  The poorer lesser educated woman identifies and sympathizes with  the struggling female character through the rags to riches story who in the end achieves a fairy tale ending-wealth, social status and love.  Men view traditional roles in their society as outdated or restricted as they watch TSOs where men try to pursue their physical desires by any means.    As one can imagine, TSOs have greatly affected Arab society where the vast majority are Muslim, including those currently living in Western countries. Lines are intentionally blurred between gender roles in society especially in the work place and academia. There is a major focus on the mixing of the genders (ikhtilat) in public and private life and its acceptance as the new way of socializing.  Television producers choose the common plotline of a Hollywood style romance or the "Cinderella" story leaving a detrimental effect on young highly impressionable minds.  Therefore placing false and unreal values in marital life, causing great harm in society.  

There is great pressure on TSOs to accomplish what other Western soap operas failed.  Actually foreign soap operas have been on Arab television for the past 30 years, particularly American and Latin soaps.  However, their foreign names and lifestyles have failed to ultimately capture Arab audiences because of this "foreignness" ... a sharp contrast to Arab lifestyle.  The Western soaps used traditional Arabic as their dubbing, losing its entertaining appeal to the masses, while the TSOs used the common dialect, usually Syrian to appeal to the wider younger audiences.  This, plus the fact, that TSOs used Muslim names and lands to make the plotlines more familiar to Arab audiences based on various studies. This combination triumphed - it was a huge success in the penetration of the Western social lifestyle in the conservative Muslim Arab lands.

Turkey played a key role in this social impact for several reasons.  First, Turkey is a predominantly Muslim country with it carrying the history of the Islamic State.  Muslims identify with one another in other parts of the Muslim world, which TSOs often exploit.  Certain plotlines use honor killings and arranged marriages to further this point deep into the Arab world.  Turkey captured the hearts of the Arabs not just through its media going even further politically.

TSOs are only the tip of the iceberg-the West spreads its tentacles to pierce the Muslim Ummah through every possible tactic using the most basic, most powerful technique --media.   Having the ability to penetrate the most private place ---a Muslim's home.  The West aims to distribute its decaying social values upon a people who possess the elevated social system.  The West advocates women's rights in Muslim countries; meanwhile it still struggles with the most basic issues at home, whether sexual harassment or workforce discrimination.  Its divorces rates are constantly rising making single mothers a dominant part of society, cases of suicides and rapes are soaring.  They are dumping a corrupt and quickly disintegrating system to a people who have an exalted way of life from the Creator Himself.  How can we allow ourselves to accept such dejected ideas?  To go from high to low?  The Muslim youth need to realize the West's deliberate aim of destroying the very fiber that makes its followers so mighty and virtuous.   By numbing our senses with crumbling values, they are slowly intoxicating us with a poison so strong that we have become desensitized to the daily dose of munkar we see on television.  We tolerate lewd obscenities to enter our homes.  The West yearns for the Muslim lands to accept their crumbling system that have the highest standards for ethics and morals bestowed upon them by Allah swt. It tries to destroy the susceptible generation with their corrupt standards as the new measure in the Middle East.

Turkey must return to its mighty glory.  Rather than filling the Muslim minds with decay, they ought to be nurtured with righteous thoughts.  Allah swt revealed in Surah Al-Nur (24), Ayah 19:

إِنَّ الَّذِينَ يُحِبُّونَ أَن تَشِيعَ الْفَاحِشَةُ فِي الَّذِينَ آمَنُوا لَهُمْ عَذَابٌ أَلِيمٌ فِي الدُّنْيَا وَالْآخِرَةِ وَاللَّهُ يَعْلَمُ وَأَنتُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ

Surely (as for) those who love that scandal should circulate respecting those who believe, they shall have a grievous chastisement in this world and the hereafter; and Allah knows, while you do not know.

Manal Bader

Bayt Al-Maqdes