At a time when the world desperately needs hope and healing, the Hagia Sophia judgment will only open up old wounds. Political stances will be mistaken for intractable religious differences and as a result Christians in Turkey will suffer, as will Muslims in Europe.

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It‘s important to remember that it is easy to see history as a perennial battle between East and West, Christianity and Islam, Greeks and Turks, believers and heathens, locals and foreigners. But the reality is more complicated. For every rupture there were also continuities

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Today, the understandable reaction of many Muslims is to highlight the rampant Islamophobia across the world as well as the centuries of colonial humiliations in justifying the decision. But ethical positions should not be dictated out of a sense of victimhood and antagonism

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The primary catalyst for virtually all nationalisms is a sense of victimhood amongst their populations. However, to only cast oneself as victim is to always hate and never to forgive. It is to be endlessly trapped in a cycle of rage and revenge.

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Past and current injustices against any community- Dalit, Muslim, Hindu, Jew, Christian or Black- should never be forgotten but victimhood should not be one’s dominant identity. Infact those whose primary sense of self thrives on victimhood inevitably become oppressors.

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Much like nationalists who seek to differentiate between indigenous and foreigner and conjure up memories of a mythical Golden age that was disrupted by conquest, some Muslims too fall into the trap of sacralising “Muslim history.”

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There is every reason to be proud of the civilizational contributions of Muslim dynasties but it is worth remembering that everything, including religion, has always been subservient to the logic of power.

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One of the starkest illustrations of this is the silence of the rulers of various Muslim countries about the barbaric treatment of Muslim Uighurs in Southwest China. It seems trade and geo-politics trump religious solidarity let alone any notion of basic human rights.

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The point isn’t to argue if the conquest of Constantinople was right/ wrong or if Ataturk’s decision to convert it into a museum was justified. Rather it is to make an ethical decision that is based on Islamic principles and which takes into account today’s global context

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This needn’t be done out of a sense of liberal tolerance or secularism but instead ought to derive from an understanding of faith and tradition that is not distorted by the vagaries of political interests.

Longer piece here: https://alimahmudabad.com/2020/07/the-many-lives-of-hagia-sophia/

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#HagiaSophia #Turkey