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Why Turkey's Islamists are up in arms over bikini-clad sculpture

An Ottoman sultan's image, painted on a sculpture of a woman's belly, draws the scrutiny and ire of young Muslims.
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Amid all of Turkey's current controversies — the attempted coup, the subsequent purge of thousands of alleged conspirators, the war in Syria, to name just a few — Istanbul's “art critics" are creating their own turmoil.

On Nov. 3, a group of angry young Islamists chanting "Allahu Akbar" showed up at the annual Contemporary Istanbul art exhibit demanding that a sculpture be removed from the gallery. The statue that caused such an uproar is a sculpture of a woman wearing a bathing suit. Painted on her belly is a man wearing a fez and a military uniform with his tongue sticking out and curved upward. This man is Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II. Abdulhamid Han, as he is referred to among Turkish Islamists, reigned for 33 years and is the most revered sultan.

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