To the intolerance of Muslims, the West responds with tolerance.Tolerance is a one-way street.
By Raymond Ibrahim
Previous to Pope Benedict XVI’s November 30 visit to the Hagia Sophia complex in Constantinople, Muslims and Turks variously expressed apprehension and rage. Turkey’s independent paper Vatan put it thus: “The risk is that Benedict will send Turkey’s Muslims and much of the Islamic world into paroxysms of fury if there is any perception that the Pope is trying to re-appropriate a Christian center that fell to Muslims.” A sign of the cross, apparently, would be interpreted as a signal for a crusade.
Built in Constantinople in the sixth century, the Hagia Sophia — Greek for “Holy Wisdom” — was Christendom’s greatest and most celebrated church. After parrying centuries of jihadi thrusts from Arabs, Constantinople was finally sacked by Turks in the jihad of 1453. Its crosses desecrated and icons defaced, this millennium-old church — as well as thousands of other churches in the then Byzantine Empire — was immediately converted into a mosque, the tall minarets of Islam surrounding it in triumph. As part of Ataturk’s reforms aimed at modernizing Turkey, the Hagia Sophia was secularized and transformed into a museum in 1935.
In protestation of Benedict’s visit, a gang of Turks stormed and occupied Hagia Sophia on November 22, exclaiming “Allahu Akbar!” and warning “Pope! don’t make a mistake; don’t wear out our patience.” On the day of the pope’s visit, another throng of Islamists waved banners saying “Pope get out of Turkey” while chanting “Aya Sofya [Hagia Sophia] is Turkish and will remain Turkish.” And of course, al Qaeda in Iraq got in on the action by denouncing Benedict’s visit in an Internet statement. One of the pope’s expressed purposes for visiting Turkey was to promote inter-religious dialogue and denounce violence in the name of God. Continued here...
Previous to Pope Benedict XVI’s November 30 visit to the Hagia Sophia complex in Constantinople, Muslims and Turks variously expressed apprehension and rage. Turkey’s independent paper Vatan put it thus: “The risk is that Benedict will send Turkey’s Muslims and much of the Islamic world into paroxysms of fury if there is any perception that the Pope is trying to re-appropriate a Christian center that fell to Muslims.” A sign of the cross, apparently, would be interpreted as a signal for a crusade.
Built in Constantinople in the sixth century, the Hagia Sophia — Greek for “Holy Wisdom” — was Christendom’s greatest and most celebrated church. After parrying centuries of jihadi thrusts from Arabs, Constantinople was finally sacked by Turks in the jihad of 1453. Its crosses desecrated and icons defaced, this millennium-old church — as well as thousands of other churches in the then Byzantine Empire — was immediately converted into a mosque, the tall minarets of Islam surrounding it in triumph. As part of Ataturk’s reforms aimed at modernizing Turkey, the Hagia Sophia was secularized and transformed into a museum in 1935.
In protestation of Benedict’s visit, a gang of Turks stormed and occupied Hagia Sophia on November 22, exclaiming “Allahu Akbar!” and warning “Pope! don’t make a mistake; don’t wear out our patience.” On the day of the pope’s visit, another throng of Islamists waved banners saying “Pope get out of Turkey” while chanting “Aya Sofya [Hagia Sophia] is Turkish and will remain Turkish.” And of course, al Qaeda in Iraq got in on the action by denouncing Benedict’s visit in an Internet statement. One of the pope’s expressed purposes for visiting Turkey was to promote inter-religious dialogue and denounce violence in the name of God. Continued here...
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