Thousands mourn to former PM Erbakan

Istanbul's Fatih Mosque drew an unprecedented throng yesterday for the last prayer for former Prime Minister Necmettin Erbakan, the longtime leader of Turkey's Islamist movement. Hundreds of thousands of people came from all across Turkey to pay their final respects. President Abdullah Gul, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Parliament Speaker Mehmet Sahin – all onetime political students of Erbakan – arrived at the mosque around noon to attend the prayer. Gul and Erdogan lined up behind Erbakan's coffin, draped in green and Koranic verses, and followed Turkey's top cleric, Religious Affairs Directorate head Mehmet Gormez, to offer their prayers. Participants included politicians from a range of parties, including the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) along with academics, journalists and some high-ranking officers from the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK), which 14 years ago this week had pressured Erbakan to step down as prime minister. Foreign guests from Muslim-majority countries – Arabs, Indonesians and Pakistanis – were also in attendance, reflecting Erbakan's decades-long efforts to foster pan-Islamic solidarity. As a former prime minister, Erbakan could have had a state funeral, but instead asked for a "modest" one, his family announced after his death Sunday. Yet this modest funeral turned into a national event, demonstrating a devotion that few other political leaders in Turkish history have been able to win. After the prayers, Erbakan's body was taken to the Merkez Efendi Cemetery, where he was buried next to his wife Nermin, who died six years ago.