Turkey's Erdogan: "The Minarets Are Our Swords"

Dianawest.net 1 December 2009
By Diana West

Andrew Bostom delves into the sourcing behind the wholly rational, minimally survivalist rationale against permitting minarets to rise over non-Islamic lands -- if, that is, they are to stay non-Islamic. Andy writes:

The venerable Brill Encyclopedia of Islam (EOI) entry on minarets makes plain that minarets are a political statement of Islamic supremacism. Interestingly, given current Turkish Erdogan’s provocative statement while mayor of Istanbul -- (the full statement was quoted in a NY Times story by Stephen Kinzer from 2/16/1998: "The mosques are our barracks, the domes are our helmets, the minarets are our swords, and the faithful are our army”), cited by opponents of minaret construction in Switzerland — the observations from the Brill EOI about the Ottoman perspective on minarets are of particular interest.

From the official Brill Encyclopedia of Islam entry on the minaret:

"It seems on the whole unrelated to its function of the adha-n [q.v.] calling the faithful to prayer, which can be made quite adequately from the roof of the mosque or even from the house-top. During the lifetime of the Prophet, his Abyssinian slave Bila-l [q.v.], was responsible for making the call to prayer in this way. The practice continued for another generation, a fact which demonstrates that the minaret is not an essential part of Islamic ritual. To this day, certain Islamic communities, especially the most orthodox ones like the Wahha-bi-s in Arabia, avoid building minarets on the grounds that they are ostentatious and unnecessary. … It must be remembered, however, that throughout the mediaeval period, the role of the minaret oscillated between two polarities: as a sign of power and as an instrument for the adha-n.”

[Re: Ottoman minarets]: "These gigantic, needle-sharp lances clustered protectively, like a guard of honour, around the royal dome, have a distinctly aggressive and ceremonial impact, largely dependent on their almost unprecedented proportions; the pair of minarets flanking the Süleymaniye dome are each some 70m. high.”