Turkish television drama Noor captivates audiences

Layla Abadi
For Al-Shorfa.com
2008-08-15

Two actors in a Turkish television series during the filming of a soap opera in Istanbul. (Photo by MUSTAFA OZER/AFP/Getty Images)

The Arabic-dubbed Turkish drama “Noor” has swept across the Middle East. In four months of nightly broadcast, the show has captivated audiences, cleared streets during its evening timeslot and worked its way into the popular parlance.

The Turkish soap opera, a flop in its own country, draws 38 to 39 million viewers a day in the Arab world. Despite a recent edict declaring such serials “malicious,” “Noor” maintains a daily audience of up to four million people in Saudi Arabia alone, a country of 28 million.

“My family in Jordan spends the evenings watching ‘Noor.’ My 11-year-old niece races to the TV when she gets back from school,” Ala’a Kan’an, a 31-year-old special projects manager working in Dubai, told Gulf News. “In Dubai, I’ve been cancelling dinners and changing my evening plans to catch up with the show.”

The nightly soap opera centres on the story of Noor, a fashion designer from the Turkish countryside, and her husband Mohannad, the son of a wealthy family who grew up at his family’s seaside villa and was groomed to run the textile empire his grandfather created.

Noor’s success in the Middle East seems in part grounded in the show’s cultural ties to the Arab world. Set in Turkey, a Muslim nation, the characters observe the Ramadan fast, and Noor’s marriage was arranged by Mohannad’s grandfather.

But “Noor” also embraces secularism—the characters drink, the show depicts sex outside of marriage, and plotlines incorporate abortion, miscarriages and illegitimate children.

"We are a little more open, not as conservative as some of these countries,” the show’s Turkish producer, Kemal Uzun, told The Associated Press, “and I think this might have some appeal for the audience."

Like most soap operas, “Noor” depends heavily on its female audience. The show benefits from the striking good looks of Turkish actor and model Kivanç Tatlitug, who plays Mohannad.

It also attracts legions of female fans for its depiction of the modern idealised marriage as an equal partnership. Noor and Mohannad share an understanding, supportive and passionate relationship. Mohannad is attentive to his wife and encourages her independence and professional ambitions—rare and seemingly valued qualities among young women in a male dominated culture where women are often confined to marriage and motherhood.

“I told my husband, ‘learn from him [Mohannad] how he treats her, how he loves her, how he cares about her,’” Heba Hamdan, a married 24-year woman in the West Bank, told the AP.

Despite its simple plotlines and familiar soap opera elements, “Noor” has struck a chord with Arab audiences and shows signs of making a cultural impact.

“The show itself is very ordinary and has nothing to highlight except for the dimension related to relationships between people, the romance and love, perhaps because Arab society longs for the historical age of idealism, love and glory,” says U.A.E.-based sociologist Dr Mouza Gobash in an interview with Gulf News.

Though Noor’s most provocative scenes have been removed from Arab broadcasts, clerics have staunchly preached against the show. “This series collides with our Islamic religion, values and traditions," warned Hamed Bitawi, a lawmaker of the Islamic militant Hamas and preacher in the West Bank city of Nablus told the AP.

But the opposition of certain religious leaders has done little to dampen popular enthusiasm for “Noor.”

Retail stores sell clothing copied from the show, and in Istanbul, tour operators have rented the fictionalised family estate of Mohannad’s family and created a temporary museum for Arab tourists. Anecdotal reports from maternity wards throughout the Middle East, from even the most conservative cities, suggest a rise in babies named Noor and Mohannad.

Mazen Hayek, marketing director at the network MBC which airs the show, told the Gulf News that Turkish series like “Noor,” "mark the era of a new genre for MBC."

But the lasting impact of “Noor” remains undetermined. The show’s season finale is August 30, the day before Ramadan begins. “Noor’s” evening timeslot will be filled by the popular Ramadan classic “Bab al-Hara,” with its warm depiction of traditional Arab life.

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