Sare Davutoglu, the wife of Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, is a gynecologist known for her conservative approach to medicine. A graduate of Istanbul University’s medical faculty, she worked at a clinic at the Islamic University of Malaysia in the 1990s. Interviews she gave during that period, her argument that Islam’s edicts on health could be used in modern medicine and her alleged support of the fatwa institution made headlines in the Turkish media after she became the first lady last year. The issue was important, for many people in rural Turkey still resort to faith healers and exorcists instead of doctors. Ridding the health sector of faith healers and transforming the people’s mentalities is actually the history in a nutshell of the struggle doctors have in Turkey. Hence, Sare Davutoglu’s views on Islamic medicine were met with concern and criticism.
And while her views were thus far judged on the basis of interviews or speculation, they boiled down to a concrete initiative in October. An annual congress on prophetic medicine, which used to convene in the form of small gathering, was this year held under Sare Davutoglu’s patronage and for the first time hosted by a university — the Cukurova University in the southern city of Adana. Local governor’s offices, public hospitals, education departments and mufti’s offices were officially mobilized to boost participation to the event.
