Joint co-op, Iran draws Turkey’s religious map with sectarian dimension

Mohamed Abdel Ghaffar

Religion has an impact on the hearts of peoples, especially in the Middle East, thus some rulers seek to exploit, like in Qatar, Turkey, and Iran. A recent joint religious protocol signed between Tehran and Ankara is a good example.

Both Iran and Turkey strive to explore – both culturally and intellectually – into each other, in ways that only serve their interests, which aid them to bring about demographic change, even slightly, and the main goal is to change the mindset and ideologies of citizens to serve the higher interests.

Recently, head of Islamic Culture and Relations Organization of Iran (ICRO) Abuzar Ebrahimi Turkman visited Turkey and was received by Ali Erbas, head of Turkey’s top religious authority. Both signed an agreement during the visit.

According to the Turkish newspaper Zaman, the agreement consisted of 18 articles. It includes translating and publishing religious books by clerics of both countries, in addition to seeking Iranian experts in the various activities and theology faculties in Turkey.

The official website of the Diyanet did not provide any information about the agreement, but the details were shared by Iranian media. In other news, Mepa News reported on Iranian sources Press TV and Fars News that the issue has received widespread repercussions across Turkey.

The two parties also discussed the Palestinian case and the need to support it regionally, in addition to the division of the Arab and Islamic worlds and the conflicts that spread to it, in order to provide the agreement with shiny slogans.

The Iranian website also explained in another report that head of the Association for Culture and Islamic Relations inaugurated a joint Qur’anic exhibition while he was in Ankara, which included Khomeini’s interpretation of the Holy Quran.

Turkey has sought to persuade the Sunni Arab world that it is seeking to form a Sunni alliance against Shiism, but it hid behind these slogans good relations with Iran, not only economically and politically, but also at the religious level.

In a meeting with Mohammad Hossein Mokhtari, chancellor of the Islamic Denominations University in September 2018, Erbas said Turkey aims to establish an international Islamic university in Istanbul, to be completed in 2020, and faculty members from the Islamic University of Iran will be recruited to teach Shiism.

Three months after the meeting, Erbas praised the Iranian religious ideology, considering it an important mean in confronting terrorism and extremism in the region, stressing that both Ankara and Tehran are big enough to stand against the interests of Western imperialism.