Under ramadan vil det blive læst højt fra Koranen i Hagia Sophia i Istanbul. Det er et af de helligste steder for den ortodokse kirke. Kemal Atatürk omgjorde den til museum i 1934. At det udføres religiøse handlinger der er en provokation, både mod skillet mellem religion og stat i Tyrkiet, og mod kristenheden.

Islamister ønsker igen at tage Hagia Sophia i brug som moské. Ved at tillade skriftlæsning signaliserer myndighederne, at de er enige.

Græske myndigheder er provokeret.

On Mon­day, the For­eign Min­istry in Athens con­demned the deci­sion by Turk­ish author­i­ties to allow a daily read­ing from the Quran to be broad­cast from Hagia Sophia dur­ing the holy Mus­lim month of Ramadan, describ­ing it as “verg­ing on big­otry” and “not com­pat­i­ble with mod­ern, demo­c­ra­tic and sec­u­lar soci­eties.”

“Mus­lim rit­u­als in a mon­u­ment of world cul­tural her­itage are incom­pre­hen­si­ble and reveal a lack of respect for and con­nec­tion with real­ity,” the state­ment said.

Built as a Chris­t­ian basil­ica in the 6th cen­tury, Hagia Sophia was con­verted into a mosque fol­low­ing the con­quest of Con­stan­tino­ple by the Ottoman army in 1453. The build­ing was con­verted into a museum in 1934 on the orders of the country’s sec­u­lar leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Uden virkn­ing

Det lader til, at Erdogans regime er travlt med at islamisere Tyrkiet. At det betyder at trampe på de sidste rester af kristen tilstedeværelse, virker næsten som en bonus.

Turkey has brushed off Greek crit­i­cism of a daily read­ing from the Quran in Hagia Sophia in Istan­bul as “unac­cept­able,” urg­ing the gov­ern­ment in Athens “to respect… other reli­gions.”

In com­ments made to the Anadolu news agency on Wednes­day, Turk­ish For­eign Min­istry spokesman Tanju Bil­gic urged Greece to show “good sense,” while accus­ing the coun­try of sup­press­ing the rights of its “Turk­ish” minor­ity in the north­east­ern region of Thrace and block­ing the con­struc­tion of a mosque in the cap­i­tal.

“We must also keep in mind that the val­ues of con­tem­po­rary, demo­c­ra­tic and sec­u­lar soci­eties include respect for other reli­gions and prayers,” Bil­gic said.

Greece does not rec­og­nize its Mus­lim pop­u­la­tion, located pre­dom­i­nantly in West­ern Thrace, as an eth­ni­cally Turk­ish minor­ity but as a reli­gious one.

Tusinder af mennesker samledes foran Hagia Sophia i bøn den 31. maj, med krav om at den bliver åbnet som moské. Museum-status er en symbolsk goodwill-handling. At Erdogan ønsker at fjerne dette, siger meget om hans indstilling til dialog. Det siger også noget om en aggressiv kampagne for islam under dække af religion, ref. studerende på det tekniske universitet i Berlin, der demonstrerer udendørs hver fredag mod det tabte bederum.

http://www.ekathimerini.com/209422/article/ekathimerini/news/turkey-rebuffs-greek-criticism-of-quran-recitals-in-hagia-sophia

http://www.ekathimerini.com/209442/opinion/ekathimerini/comment/the-power-of-symbols