Islam contains a political system which flows forth from Islamic theology. Where the religion is, the political system follows as a natural growth.
The modern nations of Turkey is synonymous with Islam. Once the Byzantine Empire, the descendants of the subjugated and later, converted to Islam Greek, Armenian, and Slavic peoples who mixed with the Turkic peoples of Central Asia became the Seljuks and then the Ottomans before being folded into the modern nation of Turkey. The descendants of those who survived over a millenia of Islamic presence were later exterminated in the Genocide of 1915.
While the Ottoman Empire was officially abolished and with her the Caliphate in 1923, the latter of which existed since the days of Mohammed, Turkey, just like her German ally, has always dreamed of returning to her imperial ways. Under President Erdogan, she intends to realize her Ottoman dream.
One of the ways that Turkey has gone about bringing back her empire is through the spread of Islam, for Turkey was for centuries regarded as the historical guardian of Islam. In order to start this process again, she has been going around the world supporting the construction of mosques and Islamic institutions. Germany, while her ally, is no less an exception.
In what will be one of the largest mosques yet constructed in Europe, Turkish President Erdogan will oversee the opening of the Cologne Central Mosque this saturday according to a report:
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will inaugurate in the German city of Cologne one of the largest mosques in Europe on Saturday.
The Cologne Central Mosque, built by Turkish-Islamic Union for Religious Affairs (DITIB) after eight years of construction work, has a capacity of 1,200 people.
“It will be the most important and one of the largest mosques in Europe and Germany. It has a symbolic meaning for our Muslim brothers living here,” Nevzat Yasar Asikoglu, chairman of the DITIB, told reporters.
“Our mosque also symbolizes peace, brotherhood as well as the culture of co-existence,” he said.
Asikoglu said those who visit the mosque are impressed by interior adornment of the mosque in which Seljuk motif was predominantly used.
The mosque has nine entrances and there is a crescent and a star in the middle of its dome.
The 17,000 square-meter mosque complex also has a shopping center, an exhibition and a seminar hall, a 600-people capacity conference hall, a library, working offices and a car park on the ground floor.
Germany, a country of over 81 million people, has the second-largest Muslim population in Western Europe after France.
Among the country’s nearly 4.7 million Muslims, three million are of Turkish origin. Many of them are second or third-generations of Turkish families who migrated to Germany in the 1960s, and are said to be well integrated in the country. (source)
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