Ankara imam offers Turkey’s only English sermons
Turkish imam Mehmet Akif Koc has been giving sermons in English for the past five years.
From a mosque in the capital’s Cankaya district, Mehmet Akif Koc gives biweekly sermons in English — a unique practice in Turkey. Even without his interest in the writings of Noam Chomsky, the Ankara-based imam and professor would have a claim to be one of Turkey’s more unorthodox Islamic scholars and preachers.
Apart from the Arabic of the Quran, there is no record of a non-native language being used on a regular basis in any of Turkey's other 80,000-plus mosques.
