Dear friends, companions, collegues, students, and anyone worldwide who might be concerned about our wellbeing,

Turkey has survived an unacceptable attemp of military coup. This violent coup was the work of a delusional radical group in the army, the identities and numbers and purposes of whom were so far unknown. Thus they made themselves known, and now there is an ongoing huge operation to swipe them from the army, and any other position they might be holding statewise. This process, the days since the attempted coup and the days still to come are difficult for us, there is and there will be a lot of controversy. We want you to know that we stand thanks to your prayers, and we need them direly. Please keep the duas up, please don’t leave us alone. You know we love you and hold you dear, and vice versa.

You probaly saw how the tanks ran over civilians, how the traitors showered the patriot resistance with g3 bullets, how the Turkish Parliament was air-bombed, how we fought, how we won. Please, if you want to follow the news, follow TRT World (www.trtworld.com). 

The trauma of that night still lingers, everyone is still in shock. But we fought knowing what catastrophe follows a coup. We are, sadly, very experienced about that. The traitors declared a curfew, and we all knew what it meant. When several minutes later President Erdoğan made the call to occupy the streets and protect our “vatan,” our homeland, all else was gone from our minds and the prospect of death became a slight inconvenience, or even a welcome convenience; for we knew this was a call at arms and he never before did that. Even during the most difficult days he always advised the people to stay calm and keep the streets peaceful. So those who could flooded the streets, those who could not took to the Qur’an and salah. Those who had to stay indoors had their hearts torn apart by the scorch of not being able to answer the call of vatan in person, so they prayed from their bleeding hearts. Maybe that was an equally strong defense with the one on the streets. It was a very difficult night for everyone, whether on the streets or indoors, but we stood together. That night we saw that there is actually no division in Turkey, and that everyone is everyone else. No one was pro-Erdoğan or anti-Erdoğan; everyone was pro-Turkey and pro-democracy, and that was what mattered. These days, everyone respects the other. The traffic is nice, people are nice, everything is nice; for we understood our worth for each other. We doubt the tratiors targeted that as the outcome of their little “coup.”   

We have a Night Watch now. We, people of Turkey, take voluntary and uncoordinated turns in keeping our eyes open for traitors; not for the unlikely event of any traitors being left to show up actually, but to express that we are here for our country. We take our flags and patrol the streets, pass our nights at city squares, sleep on the sidewalks if we have to, then clean up the mess go to work in the morning. Even after the Night Watch ends and people go home to sleep, we will always be watching out for our country and for each other.

July 15, 2016 is the day the world as we knew it ended. Now it is a better place. Now we have a Democracy Day to celebrate annually. We have a dark night and a following bright sunrise to remember. We have our martyrs to mourn and honor, we have our heroes to praise and we have new songs to sing. We wrote history, as we always did. As we always will, inshaAllah. What we learned is the strength and importance of sticking together.     

Love and gratitude from us. Maasalaam.