ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Despite being the home of extravagant and iconic Islamic architecture, mosques in Turkey are increasingly missing one of their core elements - worshippers. A recent study showed that the number of Muslims in the country who pray daily has declined.
The surveying firm Asal Arastirma asked 2,000 people across Turkey how often they pray and nearly half of the participants said they do not pray at all.
According to the poll conducted in August, 44.5 percent of respondents said they do not pray at all and 36.7 percent said they only pray at special times such as Fridays, Eid, and gratitude (shukr) prayers. Only 18.8 percent said they pray daily.
The number of people who do not pray at all has increased from a similar study conducted in April 2022, when it was 41.8 percent, while the number of those who pray daily has plummeted from 23 percent.
The declining numbers of the prayerful can be traced to a “clash within religious families” and a “collapse” in the culture, according to Turkish Islamic theologian Ihsan Eliacik.
“Children from religious families are becoming disillusioned with religion. While the religious groups are distancing themselves from religion, they are trying to Islamize the country along with those in power,” Eliacik told Rudaw.
Turkey’s religious classes are not fulfilling the needs of the people, according to Eliacik. “Art, literature, culture, religious thought, and philosophy have collapsed. At this point, they have nothing to offer people,” he said.
In Istanbul, there is a general belief that family priorities are shifting and this has contributed to a move away from the mosques.
“Let's say it's about the upbringing style. It stems from the parents. They are not teaching our religion. That's all I can say,” Melek Sangor, a Turkish citizen from Istanbul, told Rudaw.
“We see it because people are drifting further away from religion every day. What other reason could there be for this? Their only thought is for them to go to school. Let them go to school and study, regardless of what happens, that is also a wrong perspective,” said Ahmet Tenger.
Erkan Tosun, another resident of Istanbul, said that the media has affected the way people think and blamed it for disrupting family and societal structures.
“Visual media, print media, and TV series are disrupting people's and society's structure. They are undermining the family structure. For this reason, in my opinion, the number of people attending mosques is decreasing,” Tosun said.
