Necmettin Erbakan

<br />Necmettin Erbakan (29 October 1926 27 February 2011) was a Turkish engineer, academic, politician (eventually political party leader), who was the Prime Minister of Turkey from 1996 until 1997. He was Turkey's first Islamist Prime Minister. In 1997 he was pressured by the military to step down as prime minister and later banned from politics by the constitutional court.

Early life and education

Erbakan was born in Sinop, at the coast of Black Sea in northern Turkey. His father was Mehmet Sabri, a judge from the prestigious Kozanoğlu clan (Oghuz Turks , Afshar tribe) of Cilicia and his mother Kamer was a native of Sinop and second wife of Mehmet Sabri.

After the high school education in İstanbul Lisesi, he graduated from the Mechanical Engineering Faculty at the Istanbul Technical University in 1948 with a GPA of 4.00/4.00, and received a PhD degree from the RWTH Aachen University, Germany. After working some time in leading position in the industry, he switched over to politics, and was elected deputy of Konya in 1969.

As well as his...
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