First female deputy of religious body comes at tough time for Turkish women
Huriye Marti has assumed the highest office at Turkey's Directorate of Religious Affairs thus far by a woman, but is it a step in the right direction for the situation of women in Turkey?
Amid all the political turmoil in Turkey, there is some good news on women’s rights. For the first time in the Turkish Republic's history, a woman has been appointed deputy head of the country’s top religious body, the Directorate of Religious Affairs, or Diyanet. It is the highest office in the directorate ever held by a woman since the institution’s founding in 1924.
The appointment of Huriye Marti, a professor at Necmettin Erbakan University, became official March 13. She had previously edited and wrote at the directorate’s Hadith Project. In 2011, she headed Diyanet's Family and Religious Guidance Department. Among her writings is “The Traces of the Negative Image of Women in Fake Hadiths.”
