The chairman of the Religious and Foundation Employees’ Union (Diyanet Bir-Sen), Hasan Türüt, has called on Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to allow a Muslim prayer to be performed in Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, following the lifting of the ban due to the coronavirus pandemic.
According to Turkish media reports, Türüt said that the first Friday after the coronavirus pandemic the Muslim prayer should be performed in Hagia Sophia, as Mehmed the Conqueror did on the first Friday after the Fall of Constantinople.
“Hagia Sophia is the means to bring about the resurrection of the world. We must all show together – with the first prayer in Hagia Sophia – that Turkey is not the old Turkey,” highlighted Bir-Sen Chairman, saying that nothing would be the same in the post-coronavirus world.
He called for a prayer to Allah in the Hagia Sophia to appease evil, saying there was a “curse” of Mehmed the Conqueror for those who would try to declassify Hagia Sophia from mosques.
“When Mehmed II conquered Constantinople in 1453, the first Friday after the Fall he prayed in Hagia Sophia, turning it into a mosque after 916 years. Mehmed II, according to some Ottoman writings, is said to have said:
‘May the curse of Allah, the angels and all human beings be upon anyone who changes even one of the conditions governing this foundation!’ May they be in a constant and endless struggle! May no one will be found to look them in the face or ask Allah to forgive them!” “Let us no longer suffer the curse of Allah and our ancestor Mehmed. It is necessary for the honorable president of our country and his competent officials, who are trying to magnify Muslim Turkey and Islam, to take these seriously,” Türüt concluded, noting the importance of the Hagia Sophia for Islam and calling for the conversion of the historic monument in a Muslim mosque anew.
Source: Protothema.gr