Early this morning police conducted a number of “simultaneous operations.” This time they were searching the homes and offices of theologians. It was, according to Today’s Zaman, “part of a major operation carried out as part of the Ergenekon investigation into suspected links with 2007 Zirve Publishing House murders, in which three people who sold Christian literature were killed.”

How odd. In 2008, I interviewed Şahin Filiz, one of the theologians in question. He really didn’t seem the missionary-murdering sort.

Filiz, a professor of Islamic history and philosophy, is the author of a best-selling book detailing his argument that the Qu’ran does not oblige women to cover their heads. While we were talking, he mentioned, almost incidentally, that he was under 24-hour police protection because the Islamist newspaper Memleket had accused him of mocking his native city of Konya.

Mocking it? How so? He had said, “There is no way of measuring religiosity,” and “The türban is not a necessity and not in the Qu’ran.”

Since 2007, they had written about him every week. They had forced him out of Konya.

Here’s what he said in the interview. I never published this–to be honest, I thought he was just one more mild-mannered theologian. Had I known I was in the presence of a man who might be messed up in murdering missionaries, I would have paid much more attention.

Islamic history is misunderstood. After the 12th century, Islam ceased to express itself as a culture and a civilization. Instead, it was understood in terms of faith and surrender. In the 13th century, Islam went backwards as the West entered the Renaissance. It was a turning point in relations between the West and Islam. The Selcuk and pre-Ottoman empires were influenced by Islam, but the Arabic-Islamic element, characterized by a romantic yearning for primitive 7th century society, never governed the Ottoman Empire.

The facts: The Abrahamic religions are united, and each nation has a right to interpret Islam in keeping with its own roots. Shi’ism is rooted in pre-Islamic Iran. Turkish Islam emerged between the 10th and 14th centuries; Sharia law was never implemented. The Turkish interpretation of Islam is the healthiest. It merges middle-Asian Turkish culture with pre-Islamic Anatolian culture and shamanism. It is the national expression of all of the religions of the region, including Hinduism and Buddhism. Kemalism is not only a political philosophy, as claimed in the West, it’s also a religious and civilizational philosophy.

There was never an official nation ruled by Shariat. The whole society was religious, but the government wasn’t. The extremist, Arabic-Islamic interpretation of Islam treats all history after the 7th century as illegitimate, laying foundation for radicals who seek a return to it. This interpretation loses sight of both pre- and post-Islamic history and puts it under the umbrella of Arab nationalism. But this interpretation runs counter to the historical facts.

Atatürk is criticized among radicals for not basing his philosophy on Arabic principles. But Kemalism suggests a religious understanding governed by intellect.

I asked him about the descriptions I’d been reading of Fethullah Gülen as a “postmodern Khomenei.” He said it seemed to him possible. “His means are moderate, but what is his goal?”

At this point, everyone in the restaurant wanted to chime in. For what it’s worth, I’ve never noticed that anyone here is afraid to talk about Gülen. To the contrary, whether they love him or fear him, everyone seems to be competing to see who can scream the loudest about him. We didn’t invite them to join the conversation, but they’d been listening and they wanted to have their say.

Woman 1: When I was a kid, my relatives fasted, but they weren’t ostentatious about it. Now people are ostentatious about it; they tell everyone they’re fasting. … Man 1: Religious newspapers are distributed free! … Man 2: Members of a (male) rowing team were beaten up for wearing shorts. The police insisted it was a dispute over parking, but this isn’t so! The police chief, the mayors, the governors are hiding–who is going to defend my rights? … Woman 1: The Gülen people provide education, they support people economically–and in exchange they ask for their sons.

The ban on headscarves in universities and government buildings had to remain, Filiz thought, “because people build relationships with religion based on symbols, and Turkey’s unique conditions require this.” He was worried about the changing social environment. “The pressure mounts: The religious start excluding the non-religious from social and political life.”

I would have said, sitting there, that he was the hunted, not the hunter, but I guess you just never know. I’m lucky he didn’t whip out the butter knife and do me in. Lesson learned. You never can tell who’s a member of Ergenekon. They look so normal on the surface.

“I’m just an academic,” he said to me sadly. “I wanted a quiet life.”