7KUBBE

'Minik Dualar' thank God again, this time in English.
A total of 15 children, 4 to 12 years in age, were known by only their friends until they were brought together by ErtuÄ?rul ErkiÅ?i's project and started singing prayers as songs.
However 2005 was a turning point for them. When their first album, titled "TeÅ?ekkür Ederim Allah'ım" (Thank You Very Much O Allah), hit the market they gained an unimagined and unexpected popularity among a great number of fans, particularly among other children. When their first video started appearing on TV, everybody wondered who those kids were. What was this group, singing prayer songs with great melodies and words? Minik Dualar suddenly became a mystic music band which TV channels raced to host. It had fans not only Turkey, but also in the United States and Europe and its music videos and prayer songs were shared over mobile phones.

This huge interest was followed up by concerts. At every concert, they sang to thousands. In a dead season in the music market, they sold 500,000 albums, becoming the fourth album on the sales chart. Their success was crowned when they won Kral TV's music award in the category of mystic music. ErkiÅ?i, the man behind the project, said that he himself did not expect such a big success. Their second album, "TeÅ?ekkür Ederim Allah'ım 2," released a year later, sold 200,000. It did not match the sales figure of its predecessor owing to other similar bands that emerged following the success of Minik Dualar.

'Thank You Very Much O Allah'

A year has passed since the group first came together and Minik Dualar has made a radical change in its format to be able to reach greater crowds of people. The band has released an English album, "Thank You Very Much O Allah," with which they plan to reach the world markets and convey their message in English. Aiming at conveying the unprecedented tolerance of Islam from the viewpoint of children, the 10 prayer songs sung by the band will likely attract the attention of the national and international press.

The prayer songs in the album include: "Prayer as Food," "Thank You Very Much O Allah," "My Dearest Prophet," "Prayer of Sleeping," "Prayer," "Tesbihat 1," "To My Mum and Dad," "Prayer for the Ill," "Prayer for Rain" and "Tesbihat 2." These songs will remind the listeners of the importance of love for God and of spiritual and cultural values. Metin Gım, the manager of Å?irin Ã?ocuk Music Productions, is thinking of releasing the album in the Middle East and Europe. "We want to unify all the children of the world around a prayer circle. All people need to pray. We believe that the English version of the album will be as popular as its Turkish version. It will also serve to help Turkish society break its taboos on language learning. The new generation will break these taboos with the help of this album," he said.

ErkiÅ?i noted that the children did not have difficulty performing the prayer songs in English and did it very naturally. "The success of the album lies in this naturalness. It has such a rhythmic infrastructure that everybody will be able to memorize and sing along easily. We tried to make an album as appealing as possible to foreign children as well as our children," ErkiÅ?i said. Nergis Yavuz, 12, from the band, supports ErkiÅ?i's views and said that they did not have any difficulty and enjoyed singing in English very much. Ã?mer Faruk DemirbaÅ?, 13, said: "We hadn't expected this success before our first album. We thought it would just be a temporary fame. But now, we believe the power of our prayers. 'Thank You Very Much O Allah' will convey to the children of the world our voice and the uniting power of prayer."

Istanbul / turkey / world
www.minikdualar.com