Hagia Sophia was a cathedral for 900 years and was seized from Christians in 1453. But it doesn’t belong to Christians, as far as Ekrema Sabri is concerned, because conquest by jihad confers right of ownership. No Western authorities at all, none, are pondering the wider implications of this.
“Arab World hails Turkish decision to reconvert Hagia Sophia into a Mosque” EurAsian Times, July 13, 2020
The Turkish decision to reconvert Istanbul’s iconic Hagia Sophia into a mosque after serving decades as a museum has won praise in the Arab world.
“We congratulate Turkey and ourselves for converting Hagia Sophia back to a mosque because it belongs to all Muslims,” Ekrema Sabri, the preacher of Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, said in a statement.
The Grand Mufti of Oman, Ahmed bin Hamad al-Khalili, offered his congratulations to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Muslims worldwide for reopening Hagia Sophia as a mosque.
“We congratulate ourselves, the entire Muslim nation, and particularly the Turkish nation headed by its leader, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for converting Hagia Sophia back to a house of worship where Allah authorized his name to be raised and mentioned,” he said on Twitter.
The Muslim Brotherhood group described the Turkish decision on Hagia Sophia as a “historic step”.
This step “confirms the sovereignty of the Turkish people over their land and the exercise of their rights,” spokesman Talaat Fahmy said in a statement.
He said the Turkish court decision to reconvert Hagia Sophia to a mosque “restores the right to its owners”. The Arab Maghreb Union also described the reopening of the Hagia Sophia mosque to worshippers as a “great historic event”.
“We extend our heartfelt congratulations to the Islamic nation as a whole and particularly to the Turkish people, led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on the occasion of the reopening of the Hagia Sophia mosque to prayer,” the union said in a statement….