by Raymond Ibrahim<\/p>\n
PJ Media<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n While unrest in Turkey continues to capture attention, more subtle and more telling events concerning the Islamification of Turkey \u2014 and not just at the hands of Prime Minister Erdogan but majorities of Turks \u2014 are quietly transpiring. These include the fact that Turkey\u2019s Hagia Sophia museum is on its way to becoming a mosque.<\/p>\n Why does the fate of an old building matter?<\/p>\n Because Hagia Sophia \u2014 Greek for \u201cHoly Wisdom\u201d \u2014 was for some thousand years Christianity\u2019s greatest cathedral. Built in 537 A.D. in Constantinople, the heart of the Christian empire, it was also a stalwart symbol of defiance against an ever encroaching Islam from the east.<\/p>\n After parrying centuries of jihadi thrusts, Constantinople was finally sacked by Ottoman Turks in 1453. Its crosses desecrated and icons defaced, Hagia Sophia \u2014 as well as thousands of other churches \u2014 was immediately converted into a mosque, the tall minarets of Islam surrounding it in triumph.<\/p>\n Then, after the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, as part of several reforms, secularist\u00a0Ataturk<\/a>\u00a0transformed Hagia Sophia into a \u201cneutral\u201d museum in 1934 \u2014 a gesture of goodwill to a then-triumphant West from a then-crestfallen Turkey.<\/p>\n Thus the fate of this ancient building is full of portents. And according to\u00a0Hurriyet Daily News<\/em><\/a>, \u201cA parliamentary commission is considering an application by citizens to turn the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul into a mosque\u2026. A survey conducted with 401 people was attached to the application, in which more than 97 percent of interviewees requested the transformation of the ancient building into a mosque and afterwards for it to be reopened for Muslim worship.\u201d<\/p>\n Even lesser known is the fact that other historic churches are currently being transformed into mosques, such as a 13th<\/sup>century church building \u2014 also named Hagia Sophia \u2014 in Trabzon. After the Islamic conquest, it was turned into a mosque. But because of its\u00a0\u201cgreat historical and cultural significance\u201d<\/a>\u00a0for Christians, it too, during Turkey\u2019s secular age, was turned into a museum and its frescoes restored. Yet local authorities recently decreed that its Christian frescoes would again be covered and the church\/museum turned into a mosque.<\/p>\n Similarly, the 5th<\/sup>\u00a0century\u00a0Studios Monastery<\/a>, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, is set to become an active mosque. And the existence of\u00a0the oldest functioning Christian monastery in the world<\/a>, 5th<\/sup>\u00a0century Mor Gabriel Monastery, is at risk. Inhabited today by only a few dozen Christians dedicated to learning the monastery\u2019s teachings, the ancient Aramaic language spoken by Jesus, and the Orthodox Syriac tradition, neighboring Muslims filed a lawsuit accusing the monks of practicing \u201canti-Turkish activities\u201d and of illegally occupying land which belongs to Muslim villagers. The highest appeals court in Ankara ruled in favor of the Muslim villagers, saying the land that had been part of the monastery for 1,600 years is not its property, absurdly claiming that the monastery was built over the ruins of a mosque \u2014 even though Muhammad was born 170 years\u00a0after<\/em>\u00a0the monastery was built.<\/p>\n Turkey\u2019s Christian minority, including the\u00a0Orthodox Patriarch<\/a>, are naturally protesting this renewed Islamic onslaught against what remains of their cultural heritage \u2014 to deaf ears.<\/p>\n The Muslim populace\u2019s role in transforming once Christian sites into mosques is a reminder of all those\u00a0other<\/em>\u00a0Turks\u00a0not<\/em>protesting the Islamization of Turkey, and who if anything consider Erdogan\u2019s government too \u201csecular.\u201d<\/p>\n Their numbers are telling. In May 2012,\u00a0Reuters<\/a>\u00a0reported that:<\/p>\n Thousands of devout Muslims prayed outside Turkey\u2019s historic Hagia Sophia museum on Saturday [May 23] to protest a 1934 law that bars religious services at the former church and mosque. Worshippers shouted, \u201cBreak the chains, let Hagia Sophia Mosque open,\u201d and \u201cGod is great\u201d [the notorious \u201cAllahu Akbar\u201d] before kneeling in prayer as tourists looked on. Turkey\u2019s secular laws prevent Muslims and Christians from formal worship within the 6th-century monument,\u00a0the world\u2019s greatest cathedral for almost a millennium before invading Ottomans converted it into a mosque in the 15th century.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The desire to turn Hagia Sophia into a mosque is not about Muslims wanting a place to pray \u2014 as of 2010, there were\u00a03,000 active mosques in Istanbul alone<\/a>. Rather, it\u2019s about their reveling, and trying to revivify, the glory days of Islamic jihad and conquest: Reuters added that Muslims \u201cstaged the prayers ahead of celebrations next week marking the 559th anniversary of the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet\u2019s conquest of Byzantine Constantinople.\u201d According to Salih Turhan, a spokesman quoted by Reuters, \u201cAs the grandchildren of Mehmet the Conqueror, seeking the re-opening Hagia Sophia as a mosque is our legitimate right.\u201d<\/p>\n Sultan Mehmet was the scourge of European Christendom, whose Islamic hordes seized and ravished Constantinople, forcibly turning it Islamic. Openly idolizing him, as many Turks do, is tantamount to their saying, \u201cWe are proud of our ancestors who killed and stole the lands of European Christians.\u201d And yet, despite such militant overtones, Turhan, whose position is echoed by many Turks, still manages to blame the West: \u201cKeeping Hagia Sophia Mosque closed is an insult to our mostly Muslim population of 75 million.\u00a0It symbolizes our ill-treatment by the West.\u201d<\/p>\n So keeping a historically Christian\/Western building \u2014 that was stolen by Islamic jihad \u2014 as a neutral museum is seen as \u201cill-treatment by the West,\u201d even as Turks continue destroying the nation\u2019s original Christian heritage.<\/p>\n And the historical revisions continue. Last May 29th<\/sup>, when Turks celebrate the Fall of Constantinople, Erdogan himself declared that the jihadi invasion \u2014 which saw countless Christians enslaved, raped, or slaughtered \u2014 was the true \u201ctime of enlightenment.\u201d\u00a0 After showing how Erdogan got it upside down,\u00a0Ralph Sidway<\/a>, an Orthodox Christian author,\u00a0wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n Erdogan and Turkey celebrate the Fall of Constantinople, and the West congratulates them. \u201cWe are continuing to write history today,\u201d says Erdogan, and write it \u00a0\u2013 \u00a0or re-write it \u00a0\u2013 \u00a0they do, under the somnambulant gaze of craven Western leaders too ignorant, or too fearful, to challenge Islam\u2019s claim to moral superiority, historical righteousness and eventual world domination. By their policies, posture and pronouncements, Western European nations, and the United States, are conceding the future to a rapidly re-Islamicizing Turkey, and are aiding in Islam\u2019s stated goal of a\u00a0new, global caliphate<\/a>\u00a0determined to conquer us, just as it conquered Constantinople 560 years ago. Every Turkish celebration of 29 May 1453 is a gauntlet flung down in challenge to the West. Each such event which goes unanswered and unchallenged by the West is another nail in the coffin of Christian culture, human rights, and free people everywhere.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Indeed, at a time when Turkey is openly reclaiming its jihadi heritage, Europeans are actively erasing their Christian heritage which for centuries kept the Islamic jihad at bay. Among other capitulations, Europeans are currently\u00a0betraying church buildings to Muslims to convert to mosques<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0scrubbing references of the historic Turkish jihads on Europe<\/a>\u00a0from classroom textbooks, lest Muslim students be offended.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, here are neighboring Turkey\u2019s Muslims openly praising the same jihadi warlords who brutally conquered a portion of Europe centuries ago, converting thousands of churches into mosques, even as they openly prepare to finish the job \u2014 which may not even require force, as Europe actively sells its own soul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Raymond Ibrahim PJ Media While unrest in Turkey continues to capture attention, more subtle and more telling events concerning the Islamification of Turkey \u2014 and not just at the hands of Prime Minister Erdogan but majorities of Turks \u2014 are quietly transpiring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[123,227],"tags":[192,1028,30,628,1060,1038],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p466Sb-1Ai","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":709,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/greatest-church-soon-to-be-mega-mosque\/","url_meta":{"origin":6094,"position":0},"title":"Greatest Church Soon To Be Mega Mosque?","author":"victorhanson","date":"June 14, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim FrontPage Magazine Ostensibly dealing with a building, a recent report demonstrates how Turkey's populace \u2014 once deemed the most secular and liberal in the Muslim world \u2014 is reverting to its Islamic heritage, complete with animosity for the infidel West and dreams of Islam's glory days of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Religion"","block_context":{"text":"Religion","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/religion\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5526,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/conquest-and-concession\/","url_meta":{"origin":6094,"position":1},"title":"Conquest and Concession","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 3, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The fate of Hagia Sophia and the Aqsa Mosque by Raymond Ibrahim Private Papers Previous to Pope Benedict XVI\u2019s November 30th\u00a0visit to the Hagia Sophia complex in Constantinople, Muslims and Turks expressed fear, apprehension, and rage. Turkey\u2019s independent paper\u00a0Vatan\u00a0expressed it thus: \u201cThe risk is that Benedict will send Turkey\u2019s Muslims\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Raymond Ibrahim"","block_context":{"text":"Raymond Ibrahim","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/raymond-ibrahim\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1480,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/the-two-faces-of-the-ground-zero-mosque\/","url_meta":{"origin":6094,"position":2},"title":"The Two Faces of the Ground Zero Mosque","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 27, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim PJ Media Depending on whether Islamists address Americans or fellow Muslims, the same exact words they use often relay diametrically opposed meanings. One example: when Americans hear Muslims evoke \"justice,\" the former envision Western-style justice, whereas Muslims naturally have Sharia law justice in mind. Islamists obviously use\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Raymond Ibrahim"","block_context":{"text":"Raymond Ibrahim","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/raymond-ibrahim\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5524,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/holy-wisdom\/","url_meta":{"origin":6094,"position":3},"title":"Holy Wisdom","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 7, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Why the Pope should call for the return of the Hagia Sophia by Bruce S. Thornton Private Papers Many in the West are congratulating Pope Benedict XVI\u2019s recent trip to Turkey, where in the Blue Mosque he prayed facing Mecca and made other gestures meant to salve the wounds raised\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Bruce S. Thornton"","block_context":{"text":"Bruce S. Thornton","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/our-contributors\/bruce-s-thornton\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11548,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/does-make-x-great-again-ever-happen-in-history\/","url_meta":{"origin":6094,"position":4},"title":"Does \u2018Make X Great Again\u2019 Ever Happen in History?","author":"victorhanson","date":"December 3, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"Victor Davis Hanson \/\/ American Greatness The short answer: Sometimes. Here\u2019s one example. By 527 A.D., the Eastern Roman Empire at Constantinople seemed fated to collapse like the West had a near century prior. The Persian Sassanids were gobbling up Byzantine lands in the east. Almost all of old Rome\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Roman Empire"","block_context":{"text":"Roman Empire","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/roman-empire\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6261,"url":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/muslim-persecution-of-christians-april-2013\/","url_meta":{"origin":6094,"position":5},"title":"Muslim Persecution of Christians: April, 2013","author":"victorhanson","date":"July 24, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"by Raymond Ibrahim \/\/\u00a0Gatestone Institute Before Egypt\u2019s President Muhammad Morsi was ousted, April was one of the worst months for Christian Copts there.\u00a0 On April 5 near Cairo, when a longstanding feud between a Christian family and a Muslim family\u2014based on male Muslims sexually harassing Christian girls\u2014culminated in the violent\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Egypt"","block_context":{"text":"Egypt","link":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/ahref=\/index.php\/categories\/angry-reader\/categorylink\/a\/the-world\/the-middle-east\/egypt\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6094"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6094"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6094\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6096,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6094\/revisions\/6096"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/victorhanson.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}