Islamist Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan confessed on Friday, attending the first Islamic prayers at the Hagia Sophia in 86 years, that converting the ancient Christian cathedral to a mosque was his childhood dream.
The Hagia Sophia was built in late antiquity as a Byzantine cathedral and enjoyed nearly a millennium as one of the holiest sites in Christianity. When the Ottoman Empire conquered Constantinople in 1453, the victors converted the building into a mosque, which it remained until the founding of the Republic of Turkey in the early 20th century. The Hagia Sophia functioned as a secular museum until this month when Erdogan’s government announced it would return to being an Islamic center.
“Reverting Hagia Sophia to its original form as a mosque was a dream of my youth,” Erdogan said , failing to note that the building’s original form was as a cathedral, on Friday following a visit to the tomb of Sultan Mehmet II “the Conquerer,” who wrested Constantinople from Christian hands.
The newly appointed Islamic leadership of the “Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque” gave Erdogan the honor to recite Quranic prayers at the former cathedral during the first weekend services there since the founder of modern-day Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, secularized the nation.
“Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque is a cultural heritage of humanity as a whole. It was a mosque and was reverted back into a mosque,” Erdogan later asserted after reciting the prayers, claiming that “some 350,000 people” had come out to attend the first Islamic prayers at the site in nearly a century.
In addition to the recitation by the president, Imam Ali Erbas, the head of Turkey’s religious directorate (the Diyanet), offered remarks celebrating the return of Islam to the Christian architectural marvel. Erbas ironically referred to the Hagia Sophia’s return to Islam — which required the removal of priceless Christian artifacts and covering up of frescos of Christian scenes — as “the symbol of respect to belief and of the morality of coexistence.”
“The conversion of Hagia Sophia is proof that the Islamic civilization — the foundation of which is t awhid [monotheism], the building block of which is knowledge, and the cement of which is virtue, continues to rise in spite of all drawbacks,” Erbas declared. “The reopening of the Hagia Sophia to worship means that all sorrowful masjids [mosques], first and foremost the Masjid al-Aqsa [in Jerusalem], and oppressed believers on earth are able to get lifeline support.”
“Hagia Sophia is the place from which the boundless mercy of Islam is once again declared to the whole world,” he asserted.
Despite mentioning “oppressed believers,” Erbas did not mention the enslaved Turkic Muslims of China — primarily the Uyghur people, but also some Kazakhs and Kyrgyz Turks — languishing in communist concentration camps in the country currently. Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency published an article today applauding China for its relationship with Turkey. A decade ago, Erdogan referred to Beijing’s treatment of the Uyghur population as “genocide,” but has since declined to condemn ongoing human rights atrocities.
Erdogan’s Islamist supporters celebrated the conversion of the Hagia Sophia to a mosque as a conquest similarly representing the defeat of Western values as the fall of Constantinople. Ibrahim Karagül, the editor-in-chief of the pro-Erdogan newspaper Yeni Safak , described Friday as “a challenge against the Ottoman Empire’s collapse.”
“Hagia Sophia! The Last Crusade has been stopped,” began the title of his column on Friday, of significantly shorter length than his typical titles.
“The Ottoman Empire became a global power with Istanbul’s conquest. Turkey will do the same with Hagia Sophia,” Karagül wrote. “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.”
The Islamization of the Hagia Sophia elicited outrage around the Christian world, particularly in Greece; the ancestors of the modern Greek nation built the Hagia Sophia.
“The alteration of the character of important cultural monuments is an indisputable blow to the cultural heritage of mankind,” the Greek Foreign Ministry asserted in a statement on Friday. “This alteration is a violation of Turkey’s obligations under the 1972 UNESCO Convention and casts a heavy shadow over its [Turkey’s public] image.”
The Foreign Ministry expressed concern that the Christian artifacts and artwork within the building now faced “significant risks” given its use as a mosque.
“At a time when convergences and unifying steps are needed, moves that incite religious and cultural divisions and widen rifts rather than bridge them do not contribute to the understanding and rapprochement of peoples,” the ministry concluded.
Following the official announcement that the Hagia Sophia would soon serve as a mosque last month, the U.S. Department of State urged Turkey “to continue to maintain the Hagia Sophia as a museum, as an exemplar of its commitment to respect the faith traditions and diverse history that contributed to the Republic of Turkey, and to ensure it remains accessible to all.”
The Turkish government responded that it was “shocked” America would object to the move.
Hagia Sophia: Muslim Forgery vs Documented History
No, the ancient church was not “purchased” by Muslims, nor were
its congregants “assured” of fair treatment.
July 17, 2020
Raymond
Ibrahim
Raymond Ibrahim is a Shillman Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom
Center . Millions
of Orthodox and other Christians around the world were either shocked, angered,
and/or saddened to learn recently that Turkey has just approved the
transformation of the Hagia Sophia museum—which was originally built, and for a
millennium functioned, as an Orthodox cathedral—into a mosque. In
a long speech rationalizing this decision, which he personally spearheaded,
Turkish president Erdogan said the
following: The
conquest of Istanbul [Constantinople] and the conversion of the Hagia Sophia
[Greek for “Holy Wisdom”] into a mosque are among the most glorious chapters of
Turkish history. On May 29, 1453, [Ottoman] Sultan Muhammad II entered the city
after a long siege and headed directly to the Hagia Sophia. As the Byzantines
awaited their fate, fearful and curious, inside the Hagia Sophia, Muhammad
entered the Hagia Sophia, giving assurances to the people regarding their lives
and freedoms… [He then] recited the first adhan [call to
prayer]. Thus he registered his conquest. Then, in a corner of the
Hagia Sophia, he performed two prostrations out of gratitude. With this
move he demonstrated that he had transformed the Hagia Sophia into a mosque….
The domes and walls of this great place of worship have resonated with prayers
and takbirs [shouts
of “Allahu Akbar”] for 481 years since then [until becoming a museum in 1934]. Such
a pious recounting is only slightly less hagiographical than the position of leading
Turkish historians, such as Professor Selim Akdogan. Recently on Al
Jazeera he insisted that Sultan Muhammad had actually “ purchased ” the
Hagia Sophia from its conquered Christian worshippers. Are
these rosy renderings accurate? Fortunately, we need not rely on Turkic
propaganda; we have primary source documents describing exactly what the Turks
and Sultan Muhammad did after conquering Constantinople and its Hagia Sophia in
1453. (All quotes in the following narrative were derived from
contemporary sources, mostly eyewitnesses, as documented in chapter 7 of Sword
and Scimitar .) Once
inside the city on May 29, 1453, the “enraged Turkish soldiers . . . gave no
quarter”: When
they had massacred and there was no longer any resistance, they were intent on
pillage and roamed through the town stealing, disrobing, pillaging, killing,
raping, taking captive men, women, children, old men, young men, monks,
priests, people of all sorts and conditions… There were virgins who awoke
from troubled sleep to find those brigands standing over them with bloody hands
and faces full of abject fury… [The Turks] dragged them, tore them,
forced them, dishonored them, raped them at the cross-roads and made them
submit to the most terrible outrages… Tender children were brutally snatched
from their mothers’ breasts and girls were pitilessly given up to strange and
horrible unions, and a thousand other terrible things happened. . . Because
thousands of citizens had fled to and were holed up in Hagia Sophia, the
ancient basilica offered an excellent harvest of slaves, once its doors were
axed down. “One Turk would look for the captive who seemed the
wealthiest, a second would prefer a pretty face among the nuns. . . . Each
rapacious Turk was eager to lead his captive to a safe place, and then return
to secure a second and a third prize. . . . Then long chains of captives could
be seen leaving the church and its shrines, being herded along like cattle or
flocks of sheep.” The
slavers sometimes fought each other to the death over “any well-formed girl,”
even as many of the latter “preferred to cast themselves into the wells and
drown rather than fall into the hands of the Turks.” Having
taken possession of the Hagia Sophia, one of Christendom’s greatest and oldest
churches—nearly a thousand years old at the time of its capture—the invaders
“engaged in every kind of vileness within it, making of it a public brothel.”
On “its holy altars” they enacted “perversions with our women, virgins, and
children,” including “the Grand Duke’s daughter who was quite beautiful.” She
was forced to “lie on the great altar of Hagia Sophia with a crucifix under her
head and then raped.” Next
“they paraded the [Hagia Sophia’s main] Crucifix in mocking procession through
their camp, beating drums before it, crucifying
the Christ again with spitting and blasphemies and curses. They placed a
Turkish cap . . . upon His head, and jeeringly cried, ‘Behold the god of the
Christians!’” Practically
all other churches in the ancient city suffered the same fate. “The crosses
which had been placed on the roofs or the walls of churches were torn down and
trampled.” The Eucharist was hurled to the ground; holy icons were stripped of
gold, “thrown to the ground and kicked.” Bibles were stripped of their gold or
silver illuminations before being burned. “Icons were without exception given
to the flames.” Patriarchal vestments were placed on the haunches of dogs;
priestly garments were placed on horses. “Everywhere
there was misfortune, everyone was touched by pain” when Sultan Muhammad
finally made his grand entry into the city. “There were lamentations and
weeping in every house, screaming in the crossroads, and sorrow in all
churches; the groaning of grown men and the shrieking of women accompanied
looting, enslavement, separation, and rape.” The
sultan rode to Hagia Sophia, dismounted, and went in, “marveling at the sight”
of the grand basilica. After having it cleansed of its crosses, statues, and
icons—Muhammad himself knocked over and trampled on its main altar—he ordered a
muezzin to ascend the pulpit and sound “their detestable prayers. Then this son
of iniquity, this forerunner of Antichrist, mounted upon the Holy Table to
utter forth his own prayers,” thereby “turning the Great Church into a heathen
shrine for his god and his Mahomet.” To
cap off his triumph, Muhammad had the “wretched citizens of Constantinople”
dragged before his men during evening festivities and “ordered many of them to
be hacked to pieces, for the sake of entertainment.” The rest of the city’s
population—as many as forty-five thousand—were hauled off in chains to be sold
as slaves. So
much for Erdogan’s claim that Sultan Muhammad had given “assurances to the
people regarding their lives and freedoms,” or that the Hagia Sophia was fairly
“purchased.” At
any rate, this is the history that millions of Turks extol. In the
aforementioned words of Erdogan, their president: “The conquest of Istanbul and
the conversion of the Hagia Sophia into a mosque are among the most glorious
chapters of Turkish history.” If
conquest, mindboggling atrocities and rapes, and the desecration of
churches—all committed in the name of jihad—are “the most glorious chapters of
Turkish history,” one wonders what Turkey’s future plans for glory look like? Note: The quotes in the above narrative were taken from and are
sourced in the author’s book, Sword
and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West .
Hagia Sophia: Turkish Propaganda vs. Documented History
Millions of Orthodox and
other Christians around the world were either shocked, angered, and/or saddened
to learn recently that Turkey has just approved of transforming the Hagia
Sophia museum — which was originally built, and for a millennium functioned, as
an Orthodox cathedral — into a mosque.
In a long speech
rationalizing this decision, which he personally spearheaded, Turkish president
Erdogan said the
following:
The
conquest of Istanbul [Constantinople] and the conversion of the Hagia Sophia
into a mosque are among the most glorious chapters of Turkish history. On May
29, 1453, [Ottoman] Sultan Muhammad II entered the city after a long siege and
headed directly to the Hagia Sophia [Greek for "Holy Wisdom"]. As the
Byzantines awaited their fate, fearful and curious, inside the Hagia Sophia,
Muhammad entered the Hagia Sophia, giving assurances to the people regarding
their lives and freedoms… [He then] recited the
first adhan [call to prayer]. Thus he registered his
conquest. Then, in a corner of the Hagia Sophia, he performed two
prostrations out of gratitude. With this move he demonstrated that he had
transformed the Hagia Sophia into a mosque…. The domes and walls of this
great place of worship have resonated with prayers
and takbirs [shouts of "Allahu Akbar"] for 481 years since
then.
Such a pious recounting is
only slightly less hagiographical than the position of leading Turkish
historians, such as Professor Selim Akdogan. Recently on Al Jazeera he
insisted that Sultan Muhammad had actually " purchased "
the Hagia Sophia from its conquered Christian worshippers.
Are these rosy renderings
accurate? Fortunately, we need not rely on Turkic propaganda; we have primary
source documents describing exactly what the Turks and Sultan Muhammad did
after conquering Constantinople and its Hagia Sophia in 1453. (All quotes
in the following narrative were derived from contemporary sources, mostly
eyewitnesses, as documented in chapter 7 of Sword and Scimitar .)
Once inside the city on May
29, 1453, the "enraged Turkish soldiers . . . gave no quarter":
When
they had massacred and there was no longer any resistance, they were intent on
pillage and roamed through the town stealing, disrobing, pillaging, killing,
raping, taking captive men, women, children, old men, young men, monks,
priests, people of all sorts and conditions… There were virgins who awoke
from troubled sleep to find those brigands standing over them with bloody hands
and faces full of abject fury… [The Turks] dragged them, tore them,
forced them, dishonored them, raped them at the cross-roads and made them
submit to the most terrible outrages… Tender children were brutally snatched
from their mothers' breasts and girls were pitilessly given up to strange and
horrible unions, and a thousand other terrible things happened. . .
Because thousands of
citizens had fled to and were holed up in Hagia Sophia, the ancient basilica
offered an excellent harvest of slaves — once its doors were axed down.
"One Turk would look for the captive who seemed the wealthiest, a second
would prefer a pretty face among the nuns. . . . Each rapacious Turk was eager
to lead his captive to a safe place, and then return to secure a second and a
third prize. . . . Then long chains of captives could be seen leaving the
church and its shrines, being herded along like cattle or flocks of
sheep."
The slavers sometimes fought
each other to the death over "any well-formed girl," even as many of
the latter "preferred to cast themselves into the wells and drown rather
than fall into the hands of the Turks."
Having taken possession of
the Hagia Sophia, one of Christendom's greatest and oldest basilicas — nearly a
thousand years old at the time of its capture — the invaders "engaged in
every kind of vileness within it, making of it a public brothel." On
"its holy altars" they enacted "perversions with our women,
virgins, and children," including "the Grand Duke's daughter who was
quite beautiful." She was forced to "lie on the great altar of Hagia
Sophia with a crucifix under her head and then raped."
Next "they paraded the [Hagia
Sophia's main] Crucifix in mocking procession through their camp, beating drums
before it, crucifying the
Christ again with spitting and blasphemies and curses. They placed a
Turkish cap . . . upon His head, and jeeringly cried, 'Behold the god of the
Christians!'"
Many other churches in the
ancient city suffered the same fate. "The crosses which had been placed on
the roofs or the walls of churches were torn down and trampled." The
Eucharist was hurled to the ground; holy icons were stripped of gold,
"thrown to the ground and kicked." Bibles were stripped of their gold
or silver illuminations before being burned. "Icons were without exception
given to the flames." Patriarchal vestments were placed on the haunches of
dogs; priestly garments were placed on horses.
"Everywhere there was
misfortune, everyone was touched by pain" when Sultan Muhammad II finally
made his grand entry into the city. "There were lamentations and weeping
in every house, screaming in the crossroads, and sorrow in all churches; the
groaning of grown men and the shrieking of women accompanied looting,
enslavement, separation, and rape."
The sultan rode to Hagia
Sophia, dismounted, and went in, "marveling at the sight" of the
grand basilica. After having it cleansed of its crosses, statues, and icons —
Muhammad himself knocked over and trampled on its main altar — he ordered a
muezzin to ascend the pulpit and sound "their detestable prayers. Then
this son of iniquity, this forerunner of Antichrist, mounted upon the Holy
Table to utter forth his own prayers," thereby "turning the Great
Church into a heathen shrine for his god and his Mahomet."
To cap off his triumph,
Muhammad had the "wretched citizens of Constantinople" dragged before
his men during evening festivities and "ordered many of them to be hacked
to pieces, for the sake of entertainment." The rest of the city's
population — as many as forty-five thousand — were hauled off in chains to be
sold as slaves.
So much for Erdogan's claim
that Sultan Muhammad had given "assurances to the people regarding their
lives and freedoms," or that the Hagia Sophia was fairly
"purchased."
At any rate, this is the
history that millions of Turks extol. In the aforementioned words of
Erdogan, their president: "The conquest of Istanbul and the conversion of
the Hagia Sophia into a mosque are among the most glorious chapters of Turkish
history."
If conquest, mindboggling
atrocities, and the desecration of churches — all committed in the name of
jihad — are "the most glorious chapters of Turkish history," one
wonder what Turkey's future plans for glory look like?
Turkey: Erdogan Throws Mass Concert to Mark Four Years Since
Failed Coup
ADEM ALTAN/AFP via Getty Images
15 Jul 2020 30
5:46
Turkey’s Islamist President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan marked four years since he overcame a military coup attempt with
a concert at his lavish presidential complex on Wednesday and thousands of
planned events nationwide.
Turkish
military leaders announced the end of Erdogan’s reign in the late hours of July
15, 2016, taking over the streets of Ankara and Istanbul and announcing they
had acted to restore secularist rule in the country. Erdogan responded by
urging his supporters to take the streets and fight their own military — a call
enough people answered to subdue the uprising. Erdogan officials confirmed over
200 deaths and thousands of injuries in the incident.
Erdogan’s
government blames Islamic cleric Fethullah Gülen, who resides in self-imposed
exile in Pennsylvania, for organizing the coup. Gülen has repeatedly denied any
involvement and Turkish officials have failed to put together enough evidence
to convince the United States of his involvement, preventing his extradition. A
statement from coup organizers on the night of July 15 suggests they were not
members of Gülen’s “Hizmet” movement, but secularist soldiers dissatisfied with
Erdogan’s Islamist impositions on the country.
Erdogan
has since branded July 15 “Democracy and National Unity Day” and organized
annual events to honor the “martyrs” that ensured his rule would go on,
perpetuating itself through elections opposition leaders have denounced as
fraudulent. The 3,000 events Ankara has planned nationwide
this year will defy social distancing guidelines aimed at preventing the
continued spread of the Chinese coronavirus, fueling a pandemic that has infected nearly
215,000 people in Turkey at press time. The nation has documented 5,402 deaths.
The
Islamist Turkish newspaper Yeni
Safak applauded the
government’s “special concert” featuring “a piece by world-famous Turkish
pianist Fahir Atakoglu composed to honor the national struggle on the night of
July 15 four years ago.” The piece performed reportedly consisted of “chapters”
detailing the events of the failed coup.
Erdogan
himself partook in a ceremony earlier Wednesday to lay flowers at a monument to
those killed fighting to keep him in power during the failed coup attempt.
“Sometimes,
a single hero changes the fate of the whole nation. On July 15, millions of
heroes emerged from all corners of our country and left a mark on the nation’s
future,” Erdoğan said in
remarks Wednesday following the flower laying ceremony. “If they had been
strong enough, you can be sure that they would not have hesitated to kill
notably the country’s president and prime minister and all other elected
executives.”
Erdogan’s
spokesman Ibrahim Kalin issued a more
combative statement Wednesday against the West, accusing Europe and America in
an interview of not sufficiently opposing the coup.
“We
were disappointed, and it was hard for us to understand that some countries in
Europe and other places instead of taking measures against the terrorists
themselves were criticizing the [Turkish] government for taking measures
against FETO [Gülenist] terrorists,” Kalin alleged, complaining that foreign governments
have rejected many Turkish extradition requests. “To this day, four years
after the coup, unfortunately, some key allies in NATO and Europe including the
U.S. continue to fail to understand the gravity of what happened and why we had
to take measures.”
“FETO
terrorists in Western countries still continue to present themselves as a
peaceful religious charity and educational institution … It is no excuse to say
that they [FETO] aren’t breaking any laws in our country,” Kalin added. “You
wouldn’t allow al-Qaeda or Daesh sympathizers or operatives or terrorists just
because they give the appearance that they aren’t breaking the law in your
country.”
Turkish
officials reiterated this
week that they are seeking over 300 extradition requests all around the world
for alleged Gülenists who participated in the failed coup, including 156 people
in America.
American
officials have repeatedly noted that
Turkey has failed to offer evidence linking these individuals, including Gülen,
to the coup. In 2017, reports surfaced that
Interpol had locked Turkish officials out of its system for demanding tens of
thousands of frivolous “red notices,” or requests for the arrest of, alleged
Gülenists. Interpol later denied the reports.
Turkish
officials rapidly detained, imprisoned, fired from public jobs, and
otherwise penalized over
100,000 people — many judges, teachers, and other public servants — in the
aftermath of the coup for alleged support of Gülen. On Wednesday, Defense
Minister Hulusi Akar claimed that
Turkey had “neutralized,” a term Ankara uses to mean killed or arrested, over
17,000 alleged “terrorists.”
The
organizers of the coup have never publicly allied themselves with Gülen. At the
time of the incident, people claiming to represent the new government of
Turkey called themselves
the “Turkish Peace Council” and issued a statement asserting they would
“reinstate constitutional order.”
“Turkish
Armed Forces have completely taken over the administration of the country to
reinstate constitutional order, human rights and freedoms, the rule of law and
general security that was damaged. All international agreements are still
valid,” the statement read. “We hope that all of our good relationships with
all countries will continue.”
Hours
later, Erdogan would appear on Facetime
from an undisclosed location disputing the claim that the armed forces had won
the battle and urging supporters to fight back.
Iran Jails Christians, Then Holds Ceremony for Book on
U.S. 'Islamophobia'
The mullahs know their American
Leftist friends will neither notice nor care about the hypocrisy.
July 15, 2020
Robert
Spencer
“War is deceit,” according to a
statement attributed to Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, and the leaders of the
Islamic Republic of Iran were taking notes. After stepping up the persecution
of Christians and even carrying out raids and arrests against them, Iranian
authorities paused long enough to unveil, with great fanfare, a “scholarly”
book about “Islamophobia” in the United States. Yes, that’s the real problem –
and the American establishment media will nod along in agreement.
Evangelical
Focus reported Tuesday that agents of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary
Guards Corps (IRGC) “arrested at least twelve Christians, in a coordinated
operation that took place in three different cities. The first arrest took
place on 30 June, in Tehran, when ten intelligence agents raided the home of a
Christian convert where there were around 30 Christians gathered.”
The agents recorded that raid,
but at a certain point they turned off their cameras and began abusing the
Christians, who were finally handcuffed, blindfolded, and taken away in a van
with blacked-out windows. They were taken to their homes, where the IRGC agents
searched for Christian material and beat some of them, along with some of their
family members, including some who had not converted to Christianity.
Evangelical Focus noted: “It is
believed that, in both raids, the agents were helped by an informant, who had
infiltrated the group of Christians within the past few months and gained their
trust.”
All this followed a report in
late June that seven other converts to Christianity had been sentenced to
prison or other punishments, including exile, fines, and work restrictions, for
the crime of exercising their freedom of conscience. According to Article18.com , “they
were each convicted of the same charge – ‘propaganda against the state’ – under
Article 500 of the Islamic Penal Code, which provides for up to a year in
prison for anyone found guilty of engaging in ‘any type of propaganda against
the Islamic Republic of Iran or in support of opposition groups and
associations.’”
Mansour Borji of the human
rights advocacy group Article18 stated: “Condemning these people to prison
because of their possession of Bibles and Christian symbols is a clear demonstration
that Iran’s Foreign Minister and others aren’t telling the truth when they say
that ‘no-one is put in prison in Iran simply because of their beliefs.’ These
people have done nothing that could be construed as ‘propaganda against the
state’ or ‘acting against national security’, but nevertheless they have been
treated so unjustly.”
Meanwhile, the International
Quran News Agency reported that “a book on political Islamophobia in the US
was unveiled in a ceremony in Tehran on Monday,” that is, the day before the
raids and arrest of twelve Christians.
The book in question is
entitled Political
Islamophobia at American Institutes: Battling the Power of Islamic Resistance ,
and is the masterwork of University of Tehran Professor Hakimeh Saghaye-Biriya.
The Islamic Human Rights Commission not in Tehran, but in London , has published
the book.
According to the International
Quran News Agency, “it analyses the role of US think tanks in
institutionalizing and fueling Islamophobia in the US government’s domestic and
foreign policies.” During the ceremony at the International Quran News Agency
in Tehran, Saghaye-Biriya “described Islamophobia as a branch of racism in the
West. She said at a time when protests against racism have spread globally,
there is a good opportunity to make a bridge between Islamic resistance and
anti-racism movements in the world.”
During the ceremony, a video
message from Wayne State University’s Saeed Khan was played; it “hailed the
book for providing a good analysis of the role of political think thanks in US
policy making and understanding the roots of Islamophobia in the country.”
Back in the real world,
“Islamophobia” is a propaganda neologism designed to intimidate people into
thinking it wrong to oppose jihad violence and Sharia oppression of women.
Meanwhile, this book, and the
accompanying ceremony, reveals the insidious nature of the entire
“Islamophobia” enterprise. The Iranian endorsement and propagation of this
term, with the participation of Wayne State University’s Saeed Khan, recalls
another Iranian initiative in academic propaganda: Carl Ernst, the University
of North Carolina-Chapel Hill pseudo-academic whose work on Islam is so
whitewashed, so fawningly apologetic, so complete in its denial of the jihad
doctrine and Sharia oppression, that he was given an award in 2008 by Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, the genocide-minded
anti-Semite who was at that time President of the Islamic Republic of
Iran. Ernst
happily flew to Tehran to accept . The incident was emblematic
of how much American academia has degenerated.
After all, when was the last
time you saw an American academic discuss the Muslim persecution of Christians,
or Iran’s treatment of religious minorities, or the inconsistency of Iranian
authorities in persecuting Christians while complaining about “Islamophobia”?
That’s right: never. That’s not what they do in the Antifa indoctrination
factories known as universities these days; they’re too busy recording video
messages applauding Iranian propaganda.
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