Turkey’s leading imam involved in Istanbul grove row

The head of Turkey’s top religious body has been involved in a hot debate on the efforts to build a mosque on a grove in Istanbul Mehmet Görmez, head of Turkey’s top religious body Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), has been involved in a hot debate on the efforts to build a mosque on a grove on Istanbul’s Anatolian side, saying that the love for prayer and love for nature should not be compared. 

“A mosque will be built on an 800 square meter plot. You can see people who bid to build a masjid [a small mosque] on one side, and other people protesting to prevent the cutting of the trees there on the other side,” Görmez said, while attending to a ceremony to mark the opening of a new forest area in the capital city of Ankara. 

“First of all, this does not appropriate,” he said. 

“The love for prayer and the love for nature should not be compared,” the country’s leading imam said, adding that people should not “express their angers using such love.” 

He wished that the row would end soon. 

The construction of a mosque in Istanbul’s Validebağ grove proceeded on Oct. 23 despite a court’s stay of execution order amid growing outcry among local activists, who have long denounced attempts to open one of Istanbul’s green areas to construction.

Police officers took huge security measures as locals also gathered nearby to pay their reaction.

An Istanbul administrative court suspended the construction project of the mosque after the contracted company launched excavation works in a dawn operation under a large police escort.

The Validebağ grove, located in the middle of a large residential area on the hills of Üsküdar, has long been a...