Controversy in Turkey as Religious Body Approves Marriage to Quake Orphans

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Turkey’s top religious body is under fire for issuing a fatwa that it is permissible for adopted children to marry their adoptive parents as the country tries to recover from a devastating earthquake that killed tens of thousands of people.

The Directorate of Religious Affairs (also called Diyanet) in Turkey issued the fatwa in response to a question about adopting children whose parents or guardians died after the earthquake struck Turkey and its neighbor Syria.

“While Islam praised those who aid or take care of orphans, it does not recognize adoption as a legal status.” the body’s High Council of Religious Affairs wrote.

The three-paragraph-long edict explained that adopted children could not inherit property from their adoptive parents. But the fatwa maintained that there is no obstruction to adoptive parents marrying their adopted children, even though marriage was not mentioned in the question.

The ruling quickly drew condemnation from various organizations and individuals. The fatwa’s timing also became questionable. Turkey is currently embroiled in a child marriage case where a woman accused her father, a head of a foundation connected to the Ismailaga sect, of forcing her to marry a 29-year-old member of the sect when she was age 6.

The Women's Platform for Equality or ESIK, a Turkish woman and children’s rights organization, released a statement condemning the fatwa, accusing Diyanet of “paving the way for child abuse.”

ESIK also recalled a previous ruling issued by the body, saying that girls can be married at age nine and boys at age 12 under Islam. This fatwa was deleted from the body’s website.

The Union of Turkish Bar Associations, a leading organization for lawyers in Turkey, also criticized the edict for violating three articles of the country’s civil code.

Secularist newspapers such as Cumhuriyet and Birgun highlighted the discrepancy between the fatwa and the Turkish civil code in their headlines.

Under Turkey’s civil code, adopted children are allowed to inherit from their adoptive parents, and adoptive parents are barred from marrying their adopted children.

Celebrities and journalists also weighed in on the ruling. Turkish singer Murat Boz took to Instagram to express his comments, saying that Diyanet’s fatwa on marriage and adoption “defies logic, common sense, and conscience” at a time when thousands of children were orphaned by the earthquake.

But perhaps the most scathing criticism came from prominent journalist and TV presenter Fatih Altayli, tweeting, "What are perverts like you doing in an institution like the Diyanet?” and asked those in the Diyanet to work in the porn industry instead. A criminal complaint has since been registered against him for “grave insults against the institution and its personnel.”

The Diyanet retracted their fatwa, issuing another statement and accused ”people of ill will” of distorting the original meaning of their ruling, saying, “It is admirable that people want to foster orphans of the quake.”

While the second statement says that adopted and foster children are not considered kin under Islam, it emphasizes that Turkey’s laws should be respected.

As the death toll rises to more than 40,000, the earthquake presents a challenge for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ahead of the upcoming elections in May, although it could be postponed for up to a month.

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