Religious Studies teacher Serhat Karanfil has all his students in a right spin – because of his devastating good looks.
Handsome Karanfil, 26, who teaches Islamic culture and ethics, has been an instant social media hit after students starting posting his images online.
And now with so many internet followers he has become Turkey’s answer to Pietro Boselli, the hot maths lecturer who has become a social media phenomenon at University College London.
Karanfil, from the western Turkish province of Bursa, has recently been put in the public spotlight by students who began sharing his personal pics from his own social media accounts.
They show him posing for the cameras looking very cool in different locations around Turkey.
Columnist at the Daily Hurriyet newspaper in Turkey Onur Basturk said, “The interesting fact is that people are now following temporary celebrities that they discover themselves.”
He quoted one Turkish schoolgirl who wrote on social media, “Let me have a religious class teacher like you and I will start covering myself with the Islamic veil.”
Turkey’s religious education classes have been controversial and have been slammed by critics for being exclusively based on the Sunni understanding of Islam while ignoring other religions.
The European Court of Human Rights ruled in December 2014 that high school students must be allowed to opt out of this class, which is currently compulsory.
