WHAT happens when you put a Muslim imam, a Christian priest, a rabbi and a Buddhist monk in a room with ten atheists?
Turkish television station Kanal T hopes the answer is a ratings success as it prepares to launch a gameshow where spiritual guides from the four faiths will seek to convert non-believers.
The prize will be a pilgrimage to a holy site of the co
nvert's chosen religion – Mecca for Muslims, Jerusalem for Jews, the Vatican for Christians, Tibet for Buddhists.
But religious authorities in Muslim but secular Turkey are unamused and are refusing to provide an imam for the show.
Hamza Aktan, chairman of the High Board of Religious Affairs, said: "Doing something like this for the sake of ratings is disrespectful to all religions. Religion should not be a subject for entertainment programmes."
"We are giving the biggest prize in the world, the gift of belief in God," Seyhan Soylu, the chief executive of Kanal T, said. "It doesn't matter which religion you believe in. The important thing is to believe."
The project focuses attention on the issue of religious identity in European Union-candidate Turkey, where rights groups have raised concerns over freedom of religion for non-Muslims.
