Turkish lying MoFo, forgetting that Turkey was created on the blood of Christians

If you’re concerned about the implications for the geopolitical scene, as well as for the Church, of the conversion of Hagia Sophia to a mosque, relax: in a piece by the prominent Turkish moderate Muslim Mustafa Akyol, the New York Times is here to tell you that what’s happening is un-Islamic. And while it is good that Akyol is advocating for tolerance and pluralism in Islam, as is so often the case with expositions of how – properly understood! – Islam is really peaceful, tolerant, and cuddly, Akyol’s premises are false, and thus unlikely to convince any Muslims who think that the conversion of Hagia Sophia to a mosque is a good thing that it ought to be kept as a museum, or even turned back into a cathedral.

For example, Akyol claims that “The Prophet Muhammad and his small group of believers saw the earlier monotheists — Jews and Christians — as allies.” Is that so? As with many other points he makes, Akyol is relying here on his readers’ ignorance of the Islamic source material. Akyol is almost certainly aware of the hadith containing these notorious orders from Muhammad: “I will expel the Jews and Christians from the Arabian Peninsula and will not leave any but Muslim.” (Sahih Muslim 19.4366) But Akyol also almost certainly knows that virtually every single person who reads his New York Times article will not be aware that Islamic tradition ascribes this decidedly intolerant statement to Muhammad.

Akyol also praises Muhammad’s tolerant stance toward the Christians of Najran in southern Arabia, noting that Muhammad “signed a treaty with them, which read: ‘There shall be no interference with the practice of their faith. … No bishop will be removed from his bishopric, no monk from his monastery, no priest from his parish.’” Well, that’s just wonderful. But it leads to the inevitable question: where is that community now? Why didn’t the local Muslims follow Muhammad’s famously magnanimous example, honor the treaty he signed, and allow the Christians to continue to live there?

Why did they instead expel them, such that there is now no trace of the fact that there was ever a Christian community there at all? According to the historian Philip K. Hitti, author of the seminal History of the Arabs, the caliph Umar expelled the Christians from Najran in the mid-seventh century so as to fulfill Muhammad’s expulsion order. Akyol doesn’t mention the expulsion order at all, so he is freed from the obligation of explaining why Umar and his men thought it their duty to follow that, and not to honor Muhammad’s treaty. There is much more.