İsmail Fatih Ceylan wrote: If you are going to buy a house from bricks, if you are going to buy a husband from a mullah.

Recently, a few television series have brought religious orders and sects back into the spotlight. While Turkey's history has always been replete with the constant appearance of religious orders and sects, this time it's a bit different. These series attempt to understand them from the inside, show them in real life, and convey the sense that they, too, have both good and bad sides. The series' "hidden purpose" appears to be to unite the two sides on a humane level, to avoid prejudice, and to demonstrate to both sides that conservative and secular groups can and do live together.

Because these series involved both "secular" and "conservative" elements and portrayed a "middle ground," they garnered more attention than expected. Initially, Kızılcık Şerbeti (Red Sherbet ) gained this momentum. While it didn't address religious sects or religious communities, it explored the theme that "both sides are a reality in a country," through its interweaving of events between a devoutly conservative family and a secular one. The series' message was that both sides had honest members and immoral members. An interesting observation was that young people found past prejudices strange and didn't care. For example, Çimen, the young daughter of a secular family, couldn't understand her mother Kıvılcım's discomfort with headscarves; she even grew angry. "Being uncovered or covered doesn't concern us young people at all; anyone can wear whatever they want, who cares?" she said. I believe this was the message the series was trying to convey to viewers.

However, the series, which followed this message for three or five episodes, soon became like a Müge Anlı-Esra Erol program . Initially "secular, modern, and intolerant of the veiled," Kıvılcım's eldest daughter, Doğa, left, fell in love with Fatih, the son of a wealthy, conservative family, and despite her mother's strong opposition, married Fatih, becoming pregnant. Fatih's family was forced to accept the marriage due to the pregnancy. The series' main theme was Fatih's father, Abdullah Bey, and mother, Pembe Hanım, tolerating Doğa, who was completely out of step with them, and moreover, "headstrong and secular," and their occasional clashes with their in-laws, Kıvılcım Hanım's family, and their attempts to be understanding towards each other.

However, after a few episodes, the series began to revert to the once-popular Dallas series. Kıvılcım Hanım, who had caused a stir when her daughter fell in love with a conservative man, found herself falling for and marrying her son-in-law's conservative uncle, Ömer. When Ömer's ex-wife married Kıvılcım's ex-husband, they swapped spouses. Meanwhile, Fatih's veiled and uncompromising older sister, Nursema, fell in love with Umut, who worked for Doğa's aunt Alev and sang at the bar at night, and married him despite her family's objections.

The real bombshell was the show's most modern character, the frisky Alev, who fell in love with the most conservative and oldest Abdullah Bey. Abdullah Bey initially resisted Alev's love, twenty, perhaps thirty years his junior, saying, "I repent and I forgave you." He even upset her by telling her that such a thing was impossible, but later, he couldn't help but fall for Alev. The scene where he confesses his love to Alev at home to his wife and children is arguably the most watched scene in the series. Pembe Hanım, overcome with soberness, stubbornly refused to divorce her husband, but Doğa's flighty aunt Alev became pregnant by her nephew's father-in-law, Abdullah Bey.

Meanwhile, Abdullah Bey had suffered a heart attack in the series. Settar Tanrıöğen, who played that role, underwent brain surgery in real life around the same time, and was replaced by Abdullah Bey, played by Ahmet Mümtaz Taylan. While the previous Abdullah Bey was thinner, more polite, and more delicate, the new Abdullah Bey was overweight, more grumpy, and grumpy when he emerged from the sickroom, leaving viewers quite stunned. After all this time, some still haven't gotten used to the role of the conservative family man. He looks like he's about to make rakı and fish at any moment.

Meanwhile, Fatih and Doğa, who had married out of love, couldn't get along and divorced despite having a child. However, Fatih began to take on a newfound importance for Doğa, who had previously longed for a divorce. However, Pembe Hanım quickly found a potential bride for her son. Fatih, in turn, was very impressed with the new bride, Görkem. Meanwhile, to avoid Ömer's distress due to his illness, she broke up with Kıvılcım, claiming she had fallen in love with another woman . During her depression, she "went astray" and began drinking at a bar, where she met Görkem, a acquaintance. Görkem, the lover of both her uncle and her nephew, is a curious character who dresses conservatively in her family and revealingly outside, constantly showing her teeth and smiling. After recovering from her depression, Ömer returned to Kıvılcım, who was in love with her colleague Ertuğrul Bey, and the two became lovers again.

While these dizzying developments unfolded, Çimen, the youngest daughter of the secular family, eighteen, began a love affair with Fatih's new lover, Görkem's, married brother, who had three children. Despite learning that he was married, she agreed to marry him in a religious ceremony and wear a headscarf. When she arrived at her mother's house with her older, religiously married husband, Kıvılcım, Doğa, and Sönmez were stunned to see her veiled appearance. Kıvılcım, enraged by the sight of his daughter, immediately demanded she remove her headscarf and go to her room. But Çimen, announcing her marriage, moved into her new home with her husband. There, she learned to perform ablutions and prayers, and began fasting.

When it was later revealed that her husband had hidden the fact that he had divorced his ex-wife, saying, "I couldn't divorce my wife, I will have an official marriage with you when I divorce," Çimen took off her headscarf and returned to her mother's house.

The point the series has reached is truly bizarre; even trying to summarize it leaves one's head spinning, one's brain on edge. Everyone is connected to everyone else; it's a true family love affair. Kıvılcım's mother, Sönmez Hanım, the most level-headed and sensible character in the series, and Fatih's good-hearted brother, Mustafa, are the only ones left unharmed for now, but they could probably surprise them in the future. Indeed, there were no infidelities, but they drove Mustafa mad and made him commit murder, and Sönmez Hanım became a mentally ill woman.

The series' trajectory in recent episodes appears to favor the secular side in some ways, but there are hidden messages against them. First of all, all the secular men in the series are lazy, irresponsible. Kıvılcım's ex-husband, Kayıhan, is a rich womanizer and a con artist whose profession is unclear. Semanur's husband, Umut, stays home late into the evenings, resenting his wife's employment. Worse still, all the secular women are falling in love with and marrying conservative men, sending the message , "If you're going to buy a house, it's made of bricks; if you're going to get a husband, it's made of mullahs."

Despite the confusion surrounding "who's in love with whom, and who's being hurt by whom?" , "Kizilcık Şerbeti" continues to be watched with interest by a wide audience, especially those who, starting with "Aşk-ı Memnu " (Forbidden Love), appreciate deception and intrigue. Secularism and conservatism no longer have any meaning in this series.

Perhaps that's why a new series, "Red Rosebuds, " produced by the same team, has been launched. Unlike "Red Roses," which aired on the channel formerly known as Fox and now known as " Now" (pronounced "Nav"), the series focused on secularists and the Mortal Religious Order, which resembles the "İsmail Ağa Community." However, this series isn't exactly a show of strength. Despite being a secularist who frequently references Atatürk, Dr. Levent is also the father of a child stolen from someone else. He's unhappy with his wife, and his wife, unable to love the child they stole, fled the country. Dr. Levent's father, a physics professor named Süha Bey, is bedridden and so angry with his journalist daughter, a "not enough, but yes," that he refuses to see her for voting for the AKP. What truly angers the secularists is that Dr. Levent generally prevails in the philosophical debates he engages in with Cüneyd, the grandson of the sheikh of the Mortal Religious Order. The character of Cüneyd is so effective that most of the viewers of the series - especially girls - became his fanatic fans.

The series' protagonists are Meryem and her daughter Zeynep, both Mortals. Zeynep's pure beauty, innocent demeanor, extreme intelligence, and her efforts to study are the series' main story. Bedridden Süha Bey's ability to solve a difficult problem he wrote on the blackboard surprises Süha Bey, a member of the 28th February movement, and he falls in love with her. Especially impressed is Zeynep's statement on the blackboard, "The religious sects don't want girls to study, and you don't want girls wearing headscarves to study. There's no difference between you and them." He begins to strive to get her to study abroad. It's as if there's no trace of the 28th February movement left in Süha Bey.

Meryem Hanım is a devoted mother who, despite being a member of a religious order, fights for her daughter's education and tolerates her brutal husband, whom she married off at fifteen. She receives help from Süha Bey and Levent against the attempts to force her young daughter into marriage with Cüneyd. Meryem Hanım is also the true mother of Doctor Levent's daughter. She was told the child was dead, but Levent's wife stole the child from the hospital using forged documents.

When Cüneyd's father appeared, the series took a different path, turning to violent and brutal scenes. Cüneyd's butcher-looking father, while beating people with clubs and cutting off arms, took control of the cult. When these events came to play, I stopped watching. I don't know what happened next or how the series ended.

From what I've observed, they believe that the events in "Kızılcık Şerbeti"—Fatih impregnating Doğa before marriage, and conservative Ömer going to a bar to drink and sleeping with his acquaintance Görkem—are intended to discredit conservative men. They laugh at the scene where the alcohol is washed out of the cologne. From the very beginning, they harbored the suspicion that these series would appeal to the religious and then portray secularism as more honest and moral.

In "Red Cherry Sherbeti," the women of the conservative family—Pink Hanım, her daughter Nursema, and the later-covered, seditious, and funny Nilay—are religious, but the men are less so. In the early episodes, there are a few scenes of Abdullah Bey praying, but Fatih, his kind-hearted older brother Mustafa, and their uncle Ömer don't seem to have any religious side. They seem to only go to mosques on religious holidays.

In Kızıl Goncalar (Red Rosebuds), the conservative segment, already belonging to religious sects, engaged in religious conversations beyond prayers, constantly praying with prayer beads in hand. Meryem Hanım and her daughter Zeynep, despite their struggles within the sect, were quite pious. Religious viewers of the series reacted to the scene where a Quran teacher hits young students with a stick, claiming it "discredits religious sects and communities." The series received a several-week ban from the Radio and Television Supreme Council (RTÜK) for this, but secularists stubbornly defended the series on the grounds of this ban.

The punishment scene, known as "vakt-ı mekat," surprised many viewers. A prominent figure in the order was punished by having a lock of his beard cut off in front of everyone in the lodge because Meryem Hanım had discovered that his pastries were mixed with soybean oil, despite the fact that he was selling them in boxes claiming to be all butter. This incident led to Meryem Hanım's expulsion. This scene became one of the most striking, and the "vakt-ı mekat," which portrayed a just punishment that few even the most devout knew about, became a topic of discussion in our country.

Some secularists who embraced the series had stopped watching Kızıl Goncalar, claiming it "normalized bigotry," promoted sectarian propaganda, and portrayed the Atatürkist family as child thieves. However, while many weren't entirely happy with the current state of affairs, they continued to watch with curiosity, hoping that the true nature of the sects would be revealed, and that Cüneyd, the admired sheikh's grandson, and Meryem and Zeynep would be enlightened. But some were outraged. Enver Aysever had lashed out at Now, the channel that broadcast the series, demanding , "Are you nav, are you hav, how can you broadcast such a series?"

Yet the series was slowly heading in the direction they wanted. In Kızıl Goncalar (Red Rosebuds), Cüneyd's club-wielding father, who seized control of the religious order in a coup, and his aunt, who suddenly appeared in Kızılcık Şerbet (Red Rosebud), were placed as oppressive and repulsive religious figures.

Red Rosebuds is over, and Cranberry Sherbet will continue. But Cranberry Sherbet is now driven by scandalous events. The series lacks the conservative conservatism of the conservatives, nor the secularism of the secular Kıvılcım. It only flies flags on official holidays and delivers a few speeches, that's all.

The conservative section's attention is now largely directed towards Gassal and Mehmed: Sultan of the Conquests.