Is Sofia, Ertugrul: Is Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic nationalism aimed at restoring the Ottoman Empire?
Is Sofia, Ertugrul: Is Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic nationalism aimed at restoring the Ottoman Empire?
King Abdullah bin Saud of Saudi Arabia was beheaded in 1818, right in front of the museum in Istanbul, Turkey, which has recently been converted into a mosque by the country's president.
The soldiers of the Ottoman Empire brought King Abdullah bin Saud and the Wahhabi Imam in chains to Istanbul. When Abdullah was being beheaded, a large crowd was celebrating outside Aya Sofia. Was Abdullah's decapitated body kept outside Sofia for three days?
Meanwhile, Ottoman troops invaded the suburbs of the then-Saudi capital, Diriya, and Riyadh.
Saudi Arabia will hardly forget its horrific history with Turkey. AK Pasha, a professor of Middle East affairs at JNU, says that when Saudi Arabia looks at its history, it first remembers the Ottoman Empire.
"The Ottomans always considered the Saudis a rude tribe," he says. Although Saudi Arabia has Mecca and Medina, both of which have been under Ottoman rule, no Turkish sultan has ever gone on Hajj.
The current rulers of Saudi Arabia, 84-year-old Shah Salman and 34-year-old Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman, belong to the same family as Abdullah bin Saud, who was beheaded in front of Aya Sofia.
Twice before 1932, attempts were made to unite Saudi Arabia, but both times the Ottoman Empire destroyed it.
The first was destroyed in 1818 and the second in 1871. Saudi Arabia's third attempt succeeded when it backed Britain in World War I and the Ottoman Empire faced it.
Now, once again, Turkish President Erdogan is trying to revive the Ottoman Empire's past, the latest example being Aya Sofia.
Saudi Arabia and Turkey are both Sunni-majority Muslim countries, but both have very bloody histories.
The 1500-year-old UNESCO World Heritage Site was originally a church before the Sofia Mosque. It was turned into a museum by Mustafa Kemal Pasha, the founder of modern Turkey, in the 1930s. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan promised to build a mosque last year.
Erhan Pamuk, Turkey's first Nobel laureate in literature, said about converting Aya Sofia into a mosque that Turkey should not have done.
"I am angry. I was very proud that Turkey is the only Muslim country that is secular but now secularism is being eradicated here," he said. Kamal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, made the important decision to turn Aya Sofia from a mosque into a museum. By doing so, he tried to tell the whole world that we are secular and separate from the rest of the Muslim world. We are like European nations and modern, so accept us too.
"Is the decision to turn Sofia into a mosque a wrong move?" Secularism is a matter of pride for all Turks, let alone 10% conservatives. Even for Erdogan's party voters, secularism is a matter of pride.
The war of leadership in the Islamic world
President Erdoغانan has repeatedly said that Turkey is the only country that can lead the Islamic world. Obviously, when Erdogan says this, he will have in mind the legacy of the Ottoman Empire.
The Ottoman Empire was larger than the Soviet Union. It was spread over 22 million square kilometers. The Ottoman Empire extended to Egypt, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania, Macedonia, Hungary, Palestine, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, most of Arabia, and most of the coastal areas of North Africa.
This empire valued Muslim rulers. Erdogan thinks that it is Turkey's historic right to lead the Islamic world, but he forgets that he is no longer the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire's 22 million square kilometers, but the President of Turkey, which is now reduced to 783,000 square kilometers. Has done
The Ottoman Empire, founded around 1299, ended with World War I in 1923 and became modern Turkey.
Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, feels it owns the Islamic holy sites of Mecca and Medina, which are subordinate to the House of Saud, and attract more than 2 million Muslims from around the world each year. In such a situation, only he can lead the Islamic world.
The third player is Iran, where Shiites are Muslims. Iran also knows that it cannot lead a Sunni-majority Islamic world, but it does not mind that two major regional rivals are pitted against each other. The reaction of Western countries to the confrontation between Saudi Arabia and Turkey is interesting for Iran.
Professor AK Pasha says that although Saudi Arabia succeeded in becoming a country for the third time in 1932 with the help of Britain, its difficulties are still not small.
"There is a war of leadership between Saudi Arabia and Turkey in the Islamic world, but Saudi Arabia cannot win this war at the behest of the United States," he said. Saudi Arabia's oil is no longer viable and oil needs are changing and alternative energy sources are on the rise. In that sense, it is possible America did not last long.
Is Turkey a threat to Saudi Arabia?
Erdogan's Islamic nationalism and the strategy to stop Saudi Arabia go hand in hand. Erdogan repeatedly tried to stop Saudi Arabia. They sent troops to protect Qatar against the Saudis, drove Saudi allies out of Somalia, and agreed to lease an island to build a military base in the Red Sea.
At the same time, Erdogan speaks out about Palestine and the Rohingya Muslims. Istanbul has become a favorite stronghold of rebels in the Arab world.
Sonar Kogapte, a scholar at the Washington Institute, has written a biography of Erdogan called The New Sultan.
In his autobiography, he wrote, "The goal of the Turkish president's foreign policy strategy is to bring back the feeling of being a Muslim. They want to bring a modern form of the Ottoman Empire so that Turkey can become the leader of Islamic greatness.
Erdogan's desire has a long history. The Sultan of Turkey was the caliph of the entire Islamic world for four centuries. His religious leadership was also acknowledged by Islamic powers outside the Ottoman Empire. In World War I, there was a revolt against the Ottoman Empire in Arabia with the help of Britain, after which Mecca and Medina fell out of its hands. Six years later, in 1924, the Khilafah system came to an end.
Madawi al-Rashid, a Saudi Arabian professor at the London School of Economics and a historian of Saudi Arabia, told the Wall Street Journal that Erdogan's new Turkey was a challenge to Saudi Arabia because it offered an alternative Islamic model.
"It threatens the very existence of Saudi Arabia because Turkey is both Islamic and democratic. Despite all this, it is a fact that Erdogan is ruling a republic with a parliament, an opposition and a civil society, but not in Saudi Arabia.
Last year, a meeting was held in Kuala Lumpur challenging the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), which was dominated by Saudi Arabia, with strong participation from Iran, Turkey and Malaysia, but Saudi allies prevented Pakistan from participating.
Erdogan wants to make his mark by challenging Saudi domination. He feels that the OIC is not the voice of Islamic countries but a means of fulfilling Saudi discretion. Erdogan is trying to form an organization parallel to the OIC.
Erdogan in Atatرکrk's Turkey
Erdogan became Istanbul's first Islamic conservative mayor in 1994. Erdogan's speeches have been discussed at most meetings since then. In his meetings, he often echoed the statement of Turkish nationalist thinker Zia Gokai that "mosques are our cantonments, domes are our protective shields, minarets are our swords and followers of Islam are our soldiers."
But the irony is that the US invasion of Iraq killed thousands of followers of Islam, destroyed mosques, demolished minarets, and led Erdogan to the United States.
Islamic politics has played a key role in Erdogan's rise to prominence in Turkish politics. From his speeches, Muslims may think that he is talking about the protection of religion and the interests of Islam, but at the same time there are many contradictions.
When Erdogan became Turkey's prime minister in 2003, the United States was preparing to invade Iraq. Erdogan did not have good relations with Saddam Hussein. He even made up his mind to allow the United States to use Turkish territory in the war against Iraq. However, Erdogan's intention was not fulfilled as the proposal was rejected by three votes in parliament.
This was at a time when his party had a two-thirds majority in parliament. The US administration at the time was furious, but Erdogan allowed the United States to use Turkish airspace.
Erdogan's talk of Islamic pride on the one hand and his support for the US invasion of Iraq on the other are contradictory.
Erdogan is familiar with Islamic symbols. His wife wears hijab. Hijab was forbidden in Turkey. Girls could not go to university with hijab. Erdogan's wife did not attend any public ceremony because of her hijab.
"I am a Muslim before anything happens and as a Muslim, I practice my religion and it is my duty," Erdogan told the New York Times after becoming Turkey's first prime minister in 2003. I will continue to strive to fulfill this duty and responsibility.
Erdogan sent his daughters to Indiana University for education because they could wear the hijab there.
Kamal Atatرکrk, who replaced the Ottoman Empire and founded modern Turkey, rejected traditional Islam.
Their goal was to make Turkey a modern European country. Atatرکrk dismissed the Islamic caliphs, abolished religious courts, and secularized schools. Atatرکrk abandoned the Arabic alphabet and adopted the Roman alphabet for Turkey. Atatرکrk enforced the Swiss Civil Code in the Republic of Turkey and gave women the right to vote.
It was unthinkable that any president of Atatرکrk's country would ask Muslims to reject family planning.
In a speech in Istanbul in 2016, Erdogan said, "It is the responsibility of women to keep the Turkish population fit. We need to increase the number of our children. People talk about population reduction and family planning but a Muslim cannot accept it. That is what our God and Prophet said and we will follow this path.
Turkey currently has a total population of 82 million.
Turkish TV drama "Darlis Ertugrul"
The TV series, based on the establishment of the Ottoman Empire, was aired on Turkish state TV TRT One. It has five seasons and a total of 448 episodes.
In the first season, there is a campaign against the Crusaders in Anatolia. The second is the fight against the Mongols, the third is the fight against the Christian Byzantines. The fourth series is the Seljuk battle and then the formation of the Ottoman Empire.
The whole series is an attempt to take advantage of the current political mood with Islamic nationalism and Erdogan's politics rather than historical facts.
Western media say that Turkey's national mood can be understood from the popular TV show of that time.
A few years ago, a TV drama was made in Turkey called The Magnificent Century on the life of Sultan Suleiman. In the sixteenth century, the Ottoman Empire was at its height under Sultan Suleiman, and this is what is shown in this play. The drama was a huge success in Turkey.
Since Erdogan's party came to power in 2002, television series have become the best source of income in Turkey. In 2017, more than 100 Turkish plays were sold in more than 150 countries.
In 2016, the annual export of Turkish TV dramas reached 300 million. According to a report by the Turkish International Agency, it reached 350 350 million in 2017.
It is said to reach ارب 1 billion by 2023. The popularity of Turkish TV dramas also increased the number of foreign tourists there.
It is not that Atatرکrk's secular tradition has taken root in Turkey. Vinod Tiwari, a Hindi professor at Delhi University who spent six months working on a project at Ankara University, says secular-minded people are also very influential in Turkey.
He also says that since Erdogan's arrival, political and ideological divisions have increased and Atatرکrk's temperament has weakened.
There was also a cultural movement in Turkey regarding Ertugrul. Religious conservatives fully supported it while the secular class slammed it.
At an awards ceremony in November 2016, the presenter made fun of the series and did not allow its characters to speak after receiving the award. After which his scriptwriter returned the award and called it an insult. President Erdoغانan also joined in the affair and praised the drama.
"Until the lion begins to write its own history, its predators will continue to be made heroes," Erdogan said.
The play's author, Mehmet Bezdakh, is a member of Erdogan's party.
Commenting on the TV drama, Turkish scholar Simahi Sananuello wrote in the cultural journal Berkim that such TV series serve as a political weapon for the current political government.
"According to the series, the names of the Turkish enemies may have changed, but that mentality still exists today and it has existed since before the establishment of the Ottoman Empire," he wrote. The purpose of these enemies is to divide the country. Under this, a kind of conspiracy is spread through stories and it is used for political gain.
"The popularity of such TV dramas also shows that the audience is choosing to go into the fantasy world instead of facing the current situation in Turkey. Such TV dramas serve as a political weapon to divert attention from Turkey's deteriorating economic situation and the Syrian crisis.
Many Islamic countries have banned this TV drama. Ertugrul is banned in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates. These countries are considered rivals of Turkey, but Saudi Arabia is going to make a big budget TV drama in response to Ertugrul.
Why is Ertugrul criticized?
The play's director and author, Mehmet Bozdakh, says the facts are not important.
As for how the play has stood the test of time, Mehmet Bezdakh had said, "There is very little information about the period of Anatolia that is depicted in this play. The complete information is not more than four to five pages." Even everyone's names are different in different sources. We cannot claim to compete with historical facts. We have shown a fictional story. "
Ertugrul: If you say in three words, these three words can be Islam, horse top and sword.
It tries to show that Ertugrul is on the path of Allah and to follow it is to follow the command of Allah.
There is terrible violence. And many times the sight of beheadings is reminiscent of scenes of beheadings by so-called Islamic State extremists. There is a sense of Islamic superiority throughout the play.
Pakistani political commentator Pervez Hoodbhai says, "If this TV drama tries to make Islam a pacifist religion or fight Islamophobia, the result will be the opposite."
The opening scene of the first episode of the first season is that people are making swords in the tents of the Ottoman tribes and sharpening these swords. Ottoman tribes are hostile to Christians and Byzantines. In every war, the bodies of Christians are covered in blood.
The hero of the play, Ertugrul Ghazi, beheads not only ordinary soldiers but also the people of his tribe. Shouldn't we be surprised if the Islamic State starts to be affected by it? Is the glorification of the sword an expression of the greatness of Islam? Islam can be portrayed more positively than the struggle for power in tribal society.
What are the heirs of the Ottoman Empire that Erdogan is proud of?
Ertugrul Usman was the 45th head of the Ottoman Empire and the grandson of Abdul Hamid II, who ruled the empire from 1876 to 1909. If the Ottoman Empire had not been overthrown or reconstituted in 1923, Ertugrul Uthman would have been the new sultan of the empire.
But becoming a Sultan is a long way off. Ertugrul Usman spent 64 years of his life in a two-bedroom flat in Manhattan, New York. This flat was also rented.
In 2006, the New York Times asked Ertugrul Osman if he wanted the Ottoman Empire restored. In response to this question, he said, "I am a very practical person."
In an interview with Al Jazeera in 2008, he said that democracy is doing very well in Turkey.
Ertugrul Usman refused to say anything against Mustafa Kemal Pasha Ataturk, who ousted the last ruler of the Ottoman Empire.
When the Ottoman Empire came to an end, Ertugrul Uthman was 12 years old. In 1924, the royal family was deported by Atatرکrk. Usman said in his interview that the men of the family were given one day for deportation and the women two weeks.
Ertugrul Usman was educated in Vienna and moved to the United States in 1939. He arrived in Turkey in August 1992, 53 years later, at the invitation of the Prime Minister.
During the visit, he also visited Dolambache Palace. It is a 285-room palace that used to be his grandfather's house. Ertugrul Usman passed away on September 23, 2009 at the age of 97.
Ertugrul Usman's wife Zainab was the niece of King Amanullah of Afghanistan. She was 30 years younger than Zainab Usman. Zainab told the New York Times that Ertugrul Usman was very liberal.
Turkish journalist Didim Yilmaz made a documentary on the family after the fall of the Ottoman Empire in 2003, entitled "Documents Sultan". In his interview, Yilmaz said some interesting things about the conversation between Ertugrul Usman and his wife Zainab Usman.
"I called Zainab, the wife of Ertugrul Usman, and asked her to talk to me," Yilmaz said of the interview. "I'm not interested in the cruel facts of history. I'm very interested in the human side of the story," Zainab said without hesitation.
Yilmaz said that if the Ottoman Empire had survived, Ertugrul Uthman would have been the sultan of that empire, but this man is living in poverty today. Yet there is no bitterness in his mind. He has compassion in his mind and this man is open minded. I found them to have a good understanding of the country and the world and to be free from the pride of the past.
Why is there a stir in the Muslim world through a TV drama Ertugrul on the same empire? The heirs of the Ottoman Empire are not proud of their history, nor do they want to revive it.
The family was forced into exile because of Atatرکrk, yet the family did not utter a word against Kamal Pasha, but Erdoغانan's leadership is trying to revive that history and change Turkey.
Talmud Ahmed, who has a close understanding of Middle East politics and has been India's ambassador to several Gulf countries, says, "Just as Nehru's India is trying to change the current government, so is Atatرکrk's secular Turkey Efforts are underway to transform Islamic Turkey.
He says that the foundation of India which was laid by Nehru has now been shaken. Similarly, the secular and modern Republic of Turkey, founded by Atatرکrk, is in decline.
Talmiz Ahmed says that this is not a matter of a TV drama. "There was a time when large parts of the world were ruled by Muslims," he says. The Mughal Empire in India and the Ottoman Empire in a large part of the world. The Mughals and the Ottomans ruled over a vast area and their power was unparalleled. The Mughals fell in the 19th century and the Ottomans in the 20th century.
"These empires were seen as close to Islamic pride and success," he says. The defeat of the Islamic world has not ended since the end of the Ottoman Empire in the twentieth century. This is still going on. The Turkish TV drama portrays the Ottoman Empire as an Islamic pride and achievement. In a society that is depressing at the moment, packing history is very effective in the current political climate. The same thing happened with this TV drama.
Talmud Uhud says that the world of Islam is desolate and the chain of success is over.
"This frustration is being used by the leaders there for their own political gain. The best formula for hiding your failures is to leave people in the sense of history, from where the process of going backwards begins. But the problem with Turkey is that it can go beyond Atatرکrk, but it will never go so far as to re-establish the Ottoman Empire.
Talmiz Ahmed says that there is still a sense of 'defeat narrative' in the Islamic world. He says that it started in the 20th century.
"Israel's creation under the noses of Arab Muslims in 1948 was humiliating. There is nothing in the Islamic world that Muslims can be proud of. The dominance of Western countries increased and on the other hand Muslims were linked to terrorism and Islamophobia emerged strongly all over the world.
"The way Erdogan is taking Turkey cannot solve the problem."
Turkey's cultural intrusion into Islam?
In Pakistan, the TV drama 'Ertugrul' broke all records in terms of viewers. On April 18 this year, PTV dubbed the drama into Urdu and created a YouTube channel with more than 6.2 million subscribers. Imran Khan himself appealed to the people to watch this drama.
People began to see the actors in the play as real characters of the Ottoman Empire. The people of Pakistan were incensed to see old real pictures of female actors in the play and in real life their dress and style began to be objected to on social media.
Professor Hoodbhai says Erdogan not only wants to lead the Islamic world, but is trying to show that Islam is the best religion.
He said, "Before I spoke to you, I was driving and listening to Lata Mangeshkar's songs. You will listen to Ghulam Ali, but because of our own religious superiority, if we don't listen to each other's artists." So will it elevate any religion?
"We will move away from our soil, our common culture and our history," says Hoodbhai. Erdogan's Islamic project includes the Ottoman Empire for Muslims, the leap for supremacy, the sword, violence and conservatism. There is no place for science, art, and shared culture. Pakistanis are enjoying it.
When Turkish President Erdogan visited Pakistan in February of that year, Prime Minister Imran Khan proudly told a joint press conference that the Turks had ruled India for hundreds of years.
Imran Khan said, "We are all happy with your arrival because the nation understands that our relations with Turkey are centuries old." The Turks ruled India for six hundred years.
Leading Pakistani historian Dr. Mubarak Ali says, "Imran Khan does not know history and when he refers to history, he looks at it in the mirror of religion."
Mubarak Ali says that how can anyone praise any imperialist system so much in today's history? Isn't Imran Khan doing this because he was a Muslim ruler?
Zia-ul-Haq, the military dictator who ruled Pakistan in the 1980s, had said, “Pakistan is an ideological state. If you take Islam out of Pakistan and make it a secular state, it will fall apart.
Pakistan has been trying to establish its identity with foreign Muslim personalities.
Imran Khan's appeal to watch a TV drama about the Ottoman Empire is part of the Pakistani rulers' attempt to find their own identity.
But the question had to be raised as to why the Prime Minister was praising a drama in which other religions were portrayed as enemies.
Speaking to Radio Free Europe, Madiha Afzal, author of "Pakistan Undersecretary: Extremism, Society and State", said, "Pakistan defines its nationalism in terms of enmity towards Islam and India. In such a situation, the appeal to see Ertugrul is not surprising.
Leading Pakistani actor Jamal Shah says the drama is dangerous because Pakistani leaders are using it to mislead young people. This drama is purely propaganda.
Turkish leaders are trying to shine their politics through the glorious past of Islam, but even if they mobilize their supporters through this drama, they cannot revive the Ottoman Empire.
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