Dr. Can Erimtan
21st Century Wire
Turkey has now been ruled by Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (aka the Prez, as a shorthand for his status as the first popularly elected President of the Republic) and his Justice and Development Party (or AKP) have for the whole of the 21st century (with the notable exception of this millennium when the party had not yet been founded). Erdoğan and his AKP henchmen have even ushered in what they call the New Turkey – as they like to call the country in the aftermath of the introduction of measures in line with what I like to call the AKP policy of Sunnification. This denomination primarily functions to distinguish AKP-led Turkey from Kemalist Turkey (1923-2002), a country built upon the principle of nationalism and contingent upon the idea that progress and modernisation are but a natural consequence of Westernisation.
Still, this supposedly ‘new’ political entity – the New Turkey – is very much hinged on the nation state Turkey that emerged following the end of the Great War (aka World War I, 1914-18) and the Turkish War of Liberation (1919-22), led by the charismatic soldier Mustafa Kemal Paşa (1881-1938). The latter war was concluded by the Treaty of Lausanne that was signed on 24 July 1923, and less than three months later, Mustafa Kemal (later universally known as Atatürk) established the Republic of Turkey on the ruins of the Ottoman State (29 October 1923). And that means that the centenary is but three years away now – 1923-2023. But this year, in 2020 – that strange and awkward time frame when the world, including the New Turkey is trying to come to grips with the coronavirus hysteria and its deadly companion known only as Covid-19 – the 97th anniversary of the signing of this legal document was marked by another anniversary and another momentous event.
For the Ayasofya Museum was turned into a mosque again on that very day this year.
The Hagia Sophia (or the Church of the Holy Wisdom, dedicated on 26 December 537), was originally built by Emperor Justinian (527-65). Following the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople (29 May 1453), the building became a mosque named the Ayasofya upon the orders of Sultan Mehmed II (popularly knows as Fatih or the Conqueror, 1451-81). And 86 years ago, this mosque had become a museum as a result of Atatürk’s personal intervention. This year, on the very day that commemorates the signature of a treaty Kemalists used to call the Turkish Republic’s “foundation document,” the mosque that Fatih inaugurated became a living and breathing Muslim place of worship once again.
The Islamist Perspective: Mustafa Kemal as the Enemy of Islam
At the outset, I would like to point out that Islamists, and particularly Turkish ones, love to hate Atatürk. And in the present context, the status of the Ayasofya as a museum (1934-2020) acts as nothing but an architectural and institutional symbol of Turkey’s founding father – a building and an institution that have come to encapsulate all the disgust and hatred felt by Turkish Islamists for the figure loved and adored by millions throughout the years. For, the Mosque of Ayasofya occupied a special spot in the Ottoman State as the one place of worship where the Ottoman Sultan himself attended Friday Prayers, as the one Imperial Mosque that had not been built by an Ottoman patron but that had instead been acquired by sheer force and violence (summarised in the Turkish phrase Kılıç Hakkı, that can be translated as the ‘Right of the Sword’). As a result, in Ottoman times, the population looked to the Ayasofya for guidance, where the sermons delivered on Fridays carried special meaning, as the figure of the preacher had been appointed by the palace and habitually given to a member of the brotherhood (or Tarikat) of the Halvetiyye, favoured by the House of Osman and characterised by its adherence to the Sharia and the example of the Prophet (the Sunnah). In other words, this building that had been a church for 916 (537-1453) years had become a living and breathing embodiment of Ottoman Islam (1453-1934 or 481 years). And Atatürk summarily brought an end to that sacred tradition.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
The conversion of the Ayasofya was but one of Atatürk’s final acts to lead to outright hatred and revulsion. Following its foundation, the Turkish Republic quickly tried very hard to rid itself of any and all ill-smelling Ottoman remains and other supposedly sickly whiffs emanating from Muslim habits and institutions: on 1 November 1922, (following the conclusion of the War of Independence [1919-22] and prior to the foundation of the Republic even), the Turkish Parliament (or TBMM, that had been supervising the war effort) abolished the sultanate and two years later, in full republican times, Turkey’s parliamentarians confined the caliphate to the dustbin of history as well (3 March 1924). This last suppression also included the abrogation of the Ministry of Pious Endowments and the office of Şeyhülslam (the Sheikh-ul-Islam or head of the religious institution in the Ottoman State who oversaw the Bâb-ı Meşîhat) only to replace the latter with a Directorate of Religious Affairs (colloquially known as the Diyanet). The next year, dervish brotherhoods (called Tarikat and somewhat analogous to Christian orders, such as the Dominicans, the Fransiscans or the Benedictines) and the Ottoman headgear called Fes (introduced by Mahmud II in 1828) joined the ranks of discarded institutions and items. Instead now, the government and its officials started encouraging the wholesale adoption of Western-style clothing, including hats, and not just for men but also for women. And this meant that the Turkish state ended up promoting a termination of the Islamic custom of veiling women and segregating the sexes.
The people by and large either enthusiastically adapted to these changes or merely acquiesced. But, conservative and pious Turks (or should we just say Islamists or purists) were particularly upset by 1924’s abolition of the Caliphate, for loyalty to the Caliph in Istanbul had been the rallying cry to unite Anatolia’s divergent Muslim population groups in the fight against the occupiers (1919-22). Yet now, now that the war was won, Mustafa Kemal turned against his erstwhile patron and deprived Muslims worldwide of their one and only spiritual figurehead: on 4 January 1925, the Naqshbandi Sheikh Said issued a fetva against the government in Ankara and against the President of the Republic – the fetva accused Mustafa Kemal of destroying religion and made it incumbent upon every believer to take up arms against the godless government in Ankara. As these events had taken place in the remote southeast of the country (largely occupied by Kurds, which is why many Kurds and Kurdophiles alike see this rising as linked to Kurdish nationalism rather than religious sentiment), the TBMM only became aware of the rising by late February. The Naqshi-led rebels were by that stage threatening the city of Diyarbakır (known to Kurds as Amed), and as a consequence the government dispatched the army to suppress the insurrection, leading to approximately 20,000 casualties. On 27 April 1925, the Turkish army captured the ringleader. Already on the 4th of March, the TBMM had promulgated the ‘Law on the Maintenance of Order’ (or Takrir-i Sükun Kanunu), re-established the so-called ‘Independence Tribunals’ (İstiklal Mahkemeleri, originally set up on 26 September 1920 as part of the ongoing war effort). On 28 June 1925, the Diyarbakır İstiklal Mahkemesi, sentenced Sheikh Said and 47 of his accomplices to death. The executions were carried out the next day. As a side-note, it is worth remarking that Ankara’s current AKP-led government has renamed Diyarbakır’s town square, the Şeyh Said Meydanı and, much more ominously, one should note that the current political elite ruling the country and its whole political apparatus has its roots firmly lodged deep inside the Naqshbandi organisation.
The Takrir-i Sükun Kanunu (or ‘Law on the Maintenance of Order’) was kept in place till March 1929. This meant that the Republic of Turkey was effectively governed by an emergency legislation for the duration of four years. And, as I have stated elsewhere, in “these four years the most drastic reforms were introduced by the government.” Following the disappearance of the institution of the Caliphate and its last incumbent (Halife Abdülmecid Efendi, 1868–1944)’s expulsion from the country, the Ankara government clearly felt more at ease and proceeded to abolish Sharia law in 1926. In the next instance, the TBMM replaced this Islamic Law codex regulating human actions and social relations with the so-called Kanun-ı Medini, itself a copy of the Swiss Code civil. Also in 1926, Turks (or rather Muslim citizens) also received legal access to alcohol, a gesture that ensured that Turks could now enjoy delights reserved for the next world to other Muslims. In the next world (or Cennet or Paradise), the consumption of wine is allowed and even encouraged. The Quranic Sura XLVII:15 speaks of the rivers of Paradise, including ‘rivers of wine – a delight to the drinkers’. The following year, the government ordered the removal of Ottoman tuğra’s (calligraphic imperial cyphers) from public buildings (5 May 1927). On 1 November 1928, then, the Arabic script was officially replaced by a new Latin-based alphabet. In the same year, Turkish lawmakers also proceeded to amend the Constitution, in place since 1924, by means of removing the phrase ‘The Religion of the Turkish State is Islam’ from its second article. These moves had neatly banished the Ottomans and their state religion (a conceptual twosome expressed in the commonly used Ottoman phrase Din ü Devlet or ‘Religion and State’ ) from public view. In the first years of the 1930s, the final finishing touches were put into place: the call to prayer and all Quranic recitations were to be executed in Turkish (1933, this custom was abolished in 1950 with the advent of the Demokrat Parti, following the introduction of multi-party democracy); next now largely unveiled Turkish women received the right to vote (1935): and finally, Sunday, the weekday Christians employ to commemorate the resurrection of Jesus by celebrating the Eucharist, became Turkey’s legal weekly holiday, taking the place of the Muslim holy day of Friday.
In short. “the Kemalist reforms literally altered the face of Turkey,” as expressed by the eminent historian Erik Zürcher. In Ottoman times, Turkey (as the ‘Ottomans’ cherished homeland’ was called by ‘nearly everybody,’ attested by Kâzım Nami [Duru], 1876-1967, in a 1910 Genç Kalemler article) had looked like a typical Islamic country, with an abundance of veiled women, popular mosque attendance and the conspicuous absence of alcoholic beverages, among the most eye-catching Muslim sights. Mustafa Kemal and his parliament also ensured that future generations of Turks would basically be cut off from their own history as well as from the nation’s historical record. In addition, the newly introduced Latin alphabet would also make direct access to Islam’s holy book all but impossible. In this way, Atatürk (as Mustafa Kemal became known following the introduction of surnames in 1934) had put conditions in place meant to secure Turkey’s further development as a nation state along Western lines. In fact, in 1937, the journalist Ömer Kemal Ağar (1901-87) proudly proclaimed that now “there is no difference anymore between the European and us.”
And for that reason, Turkish Islamists (traditionally called gerici or regressives adhering to irtica [or religious reaction] in Kemalist parlance) despise Atatürk, as they fully agree with the wording of Sheikh Said’s fetva and condemn Turkey’s founding father as a veritable enemy of Islam.
Turning the Sultan’s Mosque into a Museum:
Now turning directly to the architectural and institutional symbol that has been the Ayasofya Museum for the past 86 years. Following the War of Liberation (1919-22) and the foundation of the Republic (1925), the erstwhile church that Justinian built continued to operate as a mosque, as one of the many mosques dotting Istanbul’s urban landscape. In Turkey, a great deal of conspiracy theories have been floated over the years to explain why this one sacred building suddenly became a museum – ranging from a forged Atatürk signature to a geopolitical interpretation in the context of Soviet Russia and neighbouring Greece. The reality though seems much more mundane and down to interpersonal relationships and interactions – between Atatürk and Thomas Whittemore (1871-1950), to be precise. The latter was a Massachusetts-born American who has “donned many hats throughout his life—both literally and figuratively” and whom the Harvard University research institute Dumbarton Oaks’ website describes as an “academic, amateur archaeologist, and humanitarian.” But, Whittemore is today best remembered “for founding the Byzantine Institute, an organization that specialized in the study, restoration, and conservation of Byzantine art and architecture, in 1930.” And more importantly, in June 1931, his personal interaction with Mustafa Kemal led the Turkish government to grant the Institute permission to “uncover and restore the original mosaics in Hagia Sophia, which had been covered in Islamic motifs since the church was converted into a mosque by the Ottoman Turks, in 1453.” And in this context, Thomas Whittemore wrote down the following anecdote: “Santa Sophia was a mosque the day that I talked to him. The next morning, when I went to the mosque, there was a sign on the door written in Atatürk’s own hand. It said: ‘The museum is closed for repairs’.” This short anecdote may very well be fanciful or aprocryphal, but following the American specialists’ work on site, having uncovered hitherto quite unseen mosaics and frescoes, the then-Minister of Education Abidin Özmen (1890-1966) sent an official letter to Aziz Ogan (1888-1956), the director of Istanbul’s Museums of Antiquities (or Âsâr-ı Atika Müzeleri, today Archaeology Musuems) on 25 August 1934 – a letter instructing the latter to commence the arrangements to convert the mosque into a museum. In the wake of these preparations, Turkey’s Council of Ministers (then known as the Vekiller Heyeti) officially desacralised the Ayasofya Mosque on 24 November 1934. This official document bears the signature of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, in addition to those of of all the members of the Council of Minipsters:
Owing to its historical significance, the conversion of the Ayasofya mosque in Istanbul – a unique architectural monument – into a museum will gratify the entire Oriental World and will cause humanity to gain a new institution of knowledge . . . and by means of allocating the expenses of the restoration and conservation of the building to the Ministry of Education[, the act of] converting the Ayasofya mosque into a museum has been confirmed and accepted.
These Kemalist politicians acted in accordance with their modernist beliefs that progress could only be achieved through modernisation as Westernisation, though the wording clearly shows they still considered Turkey to be part and parcel of the “Oriental World” (‘Şark alemi’). It is also significant to point out that the Council of Ministers’ document does not mention the Ayasofya’s extraordinary location in the Ottomans’ religious life, instead specifically referring to “this mosque” as a “work [of art] left by the Byzantines.” Rather than regarding or classifying the building as housing a living and breathing house of worship, as Atatürk and his ministers had already effectively confined the Ottomans to the past as veritable museum pieces, they understood the Ayasofya (or the Hagia Sophia) solely as an impressive work of art that had been created by the “Byzantines,” and latterly appropriated by the Ottomans for their own purposes. In this way, they clearly regarded their “conversion of the Ayasofya mosque . . . into a museum” as an action befitting a modern and forward-looking state, a state not hampered by religious superstition or backward-looking beliefs and practices.
From Mosque to Museum to Tourist Attraction
Conservative Turks and Islamist opponents of the Ankara regime took Atatürk’s action regarding the most important mosque in the erstwhile Ottoman lands as a personal affront. Rather than seeing this as a natural progression towards a modern and contemporary society, the Ayasofya conversion came to signify the extent to which Mustafa Kemal had led his people astray, away from the the ‘straight path’ of Islamic righteousness (or aṣ-Ṣirāṭ al-mustaqīm or the sırât-ı müstakîm). As a result, the issue of the Ayasofya was to become a festering wound over time, a constant source of grief and anger for many pious Turks and even zealous Muslims abroad. But in the West, these concerns seemed very unreal, and the museum quickly became a popular tourist attraction. As a building complex, the Ayasofya had accrued a lot Ottoman additions over the years, with the building of a number of domed tombs (or türbe) and an ablution fountain (şadırvan) the most visible elements that the government was not able to either hide or erase. Equally, on the inside, the giant roundells bearing calligraphic rendition of the names of the Prophet and the four Rightly-Guided Caliphs, added in the 19th century, were not removed either. But, on the whole, following the conversion to a museum, the church that Justinian built was basically returned to its original form: the “present edifice is essentially that of Justinian’s reign,” can be read in the authoritative guide Strolling through Istanbul, first published in 1972. The contemporary Byzantine chronicler Procopius of Caesarea (ca 500-70) wrote down the following impression:
The church presents a most glorious spectacle, extraordinary for those who behold it and altogether incredible for those who are told of it . . . It is distinguished by indescribable beauty, excelling both in its size and the harmonies of its measures
In the next decade, UNESCO, a specialised agency of the United Nations aimed at contributing “to the building of peace, the eradication of poverty, sustainable development and intercultural dialogue through education, the sciences, culture, communication and information,” promoted the “most glorious” Hagia Sophia to the position of a world heritage site (1985). In the 1990s though, political Islam was on the rise in Turkey, and the charismatic and hugely popular Islamist Necmetin Erbakan (1926-2011) craftily employed the mention of the Ayasofya as a rallying cry to rouse the masses during his always more than well-attended public speeches. Following the sudden electoral victory of his Refah Partisi (or RP, erroneously translated as Welfare Party) in 1994 on a nationwide local level, the topic of reverting the museum into a mosque anew became a lively and widely debated topic of discussion in Turkey and on Turkish television. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan became the RP Mayor of Istanbul (27 March 1994) and the following day, the start of the working week or Monday, small groups of young men ostentatiously dressed up in Islamic garb could be seen congregating in front of the Ayasofya Museum, talking to passers-by and attempting to convince them that the building should become a mosque again. As the fist Islamist Mayor of Istanbul, Erdoğan was not shy about starting a charm campaign to impress Muslims worldwide. The self-styled ‘magazine of Muslims around the world’, Al Mugtama Magazine sent their reporter Mohammad Al-Abbasi to conduct an interview with the then-rising start of political Islam in Turkey, Tayyip Erdoğan (published on 26 April 1994). In the course of the conversation, the newly-appointed Mayor of Istanbul told the reporter that “the Ayasofya will return as a mosque for Muslims.” In other words, the topic may not always have been on the forefront of news cycles or in the public discourse of the land, but the fire of hatred that Atatürk had unleashed kept burning and smoldering over the years.
The Anniversary of the Treaty of Lausanne: The Restoration of the Ayasofya
President Erdogan
It took Tayyip Erdoğan 26 years to exact his revenge on Atatürk, but in the end he kept his word and with a grand ceremony held on the highly symbolic date of 24 July, the museum was turned into a mosque again – what Erbakan had promised, Erdoğan finally delivered. On 10 July 2020, a “Turkish court [had preliminary] cleared the way for the Hagia Sophia to be converted from a museum back into a mosque.” And the man who is now the Prez took hold of this opportunity to address the nation once more: “The Council of State [known today as the Danıştay] today annulled the 1934 Cabinet Decree which had enabled the Ayasofya’s conversion from a mosque to a museum. Based on that ruling we have issued a presidential decree to facilitate the reopening of the Ayasfoya Mosque. Thus, after 86 years the Ayasfoya will be able to start serving as a mosque once again as stated in the foundation charter of Fatih Sultan Mehmed Khan. I wish this decision to be auspicious to our nation, the ummah, and all of humanity. Our Ministry of Culture and Tourism has immediately begun to work on the administrative and technical preparations with our Presidency of Religious Affairs on religious aspects of the matter.” And the date chosen to conduct the solemn re-inauguration of the erstwhile premier mosque in the Ottoman lands was a Friday, and that Friday Prayer took place on the day the Treaty of Lausanne was signed in 1923 – the document that led the way to the proclamation of the Republic of Turkey, arguably Mustafa Kemal [Atatürk]’s greatest achievement. In order to ensure the message wouldn’t get lost in the general rejoicing and festive atmosphere, the government closed down the Turkish Consulate in Thessaloniki, which just happens to be the house (new museum) where Turkey’s founding father was born in 1881.
In Istanbul, the honour of delivering the Friday sermon (Khutbah or Hutbe) in the Ayasofya was given to Dr Ali Erbaş, the Director of the Diyanet (Directorate of Religious Affairs). Erbaş, is currently a close favourite of Erdoğan’s whose directorate wields over monies ministries and other government institutions can only dream about . . . In a very real sense, Dr Ali Erbaş acts the 21st-century Sheikh-ul-Islam (Şeyhülislam) to the President of the Republic, whom many accuse of acting like a dictator or a latter-day sultan. In order to deliver his Hutbe, the slight Erbaş climbed the steps of the pulpit (minbar or minber) clasping a sword in his right hand, underlining the fact that, though the Ayasofya had not been built as a mosque, the Ottomans had rightfully converted the Hagia Sophia into the Ayasofya by means of the ‘Right of the Sword’ (Kılıç Hakkı). Ali Erbaş started off in a somewhat conciliatory mood: “The longing of our nation, which has turned into a heartbreak, is coming to an end today.” He then took a scenic route only to end his words with a deadly insult and curse:
Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror endowed and entrusted this outstanding place of worship as the apple of his eye to believers on condition that it should remain a mosque until the last day. Any property that is endowed is inviolable in our belief and burns whoever touches it; the charter of the endower is indispensable and whoever infringes upon it is cursed
Dr Ali Erbaş spoke about the Ottoman who had taken possession of the “most glorious” Church of the Holy Wisdom to turn it into the premier mosque of the land. But then he used a sentence construction couched in logic to actually curse Turkey’s founding father. Holding a sword in his hand, the man now acting as the Sheikh-ul-Islam of the New Turkey condemned the nation’s founding father Mustafa Kemal Atatürk: As if the re-dedication of the Ayasofya Mosque were but the opening move of the ultimate destruction and deconstruction of the nation state that Mustafa Kemal built. In fact, during his Hutbe, Dr Erbaş used the word “ilelebet” or ‘forever’ in connection with the Ayasofya, and the use of this word is also direct slight in the direction of Atatürk. One of the founding father’s most popular and oft-repeated phrases employs the same word, a word that is not at all in common usage anymore in contemporary Turkey: “One day my mortal body will turn to dust, but the Turkish Republic will stand forever [or ilelebet].” The Erbaş Hutbe thus seems to insinuate that the Ayasofya Mosque, as a symbol for the AKP-led New Turkey, will remain forever, while Mustafa Kemal’s remains have all but turned to dust, just like his nation state will turn into dust as well.
Countdown to 2023: The Centenary to End the Republic
As long ago as 2013, I wrote that some people in Turkey now “fear that the [AKP-led] government’s long-term goal (as arguably expressed in the AKP’s policy statement Hedef 2023 [or ‘Objective 2023’]) is to transform the nation state Turkey into an Anatolian federation of Muslim ethnicities, possibly linked to a revived caliphate” and the renewed implementation of Sharia law. And in the aftermath of the re-dedication, Islamist publications in Turkey have immediately jumped on this scenario, particularly on the possibility that the Prez could now rightfully claim a new and truly global caliphate. For, Tayyip Erdoğan has now replaced Atatürk, who had turned the Ottomans into artifacts confined to museums devoid of any link to the living reality of the here and now. Erdoğan, in turn, has succeeded in reviving the Ottomans (albeit devoid of any real link with the Ottoman family or dynasty, but largely as a pseudo-Ottoman project to bring about the revival of Sunni Islam in Turkey) and transforming the Ayasofya Museum into a real mosque again. Some months following his election victory in 1994 Erdoğan, accompanied by his then-mentor Erbakan and his then-still friend and brother-in-arms Abdullah Gül, flew to the Belgian city of Antwerp, where the the prominent Naqshbandi Sheikh Nazım-ı Kıbrsi (1922-2014) delivered a speech to a crowd mainly consisting of Turkish immigrant workers from Belgium and other west European countries. There and then, the Cyprot Naqshi predicted the “return of the Ottomans” and a quarter of a century later, the then-Mayor of Istanbul and now-President of the Republic has all but succeeded in accomplishing that goal. As I wrote last year, “the centenary of the Republic’s foundation in 2023 seems like the ideal symbolic date to undertake such a revolutionary act,” the revolutionary act of dismantling the nation state Turkey only to replace it with a veritable Islamic state, bound by the rules of the Sharia and beholden to the Prophet’s example.
As a preparatory move, the Prez has recently created his very own morality police, a “force of around 28,500 neighborhood watchmen [that] will have the right to frisk citizens, demand identification, search their cars and use their weapons and force if needed.” Arguably, these newly-created neighborhood watchmen are thus in an ideal position to ensure that the New Turkey’s hapless citizenry stick to ‘straight path’ of Islamic righteousness (or the sırât-ı müstakîm).
Now riding on a wave of popular approval on account of his Ayasofya victory, will Tayyip Erdoğan employ his new morality police of sorts to mould the Turkish population into a true nation of believers, believers who will in the end themselves be demanding for the implementation of Sharia law in the land. The re-dedication of the Ayasofya Mosque marks the starting shot of the countdown to 2023 . . . which will be the year the world will learn whether Nazım-ı Kıbrsi was correct all those years ago and whether Erdoğan is the man who can and will really bring back Islamic rule to Turkey.
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21WIRE special contributor Dr. Can Erimtan is an independent historian and geo-political analyst who used to live in Istanbul. At present, he is in self-imposed exile from Turkey. He has a wide interest in the politics, history and culture of the Balkans, the greater Middle East, and the world beyond. He attended the VUB in Brussels and did his graduate work at the universities of Essex and Oxford. In Oxford, Erimtan was a member of Lady Margaret Hall and he obtained his doctorate in Modern History in 2002. His publications include the revisionist monograph “Ottomans Looking West?” as well as numerous scholarly articles. In Istanbul, Erimtan started publishing in Today’s Zaman and in Hürriyet Daily News. In the next instance, he became the Turkey Editor of the İstanbul Gazette. Subsequently, he commenced writing for RT Op-Edge, NEO, and finally, the 21st Century Wire. You can find him on Twitter at @theerimtanangle. Read Can’s archive here.
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