Indonesia’s National Awakening Party (PKB) issued a statement recently “in response to remarks by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey regarding the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque.” Bayt ar-Rahmah highlighted this important statement in its August 6, 2020 Political Communiqué.

Bayt ar-Rahmah serves as a hub for the worldwide expansion of Nahdlatul Ulama operations and leads the global Humanitarian Islam movement.

According to the communiqué:

On July 22, 2020, members of the largest political networks in the world, and Europe, set aside long-standing differences to join Indonesia’s National Awakening Party, PKB, in a call for ‘Muslims and people of good will of every faith and nation to prevent the political weaponization of religion.’

Centrist Democrat International (CDI) adopted—and the European People’s Party (EPP) publicly endorsed—a PKB statement issued in response to inflammatory remarks by President Erdogan of Turkey regarding the conversion of Hagia Sofia into a mosque.

PKB is deeply rooted within Nahdlatul Ulama (NU)—the world’s largest Muslim organization with over 90 million followers—and is Indonesia’s largest Islamic political party. Through its membership in CDI, PKB is actively promoting NU’s Humanitarian Islam agenda worldwide.

The communiqué explains that the the PKB/CDI statement “came in response to President Erdogan’s effort to present himself as a leader of the global Muslim community and restore political Islam to a position of dominance in the world order.” The PKB statement declares unequivocally that Erdogan’s remarks:

are attacking the rules-based international order; inflaming emotions ‘wherever Muslims dwell throughout the earth’; and threaten to rekindle a clash of civilizations that afflicted humanity for nearly 1300 years, along a fault line stretching ‘from Bukhara (in Central Asia) to al-Andalus (Spain).’ The effects of President Erdogan’s words and actions thus extend far beyond Turkey’s borders and threaten both Muslim-majority and non-Muslim nations worldwide.

Read the full Political Communiqué.

Learn more:

• Indonesia: A major prize in the battle for the soul of Islam by James Dorsey

• Middle East Director Comments on Hagia Sophia’s Return to a Mosque and Implications for Turkey by Jeremy Barker

• Humanitarian Islam: Fostering shared civilizational values to revitalize a rules-based international order by Timothy Shah and and Thomas Dinham

• Responding to a Fundamental Crisis Within Islam Itself by Yahya Cholil Staquf

• POLITICAL COMMUNIQUÉ: 2020_07_08_Nahdlatul Ulama Poised for Global Leadership: Strategic Review (issued by Bayt ar-Rahmah)

• Turkey’s Cultural Heritage Cudgel by Elizabeth Prodromou

• Muslims and Evangelicals Form Joint Working Group to Counter Extremism by Paul Marshall