PHD Religion Personal Statement of Purpose Turkish

At 24, I was still a legal minor when the United States occupied Iraq. But I noted this political development as highly significant, for me, since I see the U.S. as a Judeo-Christian power and Iraq as a Muslim country bordering my own, Turkey. The Turkish government has selected me to learn how to become a sort of ambassador of peace, given the way in which the religious composition of the Middle East both gives rise to and propels political conflict. In addition to my exam scores, I may have been selected for this scholarship largely because of my facility with language, Arabic (fluent reader) and Farsi (a little), but especially English. I have always excelled at English. Living in English is beginning to feel natural.

I like to think of myself as a representative of the Turkish people to the West. Turkish people want to become part of Europe and have relations with America in the same that the European Union has relationships with America. A stridently secular military in Turkey bolsters a tradition of secularism that resists domination by Turkey's Muslim majority. As a Muslim woman I am an excellent candidate to become a peacemaker, both at home and on the international level, supporting international organizations devoted to the vigilance of human rights issues in Turkey and other Asian countries. English has been my greatest struggle, to learn how to speak English like Americans is enormously difficult. But now we at least understand each other better and better and I even laugh a lot.

I have come close to the kind of exam scores that your program is looking for, and I ask for special consideration because of my highly developed language skills in Arabic as well as English (in addition to Turkish). I earned a verbal score on the GRE of 350 last December and will take the exam again at the beginning of March. My IBT TOEFL is eighty-three and I am also planning to retake that examination. I am making enormous strides at making English my own and I now even dream sometimes in English and my confidence level has also risen.

I am passionately enthralled with the history of Christianity, Christianity and society, and the psychology of religion. I see Muslim-Christian dialogue and interfaith worship as of critical importance to our future as a global society and I want to learn everything that I can to promote inter-religious dialogue and strengthening and sharing our faith. I am also very conscious of myself as a woman and I am deeply moved by what I have learned about the patriarchal brutalities and barbarities that have been committed against women in history and continue to take place in the name of religion, especially Western Religion. A liberal, progressive Muslim woman, I am searching for opportunities to share with my Christian sisters and brothers the construction of mutual understandings, I admire Gandhi, and I am deeply interested in Hinduism. Like Gandhi, I see all religions as true. I too want to be a Jew, a Christian, and a Hindu as well as a Muslim.

Gandhi as spiritual leader worldwide to people of all religious faiths.

I feel very strongly that ____ University is the perfect match for my interests; it is where my heart is. Making peace is so central to your mission, and the description of your treatment of religion in its many manifestations is exactly what I am looking for. I look forward very much to sharing with you the exploration of our common and distinct beliefs and practices and the way that they are all intertwined with our cultural identities and understandings.

Thank you for considering my application.

PHD Religion Personal Statement of Purpose Turkish