Kenan Sofuoğlu

People Living

كينان سوفوجلو

Turkish motorcycle racer and parliamentarian, born in Akyazı, Sakarya, in 1984. He won a record five Supersport World Championship titles (2007, 2010, 2012, 2015, 2016), retired from racing in 2018 and was elected to parliament the same year.

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At a glance

Roles
motorcycle racer · Politician
Region
Anatolia
Identifiers
Wikidata

Life in time

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The Colonial Era · The Contemporary Era · The Modern Era Contemporaries: Abbas-Ali Amid Zanjani · Abbas Kiarostami · Abd al-Aziz al-Ghumari · Abd al-Fattah Abu Ghudda · Abd al-Rahman Badawi

Place in the story

    Unknown (unknown)

    Roles are dated and sourced; the museum describes the act and attributes the judgement.

    In the Modern Islam Browser

    Modern Islam BrowserFigures of the last fifty years1984

    Summary

    Kenan Sofuoğlu is a Turkish motorcycle racer and parliamentarian, born in Kuzuluk, Akyazı, on 25 August 1984. 1 He holds a record five Supersport World Championship titles — 2007, 2010, 2012, 2015 and 2016 — and, as the most successful rider in the championship's history, became Turkey's first major motorsport world champion. 1

    Early life

    Sofuoğlu was born in Kuzuluk, Akyazı, in Sakarya Province; the Arabic article likewise gives his birth on 25 August 1984 in Sakarya, while the Turkish article dates it 25 July 1984. 2 3 He speaks German, French, English and Turkish, and his racing number 54 stems from Sakarya Province's license plate number. 1

    Career

    After winning Class B of the Turkish Supersport Championship in 2000 and the German Yamaha R6 Cup in 2002, Sofuoğlu entered the Supersport World Championship full-time in 2006 and dominated the 2007 season, clinching the title with three races to go. 1 He rode a Ten Kate Honda in the Superbike World Championship in 2008 with limited success, returned to Supersport to win the 2010 title, and raced in Moto2 in 2010 and 2011, finishing second at Assen in 2011. 1 Racing for Kawasaki, he claimed his third Supersport title in 2012, and added the 2015 and 2016 titles. 1 After breaking his pelvis in a crash at Magny-Cours in September 2017 and suffering a further injury at Phillip Island, he announced his retirement in May 2018, and was elected to parliament in June 2018. 1

    Personal life and significance

    The English article describes Sofuoğlu as a practising Muslim who observes daytime fasting during Ramadan. 1 The Turkish article records that in 2011 he refused an 800,000 TL naming-rights offer from the betting company Spor Toto because of his religious belief, saying he would be pleased if the money were given to charities instead. 3 No source names a school of Islam for him, and his record names none. 4

    Sources

    • The source entities cited above, registered under data/source/.

    Connections

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    Taught
    Toprak Razgatlıoğlu

    People and things also explored

    Toprak Razgatlıoğlu

    Sources

    1. Kenan Sofuoğlu — English Wikipedia
    2. كينان سوفوجلو — Arabic Wikipedia
    3. Kenan Sofuoğlu — Turkish Wikipedia
    4. Kenan Sofuoğlu — Wikidata
    • کنعان صوفوعلی — Urdu Wikipedia
    Cite this page

    islam.museum contributors. “Kenan Sofuoğlu”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/person/kenan-sofuoglu/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-11-06.

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    Toprak Razgatlıoğlu

    Turkish motorcycle racer, born in Alanya in 1996. He won three Superbike World Championship titles — 2021 with Yamaha and 2024 and 2025 with BMW — as the first Turkish champion in the class, and moved to MotoGP with Prima Pramac Yamaha for 2026.