Sun 19 July 2020: Religious leaders send letters to Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate praising reopening of Hagia Sophia as mosque Leaders of Muslim communities around the globe are welcoming Turkey’s decision to make Istanbul’s iconic Hagia Sophia a mosque again and congratulating President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the move. In letters and phone calls to […]
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Sat 18 July 2020: Thousands of Sudanese Islamic groups and supporters of ousted president Omer Al-Bashir staged a protest on Friday in the capital Khartoum against a new set of laws that have scrapped various Islamic laws, Anadolu Agency reports. The anti-government protests, which erupted from numerous mosques following Friday prayers, accused the government of apostasy and urged people to […]
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Fri 17 July 2020: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has stated that the number of churches and synagogues in Turkey is twice the number of mosques in any European country. This came in a speech after he chaired a government meeting at the presidential complex in Ankara on Tuesday, where he pledged to preserve the World Heritage […]
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Fri 17 July 2020: Master architect Yilmaz says 329 Ottoman works turned into churches and bell towers across Europe ISTANBUL (AA) – Searching and traveling across the lands that constituted the Ottoman Empire, a master architect traced Turkish buildings in 18 countries and found at least 329 of them turned into churches or bell towers. Speaking […]
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Thu 16 July 2020: France’s newly-appointed Prime Minister, Jean Castex, has vowed to be “intransigent” in defending France’s official secularism, promising to fight “radical Islamism in all its forms” as “an absolute priority”. Unveiling a new government policy in Paris on Wednesday, Castex told the National Assembly that the French Republic was “shaken to its […]
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Wed 15 July 2020: Stoking a potential controversy, embattled Prime Minister K.P Sharma Oli on July 13 claimed that the “real” Ayodhya lies in Nepal, not in India and that Lord Ram was born in Thori in southern Nepal. As he accused New Delhi of “encroaching on cultural facts” amid frayed diplomatic relations between the […]
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Tue 14 July 2020: Painting will not hinder prayers, mosque will be open to visitors, Turkey’s top religious body Turkey’s top religious body said Tuesday the frescoes in Hagia Sophia will not hinder prayer. The iconic monument was first built as a church in the Byzantine period. It has Christian mosaics, including one of Virgin […]
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Tue 14 July 2020: Hagia Sophia decision is historic turning point, says head of South Africa’s Muslim Judicial Council ABUJA, Nigeria (AA) – The head of a major Muslim group in South Africa hailed Turkey’s decision last week to turn Istanbul’s iconic Hagia Sophia back into a mosque after decades as a museum. The Muslim […]
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Mon 13 July 2020: Saudi Arabia’s interior ministry confirmed it will be imposing a fine of 10,000 Saudi riyals ($2,666) for violators entering the holy sites in Mecca without a permit during the upcoming Hajj season, which will be held in a limited capacity this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. A statement from the […]
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Sun 12 July 2020: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday rejected worldwide condemnation over Turkey’s decision to convert the Byzantine-era monument Hagia Sophia back into a mosque, saying it represented his country’s will to use its “sovereign rights”. Turkey’s top administrative court on Friday annulled the 1934 government decree that turned Hagia Sophia into a […]
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