July 24, 2020
Hagia Sophia opens as mosque after 86 years as Saudi Arabia accuses Erdogan of misreading the history
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Turkey’s iconic Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque reopened for worship on Friday for the first time in 86 years as Saudi Arabia accused Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of misreading the history.
“Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque is a cultural heritage of humanity as a whole. It was a mosque and was reverted back into a mosque," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said following the prayers.
However, the Saudi official mouthpiece the Arab News carried a number of articles to belittle the significance of reopening of Hagia Sophia as mosque as political analysts suggest that the Turkish President Erdogan is vying for Muslim world’s leadership.
An article - Erdogan’s misreading of Hagia Sophia’s history – by Hussain Abdul Hussain, a former visiting fellow at Chatham House, a London-based biased think tank, says: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is trying hard to impose a history where the Turks are imagined as the leaders of Islam and the rulers of the world. Converting Hagia Sophia into a mosque is part of Erdogan’s dream of imperial dominance in the name of Islam.
Following the prayers, Pesident Erdoğan and Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) Chairman Devlet Bahçeli visited the tomb of Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II, the conqueror of Istanbul.
The iconic monument served as a church for 916 years until the conquest of Istanbul. It then served as a mosque from 1453 to 1934 – nearly 500 years – and most recently as a museum for 86 years.
One of the most visited historic buildings in Turkey by domestic and international tourists, in 1985, during its time as a museum, Hagia Sophia was added to the UNESCO World Heritage List.
On July 10, a Turkish court annulled a 1934 Cabinet decree that had turned Hagia Sophia into a museum, paving the way for its use again as a mosque after an 86-year hiatus.
Hagia Sophia: Sign of conquest, our trust in Fati̇h [Sultan Mehmet]
Ali Erbas, the head of Turkey's Religious Affairs Directorate (Diyanet), read out a special khutbah, or sermon, before the collective prayer, titled as "Hagia Sophia: Sign of conquest, our trust in Fati̇h [Sultan Mehmet]."
Hagia Sophia Mosque regains its congregation today, the third day of the blessed Muslim month of Zulhijjah, in which the blessed Eid al-Adha, or Feast of the Sacrifice, is approaching us.
Today is a day similar to one 70 years ago, when 16 muezzins from the 16 minarets of Sultan Ahmet Mosque, located just opposite Hagia Sophia, joyfully filled the air with adhan, after an 18-year hiatus.
Today, Muslims in various parts of the world are subjected to constant persecution, with mosques facing Islamophobic attacks, their doors locked, facing bombs or even destruction.
I set forth the magnificent behavior of Fatih Sultan Mehmet in Hagia Sophia as an example to the world, and invite all humanity to say ‘stop’ in the face of anti-Islamic rhetoric, action, and cruelty.
As believers, our greatest duty today is to work for mercy and tolerance, peace, tranquility and goodness to hold sway all over the world. Our duty is to work day and night so that goodness and justice always prevails on earth. Our duty is to be the guarantor of justice in regions beset by cruelty and injustice, tears and helplessness.
We believe that earth is our common home. We believe that everyone in this home, regardless of belief, race, or color, has the right to live in safety, dignity, freedom, and humanity.
Under the dome of Hagia Sophia, I invite all of humanity to embrace justice, peace, compassion, and equity. I urge you to foster universal values and moral principles that protect the honor of being a human being.
Addressing the whole world, I would like to say that the doors of Hagia Sophia Mosque will be open to all the servants of Allah, just like the mosques of Suleymaniye, Selimiye, Sultan Ahmet [the Blue Mosque], and others.
The Last Crusade has been stopped
Ibrahim Karagül, Chief Editor of Yeni Safak, in an editorial on the opening of Hagia Sophia as mosque wrote Friday: The Last Crusade has been stopped. History is over for those who say, 'Turkey’s oppression started in 1453.'
Today is not only the day that not only the Sultan Mehmets of Turkey rejoice, but also the day the Alparslans, the Kılınçarslans, the Sultan Selims, the Sultan Süleymans, and those whose blood were shed for the sake of every inch of land in this vast region, who made this territory our homeland, who made this nation a superpower rejoice.
Today is the day we say "we" are both Ottoman and Byzantine, we are the Seljuks and the Republic, we are Istanbul, we are Jerusalem, we are the Balkans, we are Mesapotamia, we are Anatolia and the Caucasus as well.
Hagia Sophia is not only a source of joy, it is not only a sentiment. Hagia Sophia represents power. It represents a globalizing power today as it did 567 years ago.
Upon the conquest of Istanbul, Hagia Sophia’s conversion into a mosque and the collapse of the Eastern Roman Empire, the Ottoman Empire became a global power; in fact, it became the world's greatest power.
The significance and symbolism of Hagia Sophia being opened as a mosque today is no different to our presence in the Mediterranean, the Aegean, Syria, Iraq, Libya, and the Persian Gulf. Altogether, they make up our grand aim.
Today, all of Anatolia, the Balkans, the Caucasus, Central Asia, South Asia, Africa, the Arab region, regardless of what their regimes say, are overjoyed. Those who have been experiencing nothing but grief for the last century are now rejoicing. Those who have suffered defeat after defeat for a century are now experiencing victory.
Today is an uprising, a challenge against the Ottoman Empire’s collapse, the 20th century’s pro-tutelage period. Today is changing that history in the first quarter of the 21st century. It is the proclamation of the end of the regression and tutelage era and the start of Turkey’s new rising era.
The last of the Crusades were stopped in Anatolia once again. The region’s “third great rise” after the “third great shock” has started against those who turned the “war against Islam” into a global ambition and started a new sort of “Crusader War” through the Israeli far-right and neocons following the Cold War era.
Erdogan’s misreading of Hagia Sophia’s history
Not surprisingly, the Saudi official mouthpiece the Arab News carried a number of articles to belittle the significance of reopening of Hagia Sophia as mosque as political analysts suggest that the Turkish President Erdogan is vying for Muslim world’s leadership.
An article - Erdogan’s misreading of Hagia Sophia’s history – by Hussain Abdul Hussain, a former visiting fellow at Chatham House, a London-based biased think tank, says: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is trying hard to impose a history where the Turks are imagined as the leaders of Islam and the rulers of the world. Converting Hagia Sophia into a mosque is part of Erdogan’s dream of imperial dominance in the name of Islam.
Hussain argued Erdogan seems unaware that — unlike Islam’s divine shrines in Makkah, Madinah and, to a lesser extent, Jerusalem — Hagia Sophia has no significance in Islam whatsoever. To Christians, however, Hagia Sophia has immense religious value. In fact, Ottoman conquerors turned it into the sultan’s mosque as a proclamation that a new sheriff was in town, but otherwise did not even bother to Islamize its Christian name.
Other than populism and petty politics, the decision by Erdogan to convert Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia from a museum into a mosque remains unfathomable, Hussain concluded.
At the same time the Arab News published a series of articles by Prof. Talal Al-Torifi is a Saudi academic and media specialist bitterly criticizing the Ottoman Empire: (1). Turks’ pre-Ottoman history based on myth and imagination; (2). Turkey repeating Ottoman Empire’s crimes against Arabs; (3). Turkish propaganda ignores Ottoman violations of Two Holy Mosques; (4) Turks defrauding history with Ottoman monuments narrative.
Series of Arab News articles against Turkey
Prof. Talal Al-Torifi argues: The Ottoman Turks committed the most severe crimes against Arab Muslims and enjoyed oppressing and killing them. The Turks, in general, are now adopting a deceptive policy, which is that they cry over Islam and the sultanate, but they are in fact crying for their pride and power and presenting it in the name and protection of Islam for propaganda purposes. They aim to gain the support of Muslims of different nationalities, while, on the other hand, seeking to restore this power and authority through deceptive propaganda.
Not surprisingly, Prof. Talal Al-Torifi conveniently ignored the well-documented history of Arab collusion with Britain to revolt against the Turks.
To borrow Mark Curtis, the author of Secret Affairs: Britain’s Collusion with Radical Islam:
Britain had already provided arms and money to Ibn Saud during the First World War, signing a treaty with him in 1915 and recognizing him as the ruler of the Nejd province under British protection. By the end of the war, he was receiving a British subsidy of £5,000 a month – considerably less than the £12,000 a month doled out to Hussein (Sharif of Mecca), whom the British government at first continued to favor.
Ibn Saud established ‘Saudi’ Arabia in an orgy of murder. …. The conquest of Arabia cost the lives of around 400,000 people, since Saud’s forces did not take prisoners; over a million people fled to neighbouring countries. Numerous rebellions against the House of Saud subsequently took place, each put down in ‘mass killings of mostly innocent victims, including women and children’. By the mid-1920s most of Arabia had been subdued, 40,000 people had been publicly executed and some 350,000 had had limbs amputated; the territory was divided into districts under the control of Saud’s relatives, a situation which largely prevails today.
Churchill described Ibn Saud’s Wahhabis as akin to the present-day Taliban, telling the House of Commons in July 1921 that they were ‘austere, intolerant, well-armed and bloodthirsty’ and that ‘they hold it as an article of duty, as well as of faith, to kill all who do not share their opinions and to make slaves of their wives and children…. However, Churchill also later wrote that ‘my admiration for him [Ibn Saud] was deep, because of his unfailing loyalty to us’, and the British government set about consolidating its grip on this loyalty.
Revolt by Sharif of Mecca
The story of British backed Arab revolt against the Ottomans will not be complete without mentioning the 1916 revolt of Hussein bin Ali, Sharif of Mecca who was appointed Grand Sharif by an official decree of the Sultan Abdülhamid on November 24, 1908.
According to Oxford Reference, the revolt began in June 1916, when an Arab army of some 70,000 men, financed by Britain and led by Faisal I, moved against Turkish forces. They captured Aqabah and cut the Hejaz railway, a vital strategic link through the Arab peninsula which ran from Damascus to Medina. This enabled British troops to advance into Palestine and Syria.
With the capture of Damascus (October 1918) Turkish hold on the Middle East ended. Despite their promise to support Arab independence, the British took charge of governing Transjordan, Iraq, and Palestine as a Mandate themselves, while France took control of Syria and the Lebanon.
As a further affront, the Balfour Declaration directly contradicted the British commitment to the Arabs through the promise to support an independent Jewish state in Palestine.
Hussein bin Ali was rewarded for his collusion with Britain who made his sons Faisal and Abdallah kings of Iraq and Transjordan, respectively in 1921. The present King Abdullah II is the great grandson of Sharif of Mecca.
Sharif Hussein's son Faisal was made King of Syria, but this kingdom proved short-lived (March 1920 – 24 July 1920) as Syria was occupied by France under a secret agreement with Britain.
Abdus SattarGhazali is the Chief Editor of the Journal of America (www.journalofamerica.net) email: asghazali2011 (@) gmail.com
The Journal of America Team:
Editor in chief:
Abdus Sattar Ghazali
Senior Editor:
Prof. Arthur Scott
Special Correspondent
Maryam Turab
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