Followers of Harun Yahya, a well-financed Turkish publisher of popular Islamic books, held four conferences at Muslim centers in the Paris area at the weekend with more scheduled in six other cities.
At a Muslim junior high school in this north Paris suburb, about 100 pupils -- boys seated on the right, girls on the left -- listened as two Turks from Harun Yahya's headquarters in Istanbul denounced evolution as a theory Muslims should shun.
"We didn't descend from the apes," lecturer Ali Sadun told the giggling youngsters. Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, he said, was "the scientific basis to defend atheism."
.... Harun Yahya is the pseudonym of Adnan Oktar, 55, a preacher who keeps secret the sources of the ample funds that allow him and a group of followers to produce hundreds of thousands of slick and simple books on Islam under his pen name. [International Business Times] Read more
