ESCHATOLOGY IN THE 21ST CENTURY: INTERFAITH AND COMPARITIVE PERSPECTIVES
TODAY IS THE DAY THE JUMAA WITH THE RESTORATION OF AYA SOFIA AS A MASJID IS A GREAT DAY NOT JUST IN TURKEY BUT IN THE HISTORY OF MODERN GLOBAL ISLAM. A DAY WHEN ISLAMIC SPIRITUAL POWER ASSERTS ITSELF AGAIN AT A TIME OF FITNA- TRIAL AND TRIBULATIONS. NO DOUBT A DAY FOR JOY CELEBRATION AND THANKSGIVING AS THE PLANS OF THE  ENEMIES ARE SWEPT AWAY.

THE TURKISH COURT HAS RULED THE 1934 CONVERTION OF HAGIA SOPHIA INTO A MUSEUM BY ATATURK WAS ILLEGAL.    THIS IS A HISTORICAL AND MONUMENTAL VERDICT WHICH REVERSES THE DIABOLICAL DONMEH FREEMASONIC ATATURK DECISION. ERDOGAN SHOULD BE CONGRATULATED FOR  TAKING THIS COURAGEOUS LONG OVER DUE MOVE.



WHILST THERE ARE NO DOUBT LEGITIMATE AND JUSTIFIED THEOLOGICAL AND POLITICAL DIFFERENCES AMONGST MUSLIMS ON THIS ISSUE. I WOULD REMIND MUSLIMS NOT TO JUST QUIBBLE OVER WHICH VERSES OF THE QURAN SUIT THEM AND WHAT THEY FANCY BUT THAT THEY NEED TO FACTOR IN REALPOLITIKS. IN THOSE MATTERS THEY ARE NAIVE AND DEAF, DUMB AND BLIND TO THE PLOTS AND CONSPIRACIES OF THE ENEMIES OF ISLAM.



I DO NOT WANT TO ALSO HEAR THE PAIN, ANGUISH AND MOANS FROM EITHER THE PAPACY AND THE WEST ABOUT THIS ACTION. EVERY ACTION OF THE WEST OVER THE LAST TWO HUNDRED YEARS IS EMBODIED IN DEMOLITION AND DESTRUCTION OF OTHERS SYMBOLS UNDER THE AUSPICES OF WESTERN IMPERIALISM. IT ACTUALLY GOES BEYOND THAT TO TRIUMPHALISM WITH STATUES ERECTED TO RACISTS,  IMPERIALISTS, AND SLAVE MASTERS. LET THEM LOOK AT THEIR BACKYARD AND REVIEW HISTORY AND SEE WHAT HAPPENED TO THIS DAY TO THE CONVERTION OF THE GREAT MOSQUE OF CORDOBA INTO A CATHEDRAL DURING THE RECONQUISTA.     



WHILST WE ARE NOT PAID UP PARTY MEMBERS OF THE AKP NOR ADMIRERS OF ERDOGAN BLINDLY THIS VERDICT AND ACTION IS LEGITIMATE AND JUSTIFIABLE AND FROM THAT PERSPECTIVE  IT IS A MOVE IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION. IN THAT ALL POLICIES WHICH WERE EITHER ANTI ISLAMIC AND ANTI MUSLIM TAKEN IN THE NAME OF THE SECULAR TURKISH REPUBLIC AND REMOULDING IT AS A SECULAR WESTERNISED ANTI-KHALIFATE ENTITY NEED TO BE REMOVED. WHILST MANY TURKS CAN'T SAY THIS BUT WE WILL AND HAVE TAKEN THE LIBERTY TO DO SO. ONE DAY THE STATUES OF ATATURK WILL BE TAKEN DOWN ALSO. ALLAHU AKBAR BRING IT ON.



ATATURK'S LEGACY AS A WESTERN FREEMASONIC ANTI-ISLAMIC AGENT NEEDS TO BE COMPLETELY REVERSED. MORE ATTENTION WILL BE PAID ON THIS HEREAFTER AS THE 1923 AND 1924 CENTENARIES LOOM LARGE. IN 1923 THE TREATY OF LAUSANNE WAS IMPOSED ON TURKEY AND IN 1924 THE KHALIPHATE WAS ABOLISHED. THIS FAIT ACCOMPLI IS OVER IN 2023. ALSO ISLAMIC SOVEREIGNTY NEEDS TO BE REVIVED TO GIVE GLOBAL ISLAM A VOICE ON THE WORLD STAGE. THE MUSLIM WORLD NEEDS TO GET RIGHT BEHIND TURKEY TO ASSERT IT'S HISTORICAL ISLAMIC TERRITORIAL AND POLITICAL CLAIMS AND RIGHTS.   


AYA SOFIA LIVE  FRIDAY JULY 24 2020 
https://www.trtworld.com/live


HISTORICAL MOMENTS 
THE FIRST KHUTBAH OF HAGHIA SOPHIA MOSQUE AFTER 86 YEARS 


ERDOGAN'S SPEECH



WHY DID THE PREACHER DELIVER THE SERMON HOLDING THE SWORD AT HAGHIA SOPHIA 



TURKEY HAS CONVERTED HAGIA SOPHIA MUSEUM INTO MOSQUE AFTER 85 YEARS 





THE FIRST JUMA PRAYER IN AYA SOFIA MOSQUE AFTER 86 YEARS A SIGN OF THE GLORY OF ISLAM

 



JUMA PRAYER IN AYA SOFIA MOSQUE AND TAYYAB ERDOGAN's RECITATION OF QURAN IN MOSQUE 



THE HISTORY OF HAGIA SOPHIA MUSEUM AND FUTURE IN ISTANBUL




THE GREAT ERDOGAN’s DECREE TO TURN HAGIA SOPHIA 
INTO A MOSQUE



Dr ZAKIR’s VIEW ON ERDOGAN CONVERTING HAGIA SOPHIA FROM A MUSEUM TO A MOSQUE?








TURKEY RECONVERTS ISTANBUL's HAGIA SOPHIA MUSEUM INTO A MOSQUE


https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/07/turkey-court-revokes-hagia-sophia-museum-status-200710131419431.html


President Erdogan declares iconic cultural site reopen to Muslim worship after a court ruling



Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has declared Istanbul's Hagia Sophia open to Muslim worship after a top court ruled that the building's conversion to a museum by modern Turkey's founding statesman was illegal.





Erdogan made the announcement on Friday an hour after the court ruling was revealed, despite international warnings not to change the status of the nearly 1,500-year-old monument, revered by Christians and Muslims alike.







"The decision was taken to hand over the management of the Ayasofya Mosque ... to the Religious Affairs Directorate and open it for worship," the decision signed by Erdogan said.







Erdogan had previously proposed restoring the mosque status of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, a focal point of both the Christian Byzantine and Muslim Ottoman empires and now one of the most visited monuments in Turkey. Earlier, a top Turkish court revoked the Byzantine-era Hagia Sophia's status as a museum. The Council of State, which was debating a case brought by a Turkish religious organisation, cancelled a 1934 cabinet decision that defined the sixth-century building as a museum.







"It was concluded that the settlement deed allocated it as a mosque and its use outside this character is not possible legally," Turkey's top administrative court said in the ruling.







"The cabinet decision in 1934 that ended its use as a mosque and defined it as a museum did not comply with laws," it said.







Erdogan shared on his Twitter feed a copy of the decree he had signed which said the decision had been taken to hand control of the Ayasofya Mosque, as it is known in Turkish, to the country's religious directorate and reopen it for worship.







Reporting from Istanbul, Al Jazeera’s Sinem Koseoglu said the decree was not a surprise as Erdogan had previously stated that he would like to see Hagia Sophia open for Muslim prayers on July 15, the anniversary of a failed coup attempt.

Koseoglu said that in four hours Erdogan was expected to make a speech on the importance of the Hagia Sophia, and its status being altered to a mosque again.








"There are dozens of people in front of Hagia Sophia museum. As soon as the court decision was announced ... they have been here chanting, they have been celebrating since then, and we spoke to them, they are very impatient to be able to pray inside Hagia Sophia," Koseoglu said.







International concerns



Hagia Sophia was first constructed as a cathedral in the Christian Byzantine Empire



but was converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453.



In 1935, in the early days of the modern secular Turkish state under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, it became a museum.







The organisation which brought the court case, the latest in a 16-year legal battle, said the Hagia Sophia was the property of the Ottoman leader who captured the city in 1453 and turned the already 900-year-old Byzantine church into a mosque. Erdogan threw his weight behind the campaign to convert the building before local elections last year. He is due to speak shortly before 9pm (1800 GMT), his head of communications said.







In response to the ruling, the Russian Orthodox Church on Friday said the decision could lead to even greater divisions. The United States, Russia and Greece, along with UNESCO, had expressed concerns ahead of the ruling.





Erdogan earlier this month rejected international criticism as an attack on Turkey's sovereignty.



THE LAW AND ORIGIN STORY OF ISTANBUL’s ICONIC HAGIA SOPHIA



A landmark ruling has reversed a previous decision preventing worship in the Hagia Sophia after its conversion into a museum in 1934. On Friday July 10, Turkey’s highest court has repealed a previous decision that saw the 1934 conversion of the Hagia Sophia from a mosque into a museum, and put restrictions on prayers being performed at the site.



A week earlier, Turkey’s Council of State received arguments by lawyers pressing for an annulment of a 1934 decision by its Council of Ministers which turned the historic monument into a museum. In the case, lawyers appealed to the foundation charter of the Hagia Sophia itself, personal property of Sultan Mehmet II, which forbids changes of any sort to the endowment, its lands, and use.



“At the heart of this controversial case is a bid to restore religious freedoms,” says Mark Jefferson, an analyst for Omran Strategic Studies Institute.  “Early modern Turkey cracked down on the practice of faith, wearing of religious garb and expression of religion, and one of the policies they enacted was to deny its religious Muslim community a place that served as a deeply symbolic place of prayer for nearly five centuries,” he says.



“It is worth recalling the ‘Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention in the Domestic Affairs of States and the Protection of Independence and Sovereignty’, adopted by UN General Assembly Resolution 2131 on 21 December 1965, which saw a unanimous ratification,” notes Hassan Imran, an international lawyer who spoke to TRT World prior to the court’s ruling.  “Whether the court ruling is in favour or against annulment, respect for the rule of law is essential. To that end, the judiciary should uphold their independence, free of any political consideration," he adds.



Freedom of worship preserved



Authorities have consistently communicated that the features of Hagia Sophia, a significant historical and cultural heritage site dating back to the sixth century AD, will continue to be preserved and protected, and will remain open to the public in the same manner the Blue Mosque is open to visitors and tourists of all denominations and faiths.



Turkey's presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin also maintained that allowing prayers in Hagia Sophia would not deprive it of its identity.  “Turkey will still preserve the Christian icons there, just like our ancestors preserved all Christian values”, said Kalin.   “Hagia Sophia’s status is not an international matter but a matter of national sovereignty for Turkey,” Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said earlier Thursday.   “Hagia Sophia, like all cultural assets on our lands, is the property of Turkey,” adds Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hami Aksoy.



With its multifaceted and rich past, questions arise surrounding Hagia Sophia’s significance and meaning to Turkey. For some, it was founded as a church. For others, Mehmet Fatih II’s conquest of Constantinople in 1453, and his subsequent preservation and restoration of the ancient cathedral, has made it a keystone of national culture and modern Turkish heritage.



A painting of Hagia Sophia by Gaspare Fossati in 1852. (Gaspare Fossati )



While some criticism has been leveled against the annulment of restriction on prayers in the monument, Khalid Yacine, anthropologist of antiquities at the University of Setif says there’s nothing unusual about it all.   “The Hagia Sophia is a part of Turkey’s origin story. Without it there would be no Turkey, and no Istanbul,” he says in an interview with TRT World.   “It’s ties to multiple faiths will likely give rise to sensitivities, but if worshippers and visitors are allowed as they have been before, then this is more than was done by others.”



When asked what he means, he chuckles and resumes.



“Most people don’t know that St. Peter’s Basilica, in the Vatican itself, is built over several Roman temples. When Spain expelled Muslims in the inquisition, it changed the Grand Mosque of Cordoba into a cathedral, where Muslims are forbidden to pray to this day,” he elaborates.   “Many mosques were outright destroyed or converted into Churches. By the same token, when the Spanish went to the New World, they also changed places of worship into churches. The Mexico City Metropolitan Cathedral is built on the ruins of an Aztec temple,” he adds.



But the list goes on.



“The Church of Prophet Elija in Thessaloniki, Greece was a former mosque. In Bulgaria, the Sveti Sedmochislenitsi Church of Sofia was converted from a Mosque into a church. In Croatia too, three Ottoman mosques were converted into churches. Vietnam saw the French destroy Buddist and Taoist places of worship to build the St. Joseph Cathedral.”



“Turkey has ruled to allow people to carry out prayers in Hagia Sophia. That hardly compares to getting arrested in the Grand Mosque of Cordoba for saying something in Arabic or converting it into a cathedral. If anything, the Hagia Sophia stands today because of Turkey’s efforts to restore it,” he points out.



Istanbul’s birth



Written on a 66-meter length of carefully preserved gazelle skin, Fatih Sultan Mehmed Foundation, Sultan Mehmet II, writes:



“All the things I have explained and designated here have been set down in written form in the foundation charter in the manner appointed; the conditions may not be altered; the laws may not be amended; they may not be diverted from their original purpose; the appointed rules and principles may not be diminished; interference of any sort in the foundation is interdicted… May the curse of Allah, the angels and all human beings be upon anyone who changes even one of the conditions governing this foundation.”



Caption: The Sultan’s charter is carefully preserved, and treated multiple times a year to ensure its longevity. (AA)



Shortly after his conquest of Constantinople and renaming of the city to Istanbul, the Sultan performed his first Friday prayers there. Apocrypha tells a story of a young Sultan who is said to have fallen to his knees in prayers of gratitude upon entering the ancient cathedral.



Shortly after, he established an endowment to care for and govern the new ‘Great Mosque’, with an annual income of 14,000 gold pieces per year to restore, expand and preserve the civilizational monument. The endowment’s charge was significant not only as an edict, but spiritually as well.



Islamic jurisprudence forbids the alteration of an endowment or foundation’s charter or purpose without consultation and approval of the owner, a principle that has since become ubiquitous in modern law.

Out of respect to the multi-faithed citizens of the city and his empire, Sultan Mehmet II ordered new decorations that did not destroy the previous interior detailing within Hagia Sophia.  At the time, the Hagia Sophia was already 900 years old, and had suffered at least two fires and three earthquakes, one of which caused the entire dome to collapse. It had also been ransacked and desecrated during the Fourth Crusade by Crusaders.



Buried History



With Istanbul’s conquest, Hagia Sophia quickly became a cultural icon, bearing deep heritage to Turkey today. Named a ‘Great Mosque’, every effort was made to preserve it and improve upon a structurally flawed design caused by a heavy central dome perched on a long basilica. 



Buttresses were added to the Hagia Sophia’s sides to prevent it from collapse during the reign of Murad III by the historical architect Sinan who would be inspired by the ancient edifice, and fusing its style with Islamic art and aesthetics in a series of Grand Mosques.



A series of additions were made including a school, and fountain during Sultan Mahmud I’s rule, and a clock room during Sultan Abdulmejid’s time, which also saw the most thorough restoration of the ancient structure carried out by Swiss architects from 1847-1849.  At the time, Russian historian Peter Ouspensky, commented ironically. “The Turks showed more understanding for the city’s monuments than the Crusader armies that occupied Istanbul in 1204.”



Hagia Sophia would also become home to the largest calligraphy collection in the empire, with countless gold inscriptions, tiles, artistic reflections of Turkey’s civilizational heritage.  In the words of Necip Fazl Ksakürek, a Turkish poet, “The Hagia Sophia is neither stone, nor line, nor color, nor matter, nor a symphony of substance; it is pure spiritual meaning, meaning alone.”



But Hagia Sophia is also more than just a monument to the grandeur of human achievement and artistic expression. It also serves as the final resting place for five sultans and their families, giving it a venerated historical status befitting its age and history.




With the ruling opening the way for permitting worshippers to pray in the Hagia Sophia, there is no doubt that the ancient site will remain respected by adherents of many faiths around the world, and one of Turkey’s most revered sites of heritage.


 
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RE: ESCHATOLOGY IN THE 21ST CENTURY: INTERFAITH AND COMPARITIVE PERSPECTIVES - by globalvision2000administrator - 07-24-2020, 07:55 AM

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