PREVENTED from flirting in public by tradition, devout Turkish Muslims in search of a partner have turned to the internet.

Less than a year after inception, the www.islamievlilik.com (www.islamicmarriage.com) website has already helped bring about 56 marriages with discreet coded profiles and advice on how to proceed cautiously in the dating game.

“People with Islamic sensibilities can’t go to bars and discos and even at family weddings they can’t really look at each other, shake hands or dance together,” the 36-year-old US-based website designer said.

The man, known only as “Kalpten Abi” or “brother from the heart” added: “It’s an old problem — but now, thanks to modern technology, we finally have a solution.”

With more than 5,000 members, the site’s profiles are divided into groups of covered women, devout men, serious women, serious men and various chat and e-mail groups. Nearly half are from Turkish-speaking communities across Europe and the United States.

“In discos, men harass the women and try to take their numbers. It’s all too mad for me,” Mehmet Aslan, 26, who recently migrated to Toulouse in France, said. “I come from a traditional family who might offer advice but, ultimately, I have to choose my wife, so I logged on to the net. I think this is the best way to find the tolerant, nice, religious kind of lady I am looking for.”

Cities in Turkey, a European Union candidate country, are not short of bars, nightclubs and restaurants full of couples making eyes at each other. But these pro-Western types live alongside a body of conservative young men and women for whom the merest snatched conversation can hold unacceptable sexual connotations.

Among the most staunch traditionalists, reforms and condemnation have yet to eradicate the practice of murdering women for allegedly dishonouring their families.

Online, the essential first conversations and assessments can be kept private, Kalpten Abi said, pointing out that many parents do not even know how to turn on a computer.

His website claims to protect against lust and gossip, focus on character not looks, and allow women the rare chance to make the first move. The site also contains discussions on issues such as whether Islam permits wearing a wedding dress, polygamy, Koranic verses, sex and childcare.

“Ladymithril” is one of the few covered women to include a photograph — smiling, leaning on a fence on a hilltop. She is an accountant who describes herself as fat, smokes, loves Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, martial arts and “gothic” music. She wants a clever, cultured husband.

An explicit site section on sex offers detailed information and advice about foreplay and orgasms to oral sex.

“I knew this page would attract controversy,” Kalpten Abi said. “But just talking to people around me I realised how little information they had.

“Many male friends don’t even know that women can be moody when they have their periods — that can lead to all sorts of marital misunderstandings,” he said. “Rather than complaints about the sex pages, I’ve had several messages of thanks.”

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