Will the Specter of Suleiman the Magnificent Once Again Walk the Walls He Built Around Jerusalem?
September 18, 2011
http://www.tribulationperiod.com/
The Turkish economy has become very prosperous under Prime Minister Erdogan, but it has been built on a bubble, and when the bubble pops
, the economy will head south. This is one of the reasons he has dreams of creating the revival of Suleiman’s Empire, since it would postpone the pop. The popularity and abilities of Suleiman brought a time of great prosperity to his Islamic State. Erdogan wants to duplicate the success of Suleiman as a popular Sultan.
The “Old Sick Man” of Southeastern Europe, that died as the Ottoman Caliphate, is now about to rise from the dead with Sultan Erdogen at its head.
Begin Excerpt from the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Under Süleyman, popularly known as “the Magnificent” or “the Lawmaker,” the Ottoman empire reached the apogee of its military and political power. Süleyman’s armies conquered Hungary, over which the Ottomans maintained control for over 150 years, and they advanced as far west as Vienna, threatening the Habsburgs. To the east,
the Ottoman forces wrested control of Iraq from the Safavids of Iran.
In the Mediterranean, their navy captured all the principal North African ports, and for a time the Ottoman fleet completely dominated the sea. By the end of Süleyman’s reign, Ottoman hegemony extended over a great portion of Europe, Asia, and Africa.
Along with geographic expansion, trade, economic growth, and tremendous cultural and artistic activity helped define the reign of Süleyman as a “Golden Age.” Developments occurred in every field of the arts; however, those in calligraphy, manuscript painting, textiles, and ceramics were particularly significant. Artists renowned by name include calligrapher Ahmad Karahisari as well as painters Shahquli and Kara Memi.
In architecture, the most outstanding achievements of this period were the public buildings designed by Sinan (1539–1588), chief of the Corps of Royal Architects. While Sinan is often remembered for his two major commissions, the mosque complexes of Süleymaniye in Istanbul (1550–57) and of the later Selimiye in Edirne (1568–74), he designed hundreds of buildings across the Ottoman empire and contributed to the dissemination of Ottoman culture. Apart from mosques and other pious foundations—including schools, hospices, and soup kitchens, supported by shops, markets, baths, and caravanserais—Süleyman also commissioned repairs and additions to major historical monuments. The tile revetment of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, as well as several additions to sites
in Mecca and Medina, the two Holy Cities of Islam, date from this period.
Suzan Yalman
Department of Education, The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Based on original work by Linda Komaroff
Source: The Age of Süleyman “the Magnificent” (r. 1520–1566) | Thematic Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art
End Excerpt from the Metropolitan Museum of Art
Chapter 14 of Zechariah indicates Jerusalem will fall again to the forces of Islam. Ironically, Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent built the current Islamic walls of Jerusalem on the foundation of King Herold’s walls. I have walked on top of them around the city of Jerusalem many times.
Islam will once again, for some 1260 days, reign within these ancient walls during the last three and one-half years of the Tribulation Period.
Zechariah 14:1,2 – Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee. [2] For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the residue of the people shall not be cut off from the city.
Zechariah 14:1 – Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, and thy spoil shall be divided in the midst of thee.
Jerusalem sets “in the midst” of Israel, and its spoils shall be divided among the 10 conquering nations. Once again, in the prophetic style of writing, in the next verse, in the last phrase, he jumps to the end of the 1260 days, and assures Israel that God will preserve a remnant in the Negev, which will return some 1260 days after Jerusalem falls.
Zechariah 14:2 – For I will gather all nations against Jerusalem to battle; and the city shall be taken, and the houses rifled, and the women ravished; and half of the city shall go forth into captivity, and the RESIDUE of the people shall NOT be CUT OFF from the city.
The word KARATH is translated “CUT OFF.” There are several words translated “cut off” in the KJV. KARATH means “TO BE CUT OFF FOREVER.” The other Hebrew words translated “cut off’ usually provided a way for the offender to be restored to fellowship with Israel, but KARATH implies BEING CUT OFF WITHOUT ANY CHANCE OF BEING ALLOWED TO RETURN.
The word translated RESIDUE is the Hebrew word YETHER, which is translated as REMNANT in Micah 5:3. (See Prophecy Update Number 64)
Micah 5:3 – Therefore will he give them up, until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth: then
the REMNANT of his brethren shall return unto the children of Israel. (See Archive Prophecy Update Number 64)
In the last phrase of Zechariah 14:2, God is assuring the tribes of Israel that even if they will be driven out of Jerusalem, they will return some 1260 days later. He does this by the use of the word “NOT.” The residue (REMNANT) of the people (ISRAELIS) shall NOT be CUT OFF from the city.
When Jerusalem falls, God begins to fight for Israel, and it begins a period of 1260 days, through which he will extend his protective shield over them in the Negev wilderness.Zechariah 14:3 – Then shall the Lord go forth, and fight against those nations, as when he fought in the day of battle.
Suleiman was known as the Sultan of Sultans, Suleiman I (November 6, 1494 – September 5, 1566), was the tenth and longest serving Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, reigning from 1520 to 1566. He is known in the West as Suleiman the Magnificent and in the Islamic world, as the Lawgiver, deriving from his complete reconstruction of the Ottoman legal system. Among the many titles ascribed to him were “The Shadow of God on the Earth,” and “Caesar of all the lands of Rome.”
Suleiman was considered one of the preeminent rulers of 16th century Europe.
Under his leadership, the Ottoman Empire became among the worlds’ foremost powers. Suleiman personally led Ottoman armies to conquer Belgrade, Rhodes, and most of Hungary, laid the Siege of Vienna, and annexed most of the Middle East and huge territories in North Africa as far west as Algeria. For a short period, Ottomans achieved naval dominance in the Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea, and Persian Gulf. The Ottoman Empire continued to expand for a century after his death.
It will be very interesting to see who and what comes out of this maze of confusion between Hizbullah, Lebanon, Syria, and Turkey. It is from this area I have always believed the Antichrist will arise. I certainly do not know the identity of the Antichrist, but I have always taught he would come out of this area. (See Whole Numbered Archive Prophecy Updates 62 to 69 on our Web Site).
Begin Excerpt from Hurriyet News
Neo-laicism by Erdoğan
Friday, September 16, 2011
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s “Arab Spring” tour of Egypt, Tunisia and Libya has ended, leaving a very interesting debate in its wake.
It all started during a televised interview with renowned Egyptian journalist Mona Shazly during his stay in Cairo. There, Erdoğan touched on the sensitive issue of laicism and said that a Muslim person like himself could successfully rule a secular country like Turkey because he saw no contradiction between Islam and democracy.
Those words were more or less similar to the
words he has said in the last 10 years in Turkey.
But Erdoğan took it further. He also said it was wrong to consider laicism as being anti-Islamic. He said that “our understanding” of laicism was that the state should respect everybody’s belief or non-belief (there he said “even atheism”) and remain at an equal distance to all of them.
He was taking three important steps at once.
First, he was trying to moderate the Islamist look within the Arab societies who think that after the secular dictators’ rule in Arab countries, Shariah rule in accordance with the strict dictates of the Quran is needed in their countries. That would have the effect of a kind of centrifugal force which would throw those Arab countries and
their peoples further out of the international system.
So he was trying to bring them toward the mainstream.
Secondly, he was trying to moderate the look, or concern among Western societies, that secular Arab dictators would not be replaced by promising democracies, but by Islamist
dictators.
Third, he was actually revising his political line by trying to revise, or bring a new definition to, laicism. By underlining the relationship between the state and religion, he was making a clear distinction between that and the French revolution-style “Separation of state from the church” definition, which was strictly adopted by the Turkish Republic in its early years in the 1920s after the abolishment of the Sultanate and the Caliphate.
Actually, that separation has never found comfortable ground in Turkey, a mostly Muslim society, largely because one can not define “the mosque” as one can define “the church” since there is no clergy in traditional Islam and no religious bureaucracy.
Perhaps that was the reason why Turkey invented a religious bureaucracy, the Religious Affairs Directorate, to regulate the matter.
So instead of getting the guidance from religion, the Turkish state started to give guidance to religious practice, a unique case in the Muslim world.
On the other hand, this weird system helped Turkey develop Western-style law, Western-style democracy and a Western-style economy – with all its ups and downs so far.
That system, after all, brought a pious Muslim like Erdoğan to power through a free vote, allowed him to consolidate his power while pushing him toward the political center and is now throwing him before the revolting masses of Muslim countries that are asking for more freedom.
This is new not only for the region, but for political theory as well.
It is worth paying a closer look to Erdoğan’s concept of neo-laicism
End Excerpt from Hurriyet News
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