ISTANBUL: President Tayyip Erdogan inaugurated an imposing new mosque in Istanbul on Friday, achieving a decades-old goal and stamping a religious identity on the landmark Taksim Square in the heart of Turkey’s largest city.

The Taksim mosque and its 30-metre high dome loom symbolically over a monument to the foundation of the Turkish republic by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, whose secular legacy has been eroded by nearly two decades of Erdogan’s rule.

After performing Friday prayers with thousands of worshippers, Erdogan said completion of the mosque marked the culmination of a dream for Turks, and that the call to prayer would be heard there “until the end of time”.

Published in Dawn, May 29th, 2021