LAHORE: Punjab Assembly Speaker Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi has paid a tribute to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for declaring iconic Hagia Sophia open to prayers as a mosque.
“It is an audacious decision of Tayyip Erdogan that revived the memory of the Ottoman Caliphate and sent a wave of happiness among entire Muslim Ummah,” Mr Elahi said in a statement.
A top court in Turkey had ruled that the 1,500-year-old monument’s conversation to a museum by modern Turkey’s founding statesman was illegal.
Pervaiz Elahi said Hagia Sophia Mosque was the cultural heritage of Muslims of the whole world.
Published in Dawn, July 12th, 2020
