Erdoğan’s Ottoman Fantasies
British journalist Robert Fisk once stated, “The story of the Armenian genocide is one of almost unrelieved horror at the hands of Turkish soldiers and policemen who enthusiastically carried out their government’s orders to exterminate a race of Christian people in the Middle East.” The extermination of one and a half million Armenian Christians during World War I was the completion of a jihad that began in 1071, when the Seljuk Turks defeated the Byzantines at the Battle of Manzikert. Having overrun the Armenian provinces of the Byzantine Empire, they imposed sharia-based norms upon the Christians since they collectively refused to convert to Islam.
Despite a few countries in the world recognizing the Armenian genocide, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan continues to deny this tragedy. Even U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham sided with Erdoğan this past Wednesday in blocking House Resolution 296, which would have recognized the Armenian genocide by Ottoman Turks hours after he and President Trump met with Erdoğan. Senator Graham objected, saying senators shouldn’t “sugarcoat history or try to rewrite it.”
Many today ask what would change if Turkey and other nations publicly admitted to this infamous part of history. It’s not that recognition would undo past evils—alas, we can never take back our sins. But we might better understand how President Erdoğan’s ambitions match (and even stem from) those of his Ottoman predecessors: the implementation of the hakimiyyat Allah, i.e., the kingdom of Allah on earth.
The Seljuk Turks, up to the fourteenth century, encouraged the illegitimate transfer of property and the dispossession of the rural Armenian population, and compelled their emigration from their homeland. Under the reign of Murad I, in order to meet the increasing manpower demands of their janissary troops, the Turks levied a special tax (on all Christian subjects within the empire), the devshirme (i.e., blood tax), which required forced collection and the Islamization of Christian children. As do present-day Islamists, they took inspiration and justification from the Koran and from what Muslim jurists had to say regarding the methods of tyrannizing non-Muslims (i.e., the dhimmis) under Islamic despotism.
The journalist and scholar Joel Gillin, writing in The New Republic back in 2015, argues that “the Young Turks’ [the new forces at the helm of the state during World War I] attempt to annihilate the Christian Armenians was not a faith-driven genocide by radical Islamists” but instead “tied to the creation of modern nation-states” by nationalists. Such propositions fail to perceive that while there is a religious sentiment at the base of every jihad, its goal is not necessarily religious but social. Such was the case with Muhammad’s military raids and his establishment of Islamic citizenship in seventh-century Arabia, which had more to do with Islamic expansion and control than religious purification. This is why, for example, the Muslim Turks created the Armenian patriarchates in both Jerusalem and Constantinople in order to regulate the Christian religion. These state-imposed patriarchal churches were not (and still are not) accepted by the authority and the faithful of the Armenian Apostolic Church, all the more so since the Turks’ aim was not to promote religious liberty and diplomacy but rather to discourage it by maintaining continual surveillance.
Since he came to power, Erdoğan has reportedly built 17,000 mosques: one-fifth of Turkey’s total. From Mali to Moscow, by way of Cambridge and Amsterdam, Erdoğan is ceaselessly active in “diplomatizing” his religion. The biggest mosque in the Balkans is Turkish and is located in Tirana, Albania; the largest one in West Africa was built by Erdoğan in Accra, Ghana; and the largest mosque in Europe will be his new Turkish mosque in Strasbourg.
While Erdoğan publicly was seen to fight ISIS, he played a duplicitous role in permitting foreign jihadists to cross into Syria from Turkey in 2011 with the goal of overthrowing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. It was also reported in 2015 that his daughter, Sumeyye, ran a hospital located in the southeastern Turkish city of Sanliurfa to help injured ISIS militants. He has also seized churches, including, in April 2016, the 1,700-year-old Virgin Mary Syrian Orthodox Church in Diyarbakirch. Just five months later, the pro-government newspaper Akşam published a front-page article accusing the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I of conspiring with the CIA and the Fethullah Güllen in the “attempted coup d’état” to oust Erdoğan from power.
In June 2017, under the surveillance of President Erdoğan, the Turkish Directorate of Religious Affairs (i.e., the Diyanet) seized control of at least fifty Syrian churches, monasteries, and cemeteries in the Mardin province. This liquidation committee, established in 2012 with the task to confiscate and redistribute the property of institutions whose legal entity had expired, denied that it had carried out the aforementioned raid as a result of religious discrimination.
Since last year Erdoğan has also employed al-Qaeda and Islamic State militants along with his troops in the 2018 takeover of Afrin, where 300,000 Christians, Yazidis, and Kurds were displaced. According to a high-ranking member of the Syriac Democratic Federation, Abdulrahman Hassan: “Our heritage was attacked, the city was destroyed. Villages were plundered, women and girls were taken hostage, men are missing. Also several churches were destroyed and church members arrested.” And just days after the U.S. pullout from northern Syria, Turkey began to assail Kurdish and Christian civilians—many of them children—with chemical weapons.
Then-U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Henry Morgenthau stated: “When the Turkish authorities gave the order for these deportations, they were merely giving the death warrant to a whole race; they understood this well, and, in their conversations with me, they made no particular attempt to conceal this fact… I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such horrible episode as this. The great massacres and persecutions of the past seem almost insignificant when compared to the sufferings of the Armenian race in 1915.”
Erdoğan has practically undone the secularization and religious freedom established in 1924 by Kemal Mustafa Atatürk when he abolished the thirteen-hundred-year caliphate that essentially left the political lineage of the Prophet of Islam unclaimed. By reigniting Islamic-Turkish nationalism, observance of the sharia has subtly resumed. In doing so, Erdoğan has incited a jihad against Christianity, simultaneously targeting Kurds, Yazidis, and Shi’ite.
Is history repeating itself? It would seem so.
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N. B. This article was originally published on November 21, 2019 by Crisis Magazine. Sources not cited may be found in my book Islam: Religion of Peace? The Violation of Natural Rights and Western Cover-Up.
One thing is for sure , which is Erdogan revealed his anti- Jewish ,anti- Israel Islamic mindset when he declared “Whoever is on the side of Israel ,let everyone know that we are against them.” This then by those words “against them.” Likewise must mean against him of her ,as an individual, who for the State of Israel
This must thus mean that they are also against Him. Who is God for being on the side of the Israel for being for Jewish State of Israel. As it is written in the Bible, “For the Lord has chosen Jacob for Himself, Israel for His special treasure.” Psalm 135:4. [N.K.J.V.]
Furthermore, the Jewish people have every right to all of that land that in now part of Israel, , including the West Bank and the Golan Heights by Divine Right. As seen, for example, in Genesis 28:13-15. 35:48, 49. Psalms 105:7-11. 135:4.
In addition the Jewish people should also have that land by historic rights. As found in First Kings 4:20,21,24,25. 8:55,56.
Moreover Erdogan must then also be against President Trump This is because President Trump had wisely said “It’s time to officially recognize [the reality of] Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.” Yes, indeed, it’s very much time to recognize Jerusalem as the capital city of the State of Israel, and he then acted on his word and he had done so by good decision of moving the US Embassy to Jerusalem .This bold and wise decision of President Trump to move the US embassy to Jerusalem has greatly offended many of the Muslim clerics . Be they, for example, the imams of Pakistan or the mullahs of Iran. Those Muslim clerics with their mind control and their unconscionable ways they manipulate the people from the mosques to be their stooges into a, violent uprising, because of the President’s decision is despicable . Some people of the left will say that the decision of move the US embassy to Jerusalem is “provoking” and it will “incite violence.” This only shows the old saying to be true .Which is that “Evil is always looking for an excuse. “ The fact is President Trump made the right decision and if the Muslim clerics don’t happen to like it ,well then it’s “tough beans.” to them
As the Bible informs its readers “The Lord also shall roar out of Zion, and utter His voice from Jerusalem … the Lord will be the hope of His people ,and the strength of the children of Israel.” Joel 3:16.
Similarly, world DOES NOT recognize, let alone commemorate, the vast genocide of “Hindus” (i.e., Pagans) in various parts of Indian subcontinent from 8th century A.D. to 17th century A.D. by numerous Muslim invaders.
Today, Muslims in independent India want to subjugate Indian “Hindus” with the help of Christians and “Hindu” Islamists.
I have seen some Indian “Hindus” who call themselves “Communists” (i.e., Islamists) who want Islamic rule in independent India again!
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Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India (1000-1800) is a book written by Prof. K.S. Lal published in 1973 A.D.
The book assesses the demographics of India between 1000 A.D. and 1500 A.D. On the basis of the available historical evidence, Prof. K.S. Lal concluded that the population of Indian subcontinent in 1000 A.D. was about 200 million and in 1500 was about 170 million.
Prof. K.S. Lal says, however, that “any study of the population of the pre-census times can be based only on estimates, and estimates by their very nature tend to be tentative.”
Prof. K.S. Lal estimates that about 60 to 80 million “Hindu” people died in India between 1000 and 1525 A.D. as a result of the Islamic invasion of Indian subcontinent.
Prof. K.S. Lal concluded that, about 2 million people died during Muslim invader Mahmud of Ghazni’s invasions of India alone (pp. 211–217).
•K.S. Lal. (1979) Bias in Indian Historiography (edited by Dr. Devahuti)
•K.S. Lal. 1999. Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India
•Simon Digby, review in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 38, No. 1. (1975), pp. 176–177
Reviews
Stephen Neill in his book A History of Christianity in India: The Beginnings to AD 1707, regarded the statistics and material to be “Important sidelights”.[1]
Simon Digby disputed Lal’s study of the demographic situation in medieval India in a review in Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies.
Digby suggested that estimate lacks accurate data in pre-census times.[2]
Muslim Historian Irfan Habib criticized the book in his “Economic History of the Delhi Sultanate – An Essay in Interpretation” (Habib 1978).
Prof. K.S. Lal wrote a reply to Irfan Habib’s criticism in 1979 (Lal 1979) and in 1999 (Lal 1999).
Koenraad Elst refers to Lal’s statistics in his book Negationism in India: Concealing the Record of Islam, remarking that “More research is needed before we can settle for a quantitatively accurate
evaluation of Muslim rule in India, but at least we know for sure that the term crime against humanity is not exaggerated.”[3]
Recently, historian Jeremy Black in his book Contesting History: Narratives of Public History (2014), remarked these writings to be “recent good works”.[4]
References
1.^ A History of Christianity in India: The Beginnings to AD 1707, Cambridge University Press, page 528, Stephen Neill
2.^ Digby, Simon (1975). Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. University of London. Vol. 38, No. 1. (1975), pp. 176–177.
3.^ Elst, Koenraad. “CHAPTER TWO – NEGATIONISM IN INDIA”. Koenraad Elst. Retrieved 26 January 2014.
4.^ Contesting History: Narratives of Public History, page. 183, A&C Black, 13-Mar-2014
•Irfan Habib. “Economic History of the Delhi Sultanate – An Essay in Interpretation” (1978)
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The works of Professor K.S. Lal
•History of the Khaljis (1950)
•Twilight of the Sultanate (1963)
•Growth of Muslim Population in Medieval India (1973)
•The Mughal Harem (1988)
•Indian Muslims: Who Are They (1990)
•The Legacy of Muslim Rule in India (1992)
•Muslim Slave System in Medieval India (1994)
•Theory and Practice of Muslim State in India (1999)