Egypt’s top fatwa authority raises controversy after describing Ottoman control of Constantinople as 'occupation'
Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta described the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople as an invasion, raising controversy in Turkey and among critics who believe religious authorities should not get involved in politics.
Dar al-Ifta, Egypt’s top institution for fatwas or religious edicts, has sparked widespread controversy when it described the Ottoman control of the city of Constantinople — Turkey's capital until 1923 when it was renamed Istanbul — as an occupation before it retracted and described it as a “great Islamic conquest.”
On June 7, the media center of Dar al-Ifta published a statement, titled, “Erdogan continues to use fatwa weapons to cement his tyranny at home and justify his colonial ambitions abroad.”
The statement criticized Turkey's internal politics and suppression of dissent, and said that Turkish President Recep Tayyib Erdogan is taking advantage of religious rhetoric “to achieve internal stability and victory over his political opponents.”
But what made Dar al-Ifta the subject of much criticism is its description in that statement of the fall of Constantinople, or the conquest of what is now called Istanbul, as an “Ottoman invasion,” in a paragraph devoted to condemning calls to convert the Hagia Sophia Museum into a mosque again.
