Shahid A Abbasi is Emeritus Professor at Pondicherry University in India. In this article, he hits on the real why Erdogan should not have converted Hagia Sophia to a mosque. Not out of respect for the Christians of Turkey and for the country’s Christian heritage. Not to demonstrate his commitment to Kemalist secularism. Not because Hagia Sophia as a mosque is a quintessential symbol of the imperialism and colonialism that the world rejects today (but only when Western countries can be accused of engaging in it). No, the real problem with converting Hagia Sophia to a mosque is that it will increase “Islamophobia,” you see. For Islamic supremacists, the moral evaluation of actions is based on whether they are good for Islam or harmful to Islam. That’s the only consideration.
“Erdogan’s hour of shame,” by Shahid A Abbasi, Indian Express, July 28, 2020:
Conversion of the Hagia Sophia to a mosque has handed right-wingers in non-Muslim nations an excuse and impetus to demonise Islam
…Now the chief of Turkey has put the Hagia Sophia into a rewind mode. So has gone into reverse all that the Hagia Sophia stood for until the other day. After decades of futile hope and posturing to get accepted as a “genuine” European country by the European Union, July 24, 2020, threatens to mark the commencement of its distancing from Europe and its return journey to theocracy. Erdogan has, of course, issued the expected denials but the writing is there on the walls of the Hagia Sophia. He also has obviously handed the right-wingers of all major non-Muslim countries a new excuse and impetus to demonise Islam. One can picture them salivating at this “typical Islamist excess” to justify their own thrusts backwards….