Wednesday, June 09, 2010

When Was Emir Caner Disowned?

Listening to Ergun and Emir Caner talking about their reconciliation with their father on his deathbed, I noticed an odd comment from Emir Caner. He indicated that it had been 17 years since Ergun Caner had seen his father, but that it had been "a decade for me" (link to clip). That 7 year difference was quite unexpected. It had been my understanding from numerous other Caner family testimonies that the gap between the conversion of Ergun and Emir was not more than about a year, and that both the brothers were disowned not later than late November 1982.

It was at that point that I noticed that the Caner brothers' book, Unveling Islam, has this interestingly worded passage at page 19:
In 1982, Ergun surrendered to the gospel ministry. It was the last time he saw our father for seventeen years. Acar disowned his sons, although it could have been worse: according to hadith 9.57, all three of us brothers should have been killed.

Tragedies and Commitments

Seventeen years later, we Caner brothers were reunited with our father, four days before he died. His second wife had convinced him to see us, and we flew in from all over the country, hoping.
The book never actually states that Emir was disowned in 1982, though one gets that impression. One wonders whether the Caners' father disowned them because of the conversion itself or because they indicated that they were called to the ministry. It would be interesting to ask Emir Caner to clarify this matter, if he would be willing to do so.

- TurretinFan

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tur8

I think the decade is rounding as Emir says on a recording 14 years if I remember correctly

biglo

qm said...

More of that "hadith 9.57".

"Good morning congregation. Please open your Bibles to 8:3".

Anonymous said...

Maybe there is something to that old saw?

"Liars figure, figures don't lie"?

Or, "leaven is a powerful unifier"?

Bennett Willis said...

Someone put together some "criteria" for when to believe Dr. Caner. I don't remember exactly who, but did think that the system he/she proposed was relatively accurate.

It seems to me that if the statement is bland and does not add drama to the story that it is likely credible. When it adds drama then it is probably embellished.

BruinEric said...

To my hearing this is easily reconcilable because disowned doesn't necessarily mean they didn't see each other.

While Ergun Caner appears to claim his disownership was coincident with no further contact with his father until 1999, the same may not have been with Emir.

For example, they may have seen each other at an event such as high-school graduation or a family emergency during the time when Ergun was at college. Just an example of a way the story is easily reconciled.

Lucas DeFalco said...

Eric,

The problem isn't so much that Ergun's recollection of some events isn't plausible/"reconcilable", it's just that his recollection keeps changing.

Notwithstanding whether Ergun's seperation from his father was due to disownership or divorce, according to the Court of Appeals in Franklin County, OH on 2/6/79, his "religious" seperation from his father was a result of a custody arrangement. After that date, even if Acar Caner WANTED to teach his boy Islamic theology, he would have done so in violation of a court order.

Turretinfan said...

B.E.: The facts shown here just raise a question, they don't prove anyone was lying. Perhaps I wasn't sufficiently clear about that in the post.

There are any number of possible ways to reconcile them - such as that he happened to bump into his father at the local drugstore in 1989, or something like that.

Or that he was rounding down from 14 combined with something else ...

-TurretinFan

Anonymous said...

I expect that there were many elements that contributed to the Caner's separation from the father (divorce from their mother, remarriage) beyond religious differences. I wonder if the conversion may have been something more of the straw that broke the camel's back in a relationship that was already strained. Going home immediately to tell his father (even though we know he was not living with his father) may have been the ultimate act of adolescent rebellion against a father who, from a child's point of view, had already abandoned his sons. It's easier to explain to a crowd that you were disowned over your commitment to Christ than to own that you really don't know why your father didn't love you enough to hang around--or that you were never able to go back and re-establish a relationship as an adult.