Photo: Müjgan Arpat / CC BY-SA 3.0 (source: Wikimedia Commons)
My Take
Seyran Ateş is, to me, one of the bravest figures in this whole database. Born in Istanbul, she became a lawyer in Germany and then founded a liberal Berlin mosque where men and women pray side by side, breaking with tradition under real threat to her safety. That takes a spine most of us will never need to test. I won't pretend to settle debates about faith, but I deeply respect anyone who keeps a door open while taking fire from every direction. Her stack of merit awards feels almost secondary to the simple, stubborn act of refusing to back down. Remarkable conviction.
Overview
Seyran Ateş (born 20 April 1963) is a German lawyer and a Muslim feminist. She founded the Ibn Ruschd-Goethe mosque in 2017, as Germany's first liberal place of worship for Muslims. Ateş is best known for challenging conventional ideas in Islamic teaching by opening a mosque in Berlin which breaks with traditionalist precepts of what being a Muslim means.
Summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
1. Profile
- Name (English)
- Seyran Ateş
- Name (Japanese)
- セイラン・アテシュ
- Reading
- せいらん・あてしゅ
- Born
- April 20, 1963 (age 63)
- Zodiac / Chinese zodiac
- Taurus / Rabbit
- Origin
- Istanbul, Istanbul Province, Turkey
- Blood type
- Private
- Height
- Private
- Agency
- Private
- Occupation
- lawyer / women's rights activist / writer / imam / jurist
2. Background
- Elementary school
- Private
- Junior high
- Private
- High school
- Private
- University
- Private
Awards & achievements
- Order of Merit of Berlin
- 2007 Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
- 2014 Officer's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
- 2006 Margherita von Brentano prize
- Johann Philipp Palm Award
- Marion Dönhoff Award
3. Relationships
- Spouse
- Private
- Children
- Private
- Parents
- Private
- Siblings
- Private
4. Personality
Motto
Private
6. Links
Lawyer — see all → · Women's rights activist — see all → · More people from Turkey →
7. About this entry
Tags
- Last updated
- 2026-06-02
Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public items are marked "Private / Unknown". English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.