From protecting the PKK to hostility towards the Qur'an: what is Sweden's problem?

First, let us note in bold letters: someone who burns the Holy Qur'an, revealed as a work of God's mercy and compassion for all people in order to light their way, can do no harm to the Qur'an. Perhaps by this act he vomits his grudge, hatred and enmity toward the people who believe in the Qur'an, but the book he burns is also the only prescription for his own salvation.

That book addresses not only Muslims but all people; it is the final message of the creator of all people to all people, Rasmus Paludan included. Opening and reading a message that has come to oneself from one's creator, confronting the questions that book will ask of him, coming face to face with the most fundamental truths about one's own existence, requires courage.

Perhaps he does not believe that book is that book. But he cannot know without reading. If he read it and did not believe, he would see that the way to struggle against it is not to burn it. Many a person has risen in anger against that book or against those who read it, and sat down with heart and mind suddenly illuminated. We are not speaking only of Hz. Umar, of course. This is one of the most typical events, repeated constantly throughout history and in our own day.

The life-giving effect of the Qur'anic message always shows itself. With its perfect address, which matches one-to-one the perfect harmony of human life, of existence, of the cosmos, the Qur'an reveals itself, in the human being's adventure in this world, as a light that illuminates his path, as the solution to an encoded existence.

You have probably heard most recently the story of Richard McKinney, a former American marine. He too wanted to direct the grudge and hatred he had been filled with against Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq toward the Muslims who confronted him every day in the state of Indiana. He went to kill these Muslims whom he saw as monsters, but when he saw people receiving him with a courtesy, a sincerity and a humanity that shocked him, he experienced his first shock at that moment. What followed, after a questioning that did not last very long, was enlightenment by the light of the Qur'an, and guidance. Now McKinney has become the president of the center that he had resolved to bomb and in which he meant to kill at least 200 Muslims.

This story has been repeated abundantly in Europe too in recent times. An interest that begins with hatred, and then someone who has met the Qur'an cannot free himself from its effect and arrives at guidance.

What will become of the politician who today undertook the act of burning the Qur'an in front of the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm, God knows. But there is a possibility that he will come to know the reality that the book he burned is his own book. Not only for him, but for all of Europe, for all humanity. The Qur'an has come not only to Muslims; it is a message that has come to all people from God, who is the creator of all people.

But Paludan does not know this yet; we hope that when he learns it, it will not be too late for him. But it is clear that what drove him to this act was to give a message to Türkiye. It is precisely this dimension of the incident that makes the act even more significant. The host of a program on the BBC in which I took part on this incident asked, "Why is only Türkiye reacting to this incident, when the Qur'an is the book of all Muslims, is it not?" Admittedly, since the incident was still fresh up to that hour, reactions from many parts of the Islamic world had not yet come. Afterwards all Islamic countries gave the necessary reactions in one way or another. However, the question the BBC host asked was omitting a simple detail, and this detail also showed why the first addressee of the attack on the Qur'an was Türkiye. That the front of the Turkish Embassy was chosen as the site of the act was, after all, no small detail. Frankly, although the language of the Qur'an is Arabic, these Crusaders see Türkiye as the bearer of the Qur'an's message.

However much some in Türkiye try to put distance between themselves and Islam, however much they try to separate Turkishness from Islam, Europeans never fall short of making this identification, and each time it is they who remind, explain and warn of the ties with Islam that some Turks try to forget.

Turks are Muslims, and in the eyes of the Crusaders the Muslim is identical with the Turk. The racist-fascist who wanted to vomit his hatred of Islam by burning the Qur'an, the holy book of all Muslims, by choosing the Turkish Embassy as the site of his act, also reminds the Turks of this reality.

That Türkiye, as the primary addressee in this incident, showed the most severe and meaningful reactions shows that at the official level it is aware of this position. By giving the necessary voice as a nation too, it showed democracy to those who wanted to see democracy regarding the harmony of nation and state, and a national stance to those who wanted to see a monolithic nation.

Of course, at this point it is worth remembering on this occasion that the greater part of the sensitivity shown in defending the Qur'an lies in reading, understanding and living the Qur'an as it deserves.

Let us make just a reminder to the Swedish or European politicians who evaluate this act within the scope of freedom of expression: would an act containing even any insinuation against Jews have been permitted under the name of freedom of expression? Of course it would not have been permitted, and it should not have been. What makes it possible to evaluate an act of anti-Islamic hatred within the scope of freedom of expression?

Crusadership? Before this act, one subject of dispute between Sweden and Türkiye was Türkiye's not granting a visa to NATO membership because Sweden does not give up its support for the PKK. We said this long ago, and today this idea grows stronger: Sweden's love affair with the PKK has no side compatible either with freedom of expression or with asylum law. It appears that Sweden sees the PKK as a Crusader unit, uses it and tries to protect it.