Noor, the Turkish hit soap opera from 2008, is a steamy story of love and perseverance, which MBC dubbed into Arabic for Middle Eastern audiences.
The leading lady, Noor, is called Gümüs in the original Turkish version, and is played by Turkish actress Songül Öden. The soap is about Noor’s marriage to leading guy Muhannad after he loses his true love in a tragic accident.
Muhannad’s family oblige him to marry Noor and the series traces the trials Noor faces to win her husband’s love and to prove her abilities on a professional level.
The Perils of Popularity
To say the Turkish soap was a hit with Arab women is rather an understatement. In fact, Noor has been blamed for sparking divorces across the Middle East as women compare their real-life husbands (unfavourably) to Muhannad, the TV heart throb.
The root of the problem is that Muhannad, played by Turkish actor Kivanç Tatlitug is so good-looking and charming, he’s left many Arab women love-struck. (By the way – Muhannad is “Mehmet” in the Turkish version of the soap.)
Loving Visions
Alarabiya.net lists a few specific cases of love lost to the small screen: A Saudi husband from Dammam who got so sick of his wife’s obsession with Muhannad and constant digs that he should be as romantic as the TV hunk, that he divorced her.
A Jordanian husband apparently divorced his wife after she uploaded Muhannad’s picture on her cell phone.
There were four reported divorces in Aleppo, Syria because of the steamy soap. In one particular case, a husband divorced his wife after they had a heated argument about the actor while watching the series together. A neighbour of the married couple claims that the wife informed her husband:
“I want to sleep with Muhannad for only one night and die afterwards.”
Yet another exasperated husband divorced his wife after she hung a picture of Muhannad on their bedroom wall.
Who needs real life when you got Turkish TV, folks?
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
i love you kivanc
i want to say somehing , muhannad is so good looking and charming , yes we all know , but if you look beside you , you will see someone loves you ( woman and man ) really and this one will be more charming and beautiful than muhannad .
i live somli