By Robert Spencer Turkish President, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has signed a decree opening the world-famous Hagia Sophia as a mosqu...
By Robert Spencer
Turkish President,Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, has signed a decree
opening the world-famous Hagia Sophia as a mosque, after a court ruled that its
conversion to a museum in the 1930s was unlawful.
The court ruled on Friday that the 1934 decree converting
the ancient Byzantine cathedral into a museum was not lawful. Immediately after
the ruling, Erdogan shared a copy of a decree on Twitter, mandating that the
site be turned over to the country’s religious directorate and reopened for
worship.
Dating back to the 6th century, the Hagia Sophia is one of
the most visited cultural sites in Turkey, as well as a UNESCO World Heritage
Site.
UNESCO has expressed concern over Erdogan’s vision for the
historic structure, noting in a statement on Friday that the building has a
“strong symbolic and universal value.”…
Russia and Greece, as well as the US, France, and others,
have stated their opposition to Hagia Sophia becoming a mosque. That Erdogan
would move ahead with this anyway shows that he is not worried about
antagonizing either friend (Russia and ostensibly the US) or foe (Greece). He
appears to be much more concerned to position himself as the defender and
protector of Islam, which is in line with his frequently-noted aspiration to
restore the Ottoman caliphate. Hagia Sophia as a mosque was a key symbol of the
triumph and supremacy of the caliphate. Erdogan clearly wants it to be again.
Many years ago, when I first began sounding the alarm about
Islamic jihad, many analysts at all points on the political spectrum waved me
away by pointing to secular Turkey as the future of the Islamic world. No one
does that anymore.
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