Islamic Insanity > Turkey fully backs Hamas although a NATO country; Muslima arrested in Lyon for explosives, etc.; Islam still practicing piracy

 

In my humble opinion, Erdogan is the Abomination of Desolation. His aggressive, jihadist position againt Israel fits in perfectly with him leading the prophetic attack on Israel by 10 Islamic states.

President Erdogan says Turkey firmly backs

Hamas leaders and speaks openly with them

Daily Mail, March 9, 2024:

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan today said that his nation ‘firmly backs’ the leaders of Hamas and that the country speaks openly with them.

He has refused to brand Hamas as a terrorist group, despite Western allies of NATO-member Turkey, including the UK, and some Arab nations, doing so.

‘No one can make us qualify Hamas as a terrorist organisation,’ Erdogan said in a speech in the city of Istanbul.

‘Turkey is a country that speaks openly with Hamas leaders and firmly backs them.’

Erdogan has been one of the most virulent critics of Israel since the start of the war in Gaza, which began after the October 7 attack Israel where Hamas killed at least 1,160 people, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures….

I honestly think that Turkey is trying to put itself on a war footing so it can enter the war against Israel. Erdogan is ambitiously aspiring to rebuild the Ottoman Empire with himself as Caliph. But he is getting on in age and has to be more aggressive in his pursuit. 

Note that NATO will do nothing to rein in Erdogan, and America and Europe will not sanction him in any serious way.  

France: Muslim couple found to have explosives

and a book of jihad propaganda

MAR 13, 2024 11:30 AM BY ROBERT SPENCER

The family that slays together, stays together.

INFO EUROPE 1 – Lyon: the RAID discovers an explosive

and Salafist literature in Lyon apartment

translated from “INFO EUROPE 1 – Lyon : le RAID découvre un explosif et de la littérature salafiste dans un appartement,” by William Molinié, Europe 1, March 10, 2024:

The RAID and the deminers intervened this Sunday morning, shortly after 6 a.m. in an apartment in the 8th arrondissement of Lyon. During the search, investigators found at least one kilo of TATP, a very unstable homemade explosive, as well as Salafist literature. A man and a woman were taken into custody.

According to information from Europe 1, a man and a woman were arrested and taken into police custody in Lyon. The woman is suspected of having prepared explosives with a view to offering them for sale via social networks, in particular Snapchat. The RAID and the deminers intervened this Sunday morning, shortly after 6 a.m. in an apartment in the 8th arrondissement of the capital of the Gauls.

During the search, at least one kilo of TATP, a very unstable homemade explosive, was found and immediately destroyed by the deminers due to its dangerousness. Two mobile phones, a false identity card and a booklet of Salafist literature were also seized.

The suspect’s companion was wanted by the police, due to a 6-month prison sentence for drug violations. The judicial police were contacted.

How smart is that girl? Keeping a drug user in her apartment along with unstable explosives?

 

In the real world, piracy went out 3-400 years ago with Blackbeard, Anne Bonny, Sir Francis Drake, etc. But in medievil Islam, this is still a niche industry.

Somali pirates hijack Bangladeshi cargo ship,

take more than 20 hostage

By Chris Benson

Images released by Yemen's Houthi group on Nov. 20 show a Houthi militant as they Hijack a cargo ship near Yemen in the southern Red Sea. On Tuesday, a Bangladeshi cargo shipped was hijacked by Somali pirates as it was headed to the United Arab Emirates from Mozambique. File Photo by Houthi Group Press Service/UPI | License Photo

March 12 (UPI) -- Somali pirates hijacked a Bangladeshi cargo ship on Tuesday and took more than 20 of the crew hostage.

The cargo ship "MV" Abdullah was hijacked while on its way to Al Hamriyah port in the United Arab Emirates.

According to reports, 23 crew members were taken hostage along with the ship, which was carrying 58 tons of coal from Mozambique.

An official with SR Shipping Lines, which own 23 vessels, confirmed to New Age Bangladesh that the company got a message at about 1:30 p.m. local time from the captain, who informed them of the hijacking.

The captain said in short message that the crew was safe.

A crew member said in an audio clip that the pirates attacked their ship using an Iranian fishing boat allegedly hijacked months prior.

"The pirates are threatening us. I am sending this voice message from the washroom. There are 7-8 of them. They intend to take us to their camp. They all have guns," the crew member, who's identity could not be ascertained, according to The Business Standard.

"We are waiting for their next message or call," commented Meherul Karim, SR Shipping's CEO.

Karim said a previous December 2010 hijacking that took 25 of the company's sailors hostage ended up with the workers being set free more than two months later.

The International Maritime Organization -- which is a United Nations body -- warned that attacks on commercial ships in the region in recent months by Houthi rebels gives room for Somali pirates to step up further attacks in shipping lanes, too.

The hijacking in that area -- known for such occurrences -- of the Indian Ocean came the same day the Biden administration announced sanctions against a international network of money launderers of the Somalia-based al-Shabaab terrorist organization, who are accused of compromising an expansive network that generates and launders millions for the al-Qaida affiliate in the Horn of Africa, the United Arab Emirates and Cyprus.

In 2017, Somali pirates hijacked an Indian ship with 11 on board while it was traveling from Dubai to Yemen. Two years later in 2019, maritime officials in India, China and Pakistan responded to a Somali pirate hijacking and freed 19 captured crew members in the close by Gulf of Aden.

Ships in that part of the world need to have security teams that are armed with bazookas and automatic weapons. It shouldn't be that easy to hijack a huge cargo ship.

Desperate Erdogan to lead prayers in the Hagia Sophia - Is the Abomination of Desolation Standing in the Holy Place?

..

Turkey's Erdogan to lead Hagia Sophia prayers on eve

of fight for political life

Issued on: 13/05/2023 - 15:39

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses his supporters during a rally ahead of the May 14 presidential and parliamentary elections, in Istanbul, Turkey May 13, 2023. © Dylan Martinez, Reuters

Text by: NEWS WIRES

3 min

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will lead Saturday prayers at Istanbul's iconic Hagia Sophia mosque, ahead of a battle for his political life against a powerful secular rival.

The 69-year-old will be emulating a ritual that Ottoman Sultans performed before they led their men off to war as he braces for Sunday's parliamentary and presidential ballot.

Erdogan has never faced a more energised or united opposition than the one led by retired civil servant Kemal Kilicdaroglu and his disparate alliance of six parties.

The Turkish leader excelled at splitting his rivals and forging unlikely unions while winning one national election after another over 21 years.

But his Islamic-rooted party is reeling from anger over Turkey's economic meltdown and a crackdown on civil liberties during Erdogan's second decade of rule.

The six opposition parties have put aside their political and cultural differences and joined forces for the lone task of pushing Erdogan out.

They are officially supported by Turkey's main pro-Kurdish party — a group that accounts for at least 10 percent of the vote.

'A very silly question'

The math is not adding up in Erdogan's favour and most polls show him trailing his secular rival by a few points.

Kilicdaroglu is now desperately trying to break the 50-percent threshold and avoid a May 28 runoff that could give Erdogan a chance to regroup and reframe the debate.

"Are you ready to bring democracy to this country? To bring peace to this country? I promise, I am ready too," Kilicdaroglu told a rally in Ankara.

Erdogan was put in the uncomfortable position on Friday night television of being asked what he would do if he lost.

The veteran leader bristled and pledged to respect the vote. "This is a very silly question," he said.

"We came to power in Turkey by democratic means, with the approval of our people. If our people were to change their mind, we would do what democracy requires."

His campaign path to re-election will take him to the scene Saturday of one of the more controversial decisions of his recent rule.

'The West got mad' 

The Hagia Sophia was built as a Byzantine cathedral — once the world's largest — before being converted into a mosque by the Ottomans.

It was the largest Christian cathedral for more than 1000 years and was the centre of eastern orthodoxy for much of that time. Erdogan has led prayers there once before. It struck me that he might have fulfilled the prophecy of the abomination of desolation standing in the Holy place.

Jesus said, “‘Therefore when you see the “abomination of desolation,” spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place’ (whoever reads, let him understand), ‘then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains’” (Matt 24:15-16).

The Hagia Sophia was converted into a museum when Mustafa Kemal Ataturk created a secular post-Ottoman Turkey in 1923.

Erdogan's decision to convert it back into a mosque in 2020 solidified his hero status among his religious supporters and contributed to growing Western unease with his rule.

"The entire West got mad — but I did it," Erdogan told an Istanbul rally on Saturday.

Erdogan has played up religious themes and used culture wars to try and energise his conservative and nationalist base.

He brands the opposition as a "pro-LGBT" lobby that takes orders from outlawed Kurdish militants and is bankrolled by the West.

The strident message appears to be aimed at taking voters' minds off Turkey's most dire economic crisis of his entire rule.

The official annual inflation rate touched 85 percent last year. Economists think the real figure could have been much higher and blame the crisis on Erdogan's unconventional financial theories.

Kilicdaroglu pledges to do away with them immediately after taking office.

'We're not happy'

But the starkness of the choice confronting Turkey's 64 million voters is accompanied by soaring tensions and lingering fears over what Erdogan would do if he lost a narrow vote.

Kilicdaroglu wore a bulletproof vest to his two rallies on Friday after receiving what his party described as a credible threat on his life.

He gave an uncharacteristically short evening speech in Ankara that was originally played up by his campaign.

Kilicdaroglu's running mate Ekrem Imamoglu — a popular figure who beat Erdogan's ally in controversial 2019 Istanbul mayoral polls — was pelted by rocks days earlier while touring Turkey's conservative heartland.

Turkish officials launched a formal investigation and made some arrests.

But several senior officials in Erdogan's ruling party accused the Istanbul mayor of provoking the incident.

The voting will include southeastern regions that lie in ruins in the wake of a February quake that claimed more than 50,000 lives.

The level of anger in these traditionally pro-Erdogan regions could also help swing Sunday's outcome.

"We're not happy to be voting in the middle of rubble, but we want the government to change," said Diber Simsek, a resident of the city of Antakya that sustained major damage in the disaster.

(AFP)

Islam - Current Day > Children shout, “Allahu Akbar” in Hagia Sophia; Mecca's Grand Mosque Prays for the Annihilation of Jews

..

Extreme provocation in Hagia Sophia: Hundreds of children shout

“Allahu Akbar”

Orthodox Times

Aug 03, 2022 | 16:49

They are members of the TÜGVA (Turkish Youth Foundation), in which the Turkish president’s son, Bilal Erdogan, is said to hold a leading position. The foundation had organized a “Summer School Meeting of Hagia Sophia” in Hagia Sophia.

As shown in the provocative video that goes around the internet, someone tells the children the phrase “tekbir” and they all shout “Allahu Akbar” (Allah is great).

Not on this blog will you see that blasphemy!  Hagia Sophia's history is extraordinary. It was the largest church in Christendom for more than 1000 years. It's just my opinion, but I believe the scripture verse, “Therefore when you see the ‘abomination of desolation,’ spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place” (whoever reads, let him understand) Matthew 24:15, may refer to the Hagia Sophia. It may refer to the time of Antiochus, but may also refer to a time in the very near future; the beginning of the Great Tribulation.

Islam - Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow > Surprising Origins of Turks and Other Disturbing Questions

At Grand Mosque in Mecca, Muslim cleric prays, ‘Oh Allah,

bring annihilation upon the plundering and occupying Jews’

AUG 6, 2022 3:00 PM 

BY ROBERT SPENCER

Jihad Watch

The Jews in the Qur’an are called the strongest of all people in enmity toward the Muslims (5:82); they fabricate things and falsely ascribe them to Allah (2:79; 3:75, 3:181); they claim that Allah’s power is limited (5:64); they love to listen to lies (5:41); they disobey Allah and never observe his commands (5:13). They are disputing and quarreling (2:247); hiding the truth and misleading people (3:78); staging rebellion against the prophets and rejecting their guidance (2:55); being hypocritical (2:14, 2:44); giving preference to their own interests over the teachings of Muhammad (2:87); wishing evil for people and trying to mislead them (2:109); feeling pain when others are happy or fortunate (3:120); being arrogant about their being Allah’s beloved people (5:18); devouring people’s wealth by subterfuge (4:161); slandering the true religion and being cursed by Allah (4:46); killing the prophets (2:61); being merciless and heartless (2:74); never keeping their promises or fulfilling their words (2:100); being unrestrained in committing sins (5:79); being cowardly (59:13-14); being miserly (4:53); being transformed into apes and pigs for breaking the Sabbath (2:63-65; 5:59-60; 7:166); and more. They are under Allah’s curse (9:30), and Muslims should wage war against them and subjugate them under Islamic hegemony (9:29).

Friday Sermon At The Grand Mosque In Mecca

"Oh Allah, Annihilate The Jews; We Take Refuge With Allah Against Their Evil,” 

MEMRI, July 29, 2022:

In a Friday sermon at the Grand Mosque in Mecca, Imam Saleh Bin Al-Humayd prayed to Allah to “bring annihilation upon the plundering and occupying Jews” and to protect the Muslims from their evil. The video of the sermon was posted to Al-Kalam Al-Tayyib YouTube channel on July 29, 2022.

Imam Saleh Bin Al-Humayd: “Oh Allah, give us strength to Islam and the Muslims, humiliate polytheism and the polytheists, and turn Your back on the tyrants, the atheists, and all the other enemies of Islam.

“Oh Allah, bring annihilation upon the plundering and occupying Jews, for they are no match for You. Oh Allah, bring down upon them Your punishment, from which criminals cannot escape. Oh Allah, we make You our shield against them, and take refuse with You against their evil.”

If any among you still think Islam is a peaceful religion, be it known that such prayers are repeated in mosques all over the world. Muslims haven't yet figured out that God is not on their side. They will know soon.

Islam - Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow > Surprising Origins of Turks and Other Disturbing Questions

..

Now Even Science Demonstrates Islamic Aggression

08/12/2021 

by Raymond Ibrahim

Along with Islamic doctrine and history, one can now add science to the list of things that demonstrate Islamic aggression.

Ancestry.com, a company that operates a network of genealogical and historical records, and provides DNA ancestry kits, recently asserted what history already knows: most of the denizens of Turkey are not Turks but rather the descendants of Christian peoples, mostly Greeks, who lived in Anatolia well over a millennium before the Turks invaded, but converted, due to Islam’s three choices (conversion, jizya/submission, or death).

As might be expected, many Turks, who tend to be zealous over their heritage, are outraged at finding that their ancestors were not conquering Turks but conquered infidels.  This finding also underscores a vicious cycle I’ve discussed before: most of those Muslims who today persecute the indigenous Christians in their midst—and Turks rank among them—are themselves the descendants of Christians who converted to Islam to cease their own persecution.

One wonders how long before DNA studies reveal another, even more unflattering fact: the bloodline of conquering Muslims—Turks chief among them—is further adulterated with the blood of European concubines, sex-slaves, many millions of which were imported over the centuries by Turks, Tatars, Barbary corsairs, and various other Muslim peoples. The historical record is clear on this.

As one example, in 1438, Bartolomeo de Giano, an Italian Franciscan, witnessed the Turks’ slave raids throughout the Balkans.  From Hungary, 300,000 were enslaved and “carried off in just a few days,” he wrote; from Serbia and Transylvania 100,000 were “led away in iron fetters tied to the backs of horses. . . . [and] women and children were herded by dogs without any mercy or piety. If one of them slowed down, unable to walk further because of thirst or pain, O Good Jesus! she immediately ended her life there in torment, cut in half.”

As one historian observes, “The massive enslavement of slavic populations during this period gave rise, in fact, to our word ‘slave’: in Bartolomeo’s time, to be a slave was to be a Slav.”

Similarly, the Greek historian, Doukas (1400-1462), writes the following about the palace of Ottoman sultan Bayezid:

[T]here one could find carefully selected boys and girls, with beautiful faces, sweet young boys and girls who shone more brightly than the sun.  To what nations did they belong?  They were Byzantines [Greeks], Serbs, Wallachians, Albanians, Hungarians, Saxons, Bulgarians, and Latins….  He himself [Sultan Bayezid] unceasingly gave himself over to pleasure, to the point of exhaustion, by indulging in debauchery with these boys and girls.

Nor, as some of these passages suggest, were European slaves used only for pleasure; Muslims regularly procreated with them as well.  Even that one Turk most celebrated by Erdogan’s Turkey—Bayezid’s great-grandson, Muhammad II, the conqueror of Constantinople—was born of a Christian slave mother.  This did not change the fact that he became an avowed enemy of Christendom—the “forerunner of antichrist” as he was described.

Is he called the “forerunner of antichrist” because he was the first Muslim to stand in the Hagia Sophia after a thousand years of it being the center of Christianity in the world? (Search this blog for 'Hagia Sophia' for several stories.)

Matt 24:14-16

"This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.

"Therefore when you see the ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in the holy place (let the reader understand), then those who are in Judea must flee to the mountains.

Has Erdogan's appearance, leading prayer in the same Hagia Sophia in 2020, the actual abomination of which Jesus spoke?

Moreover, as Darío Fernández-Morera, author of The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise, explains:

Such was the impact of Christian slaves on Islamic lands, that many of the Umayyad rulers of Islamic Spain, as the sons of sexual slaves, were blue-eyed and blond or red-haired; and the founder of the “Arabic” Nasrid dynasty of Granada was called al-Hamar, “the Red One,” because of his reddish hair and beard. … Arabist Celia del Moral observes that in Umayyad al-Andalus the most coveted and therefore expensive sexual slaves were blond and red-haired females from the Northern Christian regions.

In fact, according to the calculations of Spanish Arabist Julian Ribera, due to the constant sexual intercourse with European slave women, the genetic Arab component of each generation of Umayyad rulers was reduced by half, so that the last Umayyad, Hisham II (976-1013), was approximately only 0.09 percent Arab.

Nor was this phenomenon limited to Muslim elites—caliphs, sultans, emirs, and the like—because they could afford “well-staffed” harems.  Naturally, it is they whose doings are recorded, because it is they—the rulers, not the lay Muslim—that chroniclers recorded.  Even so, history makes clear that European sex-slaves were, depending on time and place, abundantly available to the average Muslim.

Thus we learn that the slave markets of Adrianople (Edirne), formerly the Ottoman capital, were so inundated with European flesh that children sold for pennies, “a very beautiful slave woman was exchanged for a pair of boots, and four Serbian slaves were traded for a horse.”

Similarly, considering that sixteenth century “Algiers teemed with Christian captives, and it became a common saying that a Christian slave was scarce a fair barter for an onion,” little wonder by the late eighteenth century, European observers noted how “the inhabitants of Algiers have a rather white complexion.”

Will Ancestry.com or similar organizations ever demonstrate this other unflattering fact concerning Muslim bloodlines through DNA?  Unlikely.

Quoted material in the above article was excerpted from and is documented in the author’s book, Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West.

Islam - Current Day - Bible Prophecy Fulfilled Today? High Profile Muslim Fired

Could this very day be the fulfillment of the prophecy - "But when you see the ABOMINATION OF DESOLATION standing where it should not be..."?

Huge crowds of Muslims join Turkish President Erdogan in first official prayer
at Hagia Sophia for eight decades 

Thousands of revellers, including Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have flocked to the Hagia Sophia in the historic heart of Istanbul, for the first official Muslim prayers held at the site in 86 years.

The Friday prayers marked the monument’s reopening for worship after Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan declared it to be a mosque once more. Prayer mats were laid out in Sultanahmet Square as the call to prayer rang out.

A holy site for Christians and Muslims for almost 1,500 years, the Hagia Sophia was initially built in 537 as a cathedral in the Byzantine Empire, before being seized by the Ottoman Empire 900 years later and converted into a mosque until 1934, when it became a museum.

It has been a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1985, with the organization’s Director-General Audrey Azoulay having said previously that she “deeply regrets” the decision by a Turkish court to annul the monument's status as a museum earlier this month.

Despite criticism from church leaders that the move would inflame religious tensions both within Turkey and regionally, authorities say the site will remain open to all visitors despite its renewed status as a mosque, and that its Christian artworks would be protected.

The Christian frescoes and mosaics inside the monument will reportedly be concealed during Muslim prayers.

The Hagia Sophia was possibly the first major cathedral built for Christianity. It was certainly the largest for more than 1000 years. 

The real question here is, is this the fulfillment of the scripture above (Mark 13:14 & Matt 24:15). If so, then this is probably the trigger for the Great Tribulation. It may indicate that the invasion of Israel is very soon. 

For the invasion of Israel to take place, America has to abandon her only real Middle East ally. How could that happen? By the rapidly becoming antisemitic Democrats winning the next election, or, by the American dollar completely collapsing, which is every bit as possible as the Dems winning the November election.

If you think 2020 is a bad year, 2021 may make it look good! Could this be the very day that prophecy was fulfilled?

Leader of Britain's largest Muslim charity quits after labelling Jews 'grandchildren of monkeys and pigs' and calling Egypt's president a 'Zionist pimp' in anti-Semitic Facebook posts

By JOE MIDDLETON FOR MAILONLINE

The leader of Britain's largest Muslim charity has quit after putting anti-Semitic posts on social media.

Heshmat Khalifa, a former trustee and director of Islamic Relief Worldwide, said the Jews are 'grandchildren of monkeys and pigs.'

Mr Khalifa also described Egypt's president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi as a 'Zionist pimp' on his Facebook page, as reported by The Times. 

And he called the Muslim president - who ousted President Morsi in July 2013 - a 'pimp son of the Jews' and a 'Zionist criminal'. 

There were other posts on his page, written in Arabic, that promoted the work of the charity that has 100 offices in 40 countries worldwide.  His Facebook page has now been taken down.

Heshmat Khalifa meeting the Princess Royal at an event. He has now resigned from Islamic Relief

The 63-year-old had been with the charity since 1999 and has held a number of senior roles within the organisation which over the past five years has an annual income of £570million. 

Islamic Relief is one of the largest Muslim charities in the world and on it's website says its mission is to 'enable people to respond rapidly to disasters and fight poverty through our Islamic values, expertise and global reach.'

The charity is currently running a number high-profile appeals currently for funds to help those impacted by the conflicts in Syria and Yemen, as well as the ongoing issues caused by the coronavirus pandemic. 

Mr Khalifa - who until recently was Chairman of Islamic Relief Australia - also used social media to described Hamas as  'the purest resistance movement in modern history'.

The Charity Commission has now opened a compliance case into Islamic Relief.

An image depicting Egypt's President el-Sisi from one of Mr Khalifa's anti-Semitic Facebook posts

Mr Khalifa resigned after he was confronted with the posts by The Times. He said that he was sorry for publishing the posts on social media and he regrets his actions.

Now, he does!

He said: 'I did not intend to insult the Jewish community and neither do I hold views which are antisemitic. 

'I have dedicated much of my life's work to promoting tolerance and freedom of religion and beliefs.' 

Islamic Relief told the newspaper that the Facebook posts, which were made between 2013 and 2015,  'contravene the values and principles of Islamic Relief Worldwide'. 

The organisation added: 'Heshmat Khalifa has resigned from the board of trustees of Islamic Relief Worldwide with immediate effect. 

'He will also play no further part in any other Islamic Relief boards. 

'We reject and condemn terrorism and believe all forms of discrimination — including antisemitism — are unacceptable.' 

Buuuuut, you did nothing about his antisemitic posts for several years until they were outed. Your statement, I find, to be more than a little disingenuous.

War on Christianity - 6th Century Byzantine Cathedral to Become a Mosque

Matthew 24:15. "Therefore when you see the ABOMINATION

OF DESOLATION which was spoken of through Daniel the prophet,

standing in the holy place (let the reader understand)

..

Turkish President Erdogan Signs Decree Turning Istanbul's

Hagia Sofia into a Mosque After Court Ruling

© Reuters / Murad Sezer

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has signed a decree opening the world-famous Hagia Sophia as a mosque, after a court ruled that its conversion to a museum in the 1930s was unlawful.

The court ruled on Friday that the 1934 decree converting the ancient Byzantine cathedral into a museum was not lawful. Immediately after the ruling, Erdogan shared a copy of a decree on Twitter, mandating that the site be turned over to the country's religious directorate and reopened for worship.

In a televised address later in the evening, the Turkish leader said that the first prayers will be held in the Hagia Sophia on July 24.

Dating back to the 6th century, the Hagia Sophia is one of the most visited cultural sites in Turkey, as well as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

UNESCO has expressed concern over Erdogan’s vision for the historic structure, noting in a statement on Friday that the building has a “strong symbolic and universal value.” It called on Turkey to "engage in dialogue" before taking any steps that might impact its universal value.

Even before his decree was issued, the Turkish president’s plan was condemned by leaders of the Russian and Greek Orthodox churches, who warned that it would be seen as an affront to Christians and create a fracture between East and West. Washington has also urged Turkey to maintain the Hagia Sophia as a museum.

Moscow has also highlighted the cultural significance of the building while acknowledging that the matter was an "internal affair" for Turkey.

Erdogan himself said that opening the Hagia Sophia for worship will not prevent local or foreign tourists from visiting the iconic site, which he said is a part of “humanity’s common cultural heritage.” 

"Like all of our other mosques, the doors of Hagia Sophia will be open to all, locals or foreigners, Muslims and non-Muslims,” he added.

I think this will not end well for the ambitious Erdogan.