Turkey’s president and the lure of “Islamisation”
In antiquity, Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia was considered “the eighth wonder of the world”, said Christiane Habermalz on Deutschlandfunk (Cologne). Built by the Byzantines as an Orthodox Christian cathedral, it was completed in 537, but was turned into a mosque following the Ottoman conquest in 1453 – before Turkey’s secularising ruler Mustafa Kemal Atatürk made it a museum in 1934. Since then, it has stood as a symbol of religious and cultural understanding. But President Erdogan had other ideas: on 10 July, a court overturned the 1934 decision and Erdoğan announced that Hagia Sophia would be reopened again as a mosque this week. It’s the latest step in Erdogan’s “Islamisation” of Turkey’s public life, and has appalled Orthodox Christians in Russia and Greece, by whom the site on Europe’s eastern frontier is held especially dear.
This is an assault on Istanbul’s history, said Judith Herrin in The Washington Post. Hagia Sophia, a Unesco World Heritage Site, represents “the essence” of this metropolis, where Muslim, Christian and Jewish faiths have coexisted for centuries. The building’s 3.7 million annual visitors marvel not only at its vast dome – for nearly 1,000 years the world’s highest and largest – but at “the layers of history” it embodies. Its 12th century
Christian mosaics are now expected to be covered during prayers, since Islam bans figurative art. Recasting the site as a mosque is an act of “cultural cleansing”. Of course it’s a sensitive issue abroad, said Ibrahim Kiras in Karar (Istanbul). But Hagia Sophia’s return to religious use has been on the agenda for decades, and is widely supported by the Turkish public – even among the secular opposition. Many see its transformation into a museum as a historic mistake – an “acceptance of our defeat by the West”. The reversal of that mistake is a moment of “liberation” for Turkey.
Erdogan seems to be laying the ground for early elections, said Rahmi Turan in Sözcü (Istanbul). Turkey’s long economic crisis has damaged his poll ratings, and recent months have seen a rise in political repression. This move was designed to fire up his religious base; now he’ll try to capitalise at the ballot box. His ambitions don’t stop at Turkey’s borders, said Cengiz Çandar in Al-Monitor (Washington). Erdogan addressed the entire Islamic world when he announced the reopening, describing it as the “harbinger of the liberation of Dome of the Rock” in east Jerusalem. After 17 years in power, he revels in his role as the Islamic world’s most vocal champion.