Nowadays Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan frequently invokes and glorifies Turkey’s Ottoman past, reinforcing the impression that many hold, that he is intent on restoring the caliphate in Istanbul and maybe even declare himself caliph.
When thousands of Muslims gather to pray at the Hagia Sophia, they are essentially demanding that it be designated a mosque again. In my new book The History of Jihad From Muhammad to ISIS (which you can preorder here), I recount how it became a mosque in the first place.
After over seven hundred years of trying, the warriors of jihad finally entered Constantinople on May 29, 1453. When they did, they made the streets run with rivers of blood. Muslims raided monasteries and convents, emptying them of their inhabitants, and plundered private houses. They entered the Hagia Sophia, which for nearly a thousand years had been the grandest church in Christendom. The Muslims then killed the elderly and weak and led the rest off into slavery.
The Byzantine scholar Bessarion wrote to the Doge of Venice in July 1453, saying that Constantinople had been
…sacked by the most inhuman barbarians and the most savage enemies of the Christian faith, by the fiercest of wild beasts. The public treasure has been consumed, private wealth has been destroyed, the temples have been stripped of gold, silver, jewels, the relics of the saints, and other most precious ornaments. Men have been butchered like cattle, women abducted, virgins ravished, and children snatched from the arms of their parents.
When the slaughter and pillage was finished, Mehmet II ordered an Islamic scholar to mount the high pulpit of the Hagia Sophia and declare that there was no God but Allah, and Muhammad was his prophet. The magnificent old church was turned into a mosque; hundreds of other churches in Constantinople and elsewhere suffered the same fate. Millions of Christians joined the ranks of the dhimmis; others were enslaved, and many were killed.
These are the glories to which those who gathered at the Hagia Sophia this morning wish to return.
“Thousands of Muslims pray at Hagia Sofia,” Ekathimerini, May 12, 2018 (thanks to Fjordman):
More than 2,500 Muslims prayed at Hagia Sophia in Istanbul early Saturday morning.
According to reports, the worshippers gathered at the monument – a UNESCO world heritage site and now officially a museum – at 4 a.m.
Greece has protested over Quran readings in the past inside what used to be Christendom’s greatest cathedral, built in the 6th century under order of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian….
Battle says
Liberate Constantinople.
Guy Jones says
We can start by kicking Turkey out of NATO — a move that is long, long overdue.
blitz2b says
Won’t happen Guy. With the three traitorous clowns, Merkel, Marcon and May at the helm. They are more in a hurry to handover the whole of Europe to the hordes of Islam than to do anything to resist them.
Until Europe elects leaders with brass balls like Donald Trump we can all kiss the continent that got us freedom goodbye.
Alyn Starkman says
This is why the muslims hate Israel so much. They are afraid that other oppressed people in the Middle might get the same idea and start demanding the return of the lands stolen 1400 years ago by the Islamic invaders.
Ralph says
Exactly.
souare says
A good model would be the Spanish Reconquista led by Freedom Fighter, El Cid.
Paul Wheeler says
Somehow, changing sides whenever it is expedient, and not remaining faithful to the cause of Spain (which didn’t exist then as we understand it now) doesn’t sound like a good model.
A clear-headed and consistent view of Islam an a perpetual existential enemy of Western civilization is required. “Momentary considerations”:, as Lenin called them, can’t be part of the plan,
gravenimage says
I’m afraid Paul is right about El Cid. Not the unalloyed hero I believed he was when I was a child.
somehistory says
Worship of satan is so disgusting. If the Bible was read there and sermons about Jesus were heard, the moslims would be terrorizing the people and destroying the building.
Because it was already taken away and made into a place where moslims pray to satan, and plot war and murder, no destruction of the building.
A flaunting of their disgusting worship of a vile creature who wanted to be like his father, the devil.
They defile the earth by their satanic devotion.
mortimer says
In the first world war, Constantinople was taken by the Allies, but returned to Turkey. This is one of the stupidest moments in history.
Turkey once defeated, should have been weakened so as to have no future role in international politics.
overman says
Erdogan is the biggest danger to the free world. Perhaps most ppl can’t see this yet, but l predict, in the near future, this megalomaniac will rise to the head of an lslamic army, and destroy Europe. He’s just waiting for the refugee-jihadis to increase to an unstoppable population, and he’ll make his move.
ln the news recently, it said refugees have been crossing the turkish border in their hundreds and perhaps thousands, and the greeks say they’re powerless to stop them. Greece is already a broken country, verging on collapse and very close to lslamization (probably before Sweden).
Ibrahim itace muhammed says
These muslims want shame Idiot Ataturk (now in the middle of hellfire) who converted the great mosque as sîgn of Cleaning Turkey from filths of pagan mithraist christianity to a park museum to please the satan. Islam has come to stay in Turkey and pagan mithraist christianity will never come back. Let the satan (holy spirit) burst into tears.
Keys says
Enlighting comment, itace, with just a touch of humor.
Thank you, thank you very much.
blitz2b says
Ibrahim Itace when you say this,.”… Let the satan (holy spirit) burst into tears…”
are you referring to this mysterious character mentioned in the Koran that Muslims can’t really explain or identify who he really is?
I16.102] “…Say: The HOLY SPIRIT has revealed it from your Lord with the truth, that it may establish those who believe and as a guidance and good news for those who submit….”
When Mohammed plagiarized the Bible he really didn’t really think the characters through,
gravenimage says
Hagia Sophia was seized as a Mosque after Ibrahim itace muhammed’s pious coreligionists raped, enslaved, and slaughtered the Christians who had taken sanctuary there. *Ugh*.
sidney penny says
“I recount how it became a mosque in the first place.”
All over the world not just in Turkey.
Here is what happened in India.
https://www.amazon.in/Hindu-Temples-happened-Preliminary-Survey/dp/818599093X
https://www.vedicbooks.net/hindu-temples-what-happened-them-vols-p-16650.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_Temples:_What_Happened_to_Them
“The first volume includes a list of 2,000 mosques that were built on Hindu temples, based primarily on the books of Muslim historians of the period or inscriptions found on mosques.
The second volume excerpts from medieval histories and chronicles and from inscriptions concerning the destruction of Hindu, Jain and Buddhist temples. The authors claim that the material presented in the book as “the tip of an iceberg”.
gravenimage says
Grimly true.
Brother Charles says
I saw a QUOTE from Lord Enoch Powell in that story , so was he right , in what he said .
FYI says
And who are muslims “praying” to exactly?
allah…
who “curses the Jews and the Christians” koran 9:30
allah could do with a few more than the 99 names muslims give him…
allah the anti-Semitic
allah the antichristian
allah the theologically challenged in his commandment-of-God violating “holy” koran
allah the obtuse
allah the misogynist
allah the promoter of the bearing of false witness by muslims
allah the commandment-of-God equivocator
allah the blind … who thinks he can defeat the God of Israel
allah the monoglot,linguistically challenged god
allah the god of the turk
Of course allah ,with ONLY 99 names, will never be able to beat the Alpha and Omega,the True God{of Moses,of Israel,of Jesus Christ etc}….The Holy Spirit must be bursting into laughter at the fact that allah doesn’t know{through an enormous theological failure in his “perfect” koran…)what it is.
You see the Holy Spirit is this:-
“Above all else,remember that NO ONE CAN EXPLAIN BY HIMSELF a prophecy in scriptures.For no prophetic message ever came just from the will of man but men were under the control of the
Holy Spirit as they spoke the message that came from God”
2 peter 1 v 20-21
Since allah doesn’t understand the theology of this (see koran 4:171)….
allah does not know 1 what God’s “holy spirit” is and 2 does not understand Biblical prophecy.
That’s why the Iranians pray to their “allah” to destroy Israel{Israel is blessed by the actual God}
muslims love to curse God’s Holy Spirit ,as we see from the demonic troll,even calling it ‘satan’:but..
“whoever says something evil against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven..now or ever”
Matthew 12 v 32
To equate God’s Spirit of Truth with satan is to call Good,evil.
And it can only come from an evil,demonic soul:a a soul probably obsessed with unnatural sex,mithraism,beasts,horrible smells…….
blitz2b says
FYI, Actually Allah has one more name that Muslims don’t really like to include in with the 99 “glorious” names. It is “Al-Makr” or the “deceiver”.
[3.54] “…And they deceived and Allah (also) deceived, and Allah is the best of deceivers….”
Ironically, Christ identified exactly who the “best of deceivers” actually was… Satan … “The father of Lies”.
Martin says
video of the event… the prayer as such begins just past the 6:00 mark
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNOw0qqrY3g
Obilic says
My grandfather a Bosnian-Serb died in 1915 liberating Constantinople from the Turks. He also fought to liberate Kosovo in 1912. He died decades before I was born and I couldn’t find his grave in a large cemetery dedicated to Serbian fighters, allies of the West in two World Wars. Yet today while treating Turkey with kid gloves we vilefy the Armenians, the Greeks, the Serbs, and the Hindu-Indians; all who endured under a horrific Jim-Crow system for centuries. I am a political lefty and a progressive person in most aspects, but on this reality, the Left has got to get off of its culturally relativistic butt.
blitz2b says
“…I am a political lefty and a progressive person in most aspects, but on this reality, the Left has got to get off of its culturally relativistic butt….”
Awesome… Please spread this information to all the leftist idiots who are selling our free western nations to Islam. I hope they soon realize that they are actually in the wrong side of history… a phrase their moronic guru Obama incorrectly tried to pin on the opinions of the conservatives.
Brian hoff says
Your history is off the Ottoman capital was not occupied untril 1919.
gravenimage says
The fight began before that.
gravenimage says
Turkey: Thousands of Muslims gather to pray at Hagia Sophia
………………….
More Muslim supremacism.