Adnan Oktar (; born 2 February 1956), also known as Adnan Hoca or Harun Yahya, is a Turkish religious sex cult leader, creationist/anti-evolutionist, conspiracy theorist, preacher and pamphleteer. In the 2000s, he was engaged in "a massive campaign" of proselytizing Westerners to Islam, producing dozens of vividly illustrated books. In the West, before his arrest and trial, he was perhaps best known for his unsolicited sending thousands of copies of his book, The Atlas of Creation, which advocates Islamic creationism, to French schools and universities in January 2007, and several months later to American scientists, members of Congress, science museums and schools. Before his arrest, Oktar ran two organizations in which he also served as honorary president: Bilim Araştırma Vakfı (BAV, literally, "Science Research Foundation", established 1990), which promoted creationism and Millî Değerleri Koruma Vakfı (literally, "Foundation for Protection of National Values", established 1995) which worked domestically on a variety of moral issues. In more recent years, Adnan Oktar has preached "the true Islam" based on the Quran on his TV channel, A9 TV. His organization is commonly referred to as a cult, and he has been described by Vice magazine as the "most notorious cult leader in Turkey." Oktar filed more than 5,000 lawsuits against individuals for defamation from 2005 to 2015, which led to the blocking of a number of prominent websites in Turkey. After being arrested in July 2018, and indicted a year later, on 11 January 2021, Oktar was sentenced to 1,075 years in prison, after being tried for charges including forming a criminal enterprise, financial fraud, and sexual abuse. Along with 13 others detained in the case, sentences totalled 9,803 years. However on 15 March 2022, his verdict was overturned by the Turkish Court of Appeal "due to incomplete prosecution and erroneous assessment." He was subsequently sentenced to 8,658 years on 17 November 2022 as a result of his retrial. Life and career Early life and education Adnan Oktar was born in Ankara, Turkey, in 1956, and raised there through his high school years. where he studied the works of Islamic scholars like Said Nursî, a Kurdish Muslim scholar who wrote Risale-i Nur, an extensive tafsir (Qur'anic commentary) that includes a comprehensive political and religious ideology. According to The Mahdi Wears Armani, an "academic work focusing on Oktar and his movement", he grew up in a "relatively affluent secular family". In 1979, Oktar came to