Religion

Islam is the religion of the majority of Turks although the state is fiercely secular. Islam emanated from what is today Saudi Arabia. The Prophet Muhammad is seen as the last of God's emissaries (following in the footsteps of Jesus, Moses, Abraham, etc) to bring revelation to mankind. He was distinguished with bringing a message for the whole of mankind, rather than just to a certain peoples. As Moses brought the Torah and Jesus the Bible, Muhammad brought the last book, the Quran. The Quran and the actions of the Prophet (the Sunnah) are used as the basis for all guidance in the religion.

Among certain obligations for Muslims are to pray five times a day - at dawn, noon, afternoon, sunset, and evening. The exact time is listed in the local newspaper each day. Friday is the Muslim holy day although this is not practised in Turkey. However, most males will attend the congregational afternoon prayer. During the holy month of Ramazan all Muslims must fast from dawn to dusk. Fasting includes no eating, drinking, cigarette smoking, or gum chewing

Turkish..Turkey official Language

 

 

 

 

 

 

The official language, Turkish, is the first language spoken by 90% of the 63m population. Minority

languages include Kurdish, spoken by 6% of the population. Arabic is spoken by 1.2% of the Turkish

population; most of those speakers are bilingual Arabic and Turkish speakers. Other minority

languages include Circassian, spoken by more than 0.09% throughout the country, Greek, Armenian

and Judezmo, a Romance language spoken by Jews.

Turkey lovely country

The Republic of Turkey stretches between western Asia and south-eastern Europe, where it is bordered by a number of different countries. Turkey lies to the south-east of Bulgaria, to the east of Greece and to the south-west of Georgia. Directly east of Turkey are Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran, while to the south-east are Iraq and Syria.

The Mediterranean Sea forms Turkey's southerly coastline and is responsible for many beachfront attractions, including the seaside resorts of Antalya. To the west of Turkey is the Aegean Sea and a further set of popular beaches.

Since Turkey actually straddles two separate continents, the country's rich culture features strong elements and traditions from both east and west. The tourism scene in the country is thriving and cheap holidays to Turkey are fairly easy to come by. Tourist attractions here tend to be very much focused around Turkey's many sites of historical and archaeological interest, with the country actually being the world's ninth most visited.

Tourism in this country is particularly developed and Turkey holidays are especially popular within Istanbul, where literally thousands of different hotels compete. Istanbul is the biggest city in the whole of Turkey and boasts attractions dating back to the Byzantine, Roman and Ottoman Empires. Bursa, Edirne, Izmir, Konya, Sinop and Trabzon are all further important Turkish cities worthy of a mention, along with the capital city of Ankara.