Just the possibility of Hagia Sophia’s conversion into a mosque was enough to expose the magnitude of the adoration that some crackpots, who are at odds with Turkey’s civilization spirit and claims, have for the long-gone Byzantine era.

People having the audacity to object to the initiative to reopen Hagia Sophia, which is one of the most important symbols of the conquest, despite more than five centuries passing since Istanbul was conquered, shows that the conquest has not been finalized, and the meaning and spirit of it is yet to be fully grasped. It could also mean that the spirit of the conquest has evaporated, that we lost our spirit, that we have been mentally invaded, and the next step after this is the terrifying reality that Turkey’s Islamic future is going to be jeopardized.

Istanbul’s conquest is a milestone not only in terms of our country’s or Islamic history but also in terms of the history of humanity. Thus, there is the world before the conquest and the world after the conquest.

The conquest of Istanbul is the most important indication that Turkey started to determine the direction world history is taking and its orbit.

It was a confirmation that Turkey is shaping the flow of history. The conquest of Istanbul was a declaration to the world that we are not an “extra” in the history scene but a leading actor that shapes history.

The conquest of Istanbul is the sign of a civilization breakthrough depicting how the global peace order can be established, and the fundamentals on which this could be achieved. The West also started to build its leadership over the world during the same time frame we did.

The West built its hegemony over the world by relying on weapons and power. We, on the other hand, built it based relying on the power of thought.

When did the Hundred Years’ War, which started between the U.K. and France in 1337 end? When Istanbul “collapsed”!

Europeans were provoked by the conquest of Istanbul, so they picked themselves up, dusted themselves off and started laying the foundations of the modern confrontation based on Protestantism.

The West sees Turkey as the offspring of the Ottoman Empire, in other words, their greatest rival. The Ottoman Empire was the last and strongest representative of the Islamic civilization: it was the zenith of a civilization idea based on the principles of justice, compassion, equity, which afforded everybody the right to live. It could neither be surpassed nor understood.

A Turkey that maintains and is striving to activate the civilization spirit that made the conquest of Istanbul possible is, whether we like it or not, whether we accept it or not, the biggest obstacle standing in the way of the unjust, oppressive, imperialist hegemony the West built on earth; its capitalist, selfish, derogatory world system.

Hagia Sophia is both the symbol of the Conquest of Istanbul and the representation of the sovereignty we established on earth and that we are indebted to Islam through the justice, compassion and equity order we established with this sovereignty.

The conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque does not mean Muslims will burn down all churches and synagogues. Those who insist on claiming that this is the case and ingrain this in people’s minds are – please excuse me – either stupid or parasites.

Islamic civilization is the sole civilization that enabled peaceful coexistence of all sanctuaries. The Ottoman Empire is an epitome of this!

In brief, Hagia Sophia has to be a mosque. The conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque is a declaration to the whole world since the 16th century that the peak of Islamic civilization and its last example, the great Ottoman Empire, is the sole source that will institute justice and compassion, the truth and equity not only in the Muslim world but in the world at large.

Let it be known that those objecting to the conversion of the Hagia Sophia, the symbol of the conquest of Istanbul, into a mosque are either unaware of what Istanbul’s conquest signifies or they think Turkey is Byzantine territory.

In this sense, Hagia Sophia serves as a litmus test.