Turkey to distribute Islamic books to Syrian children

By Sefa Sahin

ANKARA

Turkey’s top religious authority has published two handbooks on Islam in Arabic for Syrian children aged 4-6, it said on Tuesday.

The Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet) has published 20,000 copies of the handbooks which will be distributed to the refugees in Turkey and Syria.

They aim to dispel misinterpretation of Islam spread by terrorist groups like Daesh in the region.

The books for pre-school children will be distributed through the offices of the muftis in Turkey’s southern Kilis and Gaziantep provinces, bordering Syria.

Turkey currently hosts 3.2 million Syrian refugees, more than any other country in the world.

Syria has been locked in a devastating conflict since early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have been killed and millions more displaced by the conflict.