Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on the Islamic world to overcome its differences in order to be able to confront attacks on its sanctities, noting that these differences feed the phenomenon of anti-Islam (Islamophobia).
In a speech delivered on Saturday - via video technology at the 23rd annual conference of the American Islamic Society - Erdogan said that in addition to the Corona epidemic, Muslims this year faced the fastest spreading virus of anti-Islam.
He added that cultural racism, discrimination and intolerance have reached dimensions that cannot be hidden in countries that are considered the cradles of democracy, stressing that countries that allow abuse of Islamic sanctities do not bear any criticism directed at them.
He gave examples of what Muslims are exposed to and their sanctities in a number of Western countries, such as displaying offensive cartoons of the Messenger Muhammad, may God bless him and grant him peace, in France, and burning copies of the Qur’an and tearing them down in Norway and Sweden, indicating that insulting to sacred things has nothing to do with freedom of expression.
After indicating the rise of ideological extremism in Western countries, and their condoning the attack on Muslims and their sanctities, Erdogan explained that Muslims in many countries are facing marginalization and discrimination because of their faith, language, names, or costumes.
Addressing the Islamic world, he said, "Let us all put our differences aside and meet at the common denominator of Islam in the face of attacks on our sanctities."
He added that the real reason behind the escalation of anti-Islam is the differences between Muslims, and their preoccupation with each other, noting that many Muslim minorities who live in non-Muslim countries discriminate between Muslims on several grounds.
Such as Sunnis and Shiites, or black and white, or African and Asian, or Arab and foreign.
Speaking about his country's policy towards the crises of the Islamic world, the Turkish president said that Turkey deals with the various crises in the Islamic world from the standpoint of defending the oppressed in Syria, Yemen, Palestine and the Nagorno Karabakh region, which was under Armenian occupation, calling on Muslims to defend Jerusalem, even with their lives Describing the occupied city and its sanctities as the honor of the Islamic nation.
Erdogan had repeatedly denounced the growing hostility to Islam and Muslims in the world, and called early this month - on the anniversary of the Bosnian massacres - to confront anti-Islam, and anti-Semitism was also combated after the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews (the Holocaust).