A video went viral showing a group of people performing the zikr ceremony at the Esenboğa International Airport in Ankara, the capital city of Turkey.
Zikr, also spelled "dhikr", is the name of devotional acts in Islam in which short phrases are repeatedly recited aloud. Worshipers frequently lose themselves in a spinning frenzy.
The authorities at the airport reported to soL that they had taken the issue to local authorities, and they did not know the details, about which an investigation was on its way.
It was also stated that the required clarification would be made by the governorship.
The case signals the level of the temerity of Sunni Islamic sects under the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's AKP party rule in Turkey. The sects were in power in most of the government offices in the Ottoman Empire, and were radically shut down in 1925, shortly after the establishment of the Republic of Turkey.
In the past decades, however, they have been gaining power with the support from several governments. Since 2002, when the present ruling party AKP came to power, there have been numerous cases where religious radicalism raised its head, and it is widely known that members of religious sects are given every type of positions in government offices.
In another incident back in 2007, with the organisation of Şükrü Can, the Head of the Department of Aircraft Maintenance of the company Turkish Airlines, a camel was killed for sacrifice in a ramp at the Atatürk International Airport in İstanbul, Turkey.
