The decision by Turkish president Erdogan to re-open Hagia Sophia as a mosque has been a boon for geo-political games. It’s been fun watching his nemeses in Egypt, the Emirates, and Saudi bash him for the move, scoring easy “religious freedom” points. (Who would have guessed the Saudis were so protective of religious freedom?)
There is a mini US domestic version of this political point-scoring. None other than ISNA head honcho Sayid Syeed has issued his own statement bashing Erdogan:
“We need to work together to convince President Erdogan not to convert Hagia Sophia into a mosque in Istanbul. Hagia Sophia was built as a Church and a pride of the Greek Orthodox Church which commands the loyalty of Greek Orthodox Christians counting some 300 million in Greece, Turkey and around the world.”
Long-time readers of this blog may be able to read between the lines here. Syeed only weighs in on geopolitics when it benefits him – and he is clearly still sore at the Turks for trying to take over ISNA a few years ago. He beat back the challenge and seems to still run the show there, but his criticism of Erdogan is a nice passive-aggressive sticking it to the gang at USCMO who tried to displace him.