30/05/2021
Subhanallah, after over 200+ years of struggles, including even a prime minister going to jail and another executed, the Taksim Square Masjid has finally opened yesterday, on the anniversary of the conquest of Istanbul (29 May 1453) against all extreme secular opposition, and I had the privilege of attending this historical event! 🇹🇷🤲
Why is this a significant victory for Islam and Muslims in Turkey?!! and what is the story? 📖
The Taksim mosque is directly facing the republic monument, a statue of Ataturk and some soldiers. It is considered the symbol of secularism in the country, so after Aya Sofia becoming a mosque, the completion of this mosque is considered a second big slap on face of extreme secularism in the country, especially after secularists did mass protests in 2013 against the building of this mosque! 🕌
The story of this mosque though, goes all the way back to 1808 when the Ottoman Khalifah Mahmood II made this land a Waqf (endowment) for a mosque to be built in the future, but many wars in the Muslim parts of East Europe delayed the construction. 🇪🇺
This site of the mosque is famous for Muslim soldiers who in 1909, protested against the replacement of Islamic law with secular law in Turkey, and the exile of the Khalifah Sultan Abdulhamid II to Greece! 🇬🇷
Since then, the plans for building this mosque continued in 1960, but multiple secularists military coups have stopped that (1960, 1971, 1980, 1993, 2016). The country couldn't breathe! 🇹🇷
The ex-prime minister of Turkey, Adnan Menderes, the first in modern Turkey to revive the plans of building this mosque, was executed by the military in 1961. His crime?!! He restored the Athaan from Turkish language back to Arabic, seen as an attempt to make a Muslim country "more Islamic"! 🕋
After him, the prime minister Negmeddin Erbakan, was removed from power in 1997 for the same reasons, and his party was banned because they tried to make a Muslim country "more Muslim"! 🤔
But Allah is the best of planners. Erbakan's direct student though, president Erdogan, learned the history lessons, and continued the struggle of returning Islam into Turkish life, and, against the 2013 protests, against the 2017 secular court order banning the mosque, and against all the extreme secularists today, completed this mosque finally, ending 213 years of struggle! 💪
The mosque is 3 floors high, allowing a capacity of 3000 people inside, and thousands outside. This is the first mosque in an area where people didn't have a place to pray, full of shops, malls, bars, and secular monuments (statues)! (And even brothels, until Erdogan cleaned them up in 2012!!)
Out of respect, the height of the masjid was maintained at 30 meters because there is historical church next door that is also 30 meters high! (Hagia Triada Greek Orthodox Church, the largest in Istanbul today 🇬🇷)
If you think "this is just another mosque," think again! This is now a symbol in Turkey for the struggle of Islam against Extreme Secularism. It is yet another victory for Muslims, after allowing Hijab in work and education 🧕, after Aya Sofia, and allowing Muslims in a Muslim majority country to practice their religion without any hardships! 📿🙏
May Allah preserve Islam and Muslims in Turkey, protect them against struggles, and make them an inspiration for the rest of the Muslim world! 🌍🤲