By Walid Shoebat
Turkey has enjoyed nearly 140 years of constitutional experience since the inception of the Ottoman Constitution of 1876, known in Turkish as the Kanûn-u Esâsî, and the parliamentary system has been the defining characteristic of all constitutions to follow. In its 60-odd years of multi-party politics, including four military coups and even the execution of a prime minister, Turkey has never taken a step to change its system of governance to a presidential one until Erdogan began to call for it and this week right after his party’s victory he is going full throttle on pushing this agenda to set himself up as the Sultan of the Muslim world. In other words, he aspires to become the Caliph.
Those close to Erdogan say a presidential system would give Turkey the firm leadership it needs to prosper and argue that the constitution, born of a 1980 coup and still bearing the stamp of its military authors, badly needs replacing.
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan after his victory immediately called for a new constitution that would give him more power and vowed to annihilate Kurdish separatists, saying his parliamentary allies’ convincing win in early elections constitutes a mandate for both initiatives. In his first major speech since Sunday’s election returned the Justice and Development Party, or AKP, to one-party rule Mr. Erdogan said on Wednesday the results showed the nation’s desire to build a “new Turkey” and is pushing to rewrite the constitution to shift the parliament’s executive powers to his office preserving his role as Turkey’s dominant political figure.
“One of the most important messages from Nov. 1st is that Turkey must resolve this constitution issue right away,” he said at the presidential palace in Ankara. “The nation expects it.”
Rewriting the constitution is exactly what the Bible predicted. Several years ago in our book God’s War on Terror we predicted:
According to the Prophet Daniel, “He [Antichrist] will speak against the Most High and oppress the saints and try to change the set times and the laws.” (Daniel 7:25) In this passage, we find an important clue; for by his actions, we can assess his origin. Not knowing how to deal with this piece of the puzzle, many students of Bible prophecy have speculated that the Antichrist will try to change cosmic laws. But the text infers no such thing. It simply says that he will desire to change two things: times (the accepted world calendar) and laws. If we simply take the text at its face value, we find a simple warning that the Antichrist will attempt to change the times (calendar), legal systems, and constitutions. (GWOT, page 85)
And now this is about to be fulfilled.
Newsweek had this to say about Erdogan’s victory:
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan crowed triumphant after the Sunday election victory of his Justice and Development Party (known by its Turkish acronym, AKP), but the rest of the world should mourn. The AKP victory confirms not democracy but rather dictatorship. The election was a farce. In any election, AKP cheating gives it an extra 5 percent or so bonus. That figure, cited privately by Turkish politicians, diplomats and veteran Turkish journalists, takes into account stuffed ballots, lost ballot boxes from opposition-held areas, voter suppression and—in the November 1 election—enough registered dead people to make a corrupt Chicago politician blush … Now he [Erdogan] seeks to change the constitution to confirm his position as sultan-in-chief. Some diplomats comfort themselves with the fact that Erdogan’s new parliamentary majority falls short of that needed to simply impose constitutional change and even short of that needed to call a referendum. These analysts make the mistake of assuming that Erdogan respects institutions or plays by the rules. He is within easy bribery of the additional 15 votes he needs for a referendum and can fix any ballot to conform to his desired results. It’s just a matter of time …Turkey is a state sponsor of terrorism. It has become Pakistan on the Mediterranean. Erdogan supports the Islamic State militant group (ISIS), Hamas, jihadi terrorism in Sudan and, to some extent at least, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and Boko Haram. Erdogan is an ideologue, and he will not hesitate to kill people to promote hatred and intolerance.
Erdogan considers ISIS, Al Qaeda’s Jabhat Al Nusra and the other taqfiri groups fighting in Syria as his warriors in the battle for regional dominion by destabilising the entire region. By escalating the conflict in Syria and Iraq, he is certain to fulfill Revelation 11-12 “Red Dragon” who spews out his flood and increase dramatically the flight of Muslim refugees to Europe. European Union member states are at loggerheads over the refugees and migrants from other countries. Even the media has recognized that Erdogan is within reach to becoming “sultan-in-chief”. In other words, Erdogan will become the nominee to become the first recognized Caliph after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. January this year Shoebat.com wrote:
We have maintained, that ISIS will never produce the ultimate Caliphate. Two decades ago we trumpeted that the Islamists of Turkey will revive the Ottoman Empire and today we remind, that you have seen this happening right before your very eyes and the evidence is mounting by the day. And we warn that the next 4 years, this revival will be completed and ISIS will be encompassed under the wing of the Ottomans. Today we see this dead man of Europe beginning to stand up and we estimate that the next four years will be significant and things will move quick.
Besides uniting ISIS, the main umbrella organization for the Sunni Muslim world, the Muslim Brotherhood will unite under Turkey. The spiritual head of the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi declared that:
“Turkey is the Caliphate State, and Istanbul is its capital … Turkey unites religion and the world, Arab (Wahhabist Sunnis) and Persian (Shiites), Asia and Africa, and it (the Caliphate) should be based upon this nation (Turkey)”.
In June after Erdogan’s defeat, Shoebat.com precisely predicted this defeat will reverse and the current victory outcome was concluded from observing certain Scriptural hints few focus on:
So does this set back mean the end for Erdogan and the AKP Party and are we to now eliminate the man of Turkey as the wrong candidate from being the Antichrist?
Hardly.
In fact, such a loss bolsters the biblical argument since unlike what most imagine, that the Antichrist storms in because through his charisma he gains a popular vote. On the contrary, Antichrist, as we are told by Daniel, does not gain prominence by majority support:
“With the force of a flood they shall be swept away from before him and be broken, and also the prince of the covenant. And after the league is made with him he shall act deceitfully, for he shall come up and become strong with a small number of people.” (Daniel 11:23)
The Antichrist, when he emerges, he forms a league having advanced with a small number of supporters. Historically, the AKP began from a small number of people, the Refah Welfare Party which participated in the 1991 elections in a triple alliance with the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and the Reformist Democracy Party (IDP) to gain 16.9% of the vote. It was truly the incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a former member of the party, but later founded Justice and Development Party (AKP) who catapulted the AKP to what it is today which still holds over 40 percent of the seats defeating all the other three. This is truly a victory for the Erdogan who started with “a few number of people” … Turkey could face another parliamentary election … Erdogan may seek this option believing that the prospect of a weak government would scare voters back into the AKP fold. The victor in the end is likely for the AKP
“The victor in the end is likely for the AKP” is exactly what happened. Even Reuters says that Erdogan’s victory is enormous:
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan appears to have beaten down his opponents and returned his Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party (AK Party) to a fourth term of single-party rule over the country. In doing so, he has cemented his own already-firm control over the country, and is a large step closer to becoming the most influential figure in Turkish politics since Ataturk himself. The consequences of the AK Party’s victory are likely to be enormous, for Turkey, the region, and possibly for Europe, Russia and the United States as well.”
“After Sunday’s parliamentary election, it is now possible that the secular Turkish republic — as it has been established since 1923 — will eventually become something unrecognizable to its founders. In his early years in power, Erdogan and his AK Party were hailed by Western governments as pragmatic reformers, and proof that political Islam could be democratic and pluralistic. Turkey was moving closer to serious consideration for EU membership, opening up to foreign investment and growing economically.”
And so by peace, calling for Islamic democracy, Erdogan was able to deceive many. While the AKP secured just under 50 per cent of the vote, giving it 317 seats in the 550-member parliament, however, the AKP are already working to convince deputies from other parties to support the change. Since the AKP did not win the 367 seats that would have enabled Erdogan to make constitutional changes transforming the system of governance from parliamentary to presidential, or enough seats to take the issue to referendum, he is poaching deputies from other parties. The MHP, which lost votes to the AKP, is the most likely target of such efforts. Erdogan, who is meant to be a ceremonial president but instead dominates the government and parliament, will now pull out all the stops to secure his objective.
Erdogan’s ambition to be a new sultan ruling over this region is unlikely to be countered by Ankara’s weak Western allies.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu‘s victory speech instilled hope that the polarization and tension which have prevailed in Turkish society would be eliminated, but this hope has already turned out to be tyrannical with the government’s repressive practices targeting journalists resuming over the last three days.
Ahmet Gündel, a retired prosecutor for the Supreme Court of Appeals, said that whenever Erdoğan or Davutoğlu delivers a balcony speech and try to instill hope for a shift towards the restoration of liberties, more repressive practices always follow those speeches.
Zaman daily’s former editor-in-chief, Ekrem Dumanlı, who is also under investigation on charges of “insulting President Erdoğan.”
To Erdogan, Constantinople, which according to history has already been conquered by the Ottomans still needs to be re-conquered. To Erdogan, there is an apocalyptic re-fulfillment of when Muhammad II conquered Constantinople. Here is a clip from Erdogan’s speech from May 30th, saying in classical Arabic “Latuftahhanna al-Qustantiniyyeh” (Constantinople will be conquered).
Erdogan cited revelations from the Quran and the Hadith in classical Arabic in which the Prophet of Islam, Muhammad preached to open (conquer) Constantinople, and with its conquering he said: “Constantinople will be conquered, the best prince is its prince and the best army is that army”.
The prophecy by Islam’s prophet Muhammad talks about when Muslims in end-times fight the west and then they “will conquer Constantinople”. In Erdogan’s mind Constantinople (Turkey) was ruled by infidels and he will become “the best prince”. It is no wonder why Daniel calls Antichrist “prince” and in Islam the Caliph is “the prince of the faithful”. Shoebat.com explains these prophecies here.
Erdogan continues: “we will not tolerate tongues that talk about us. We Muslims have to pass unnoticed, and will not turn a blind eye to the traitors who said that injustice began in 1453, the date of opening (conquering) of Istanbul (Constantinople previously), and that the Turks have committed massacres against the Armenians and Greeks” .
Erdogan went on saying, as quoted by the agency Anatolia: “we will give an opportunity to those who are trying to keep Istanbul to be a city under the Koran … we continue to challenge those who want to extinguish the light of conquest, which glow in the the heart of Istanbul since 562 years.”
Erdogan is hailed in Turkey not only as “Sultan” but as a “prophet” “healer” and one who can even change the laws of the universe: “Spring has come to Sanliurfa. Both nature and history are rising up to greet our prime minister,” says Finance Minister Mehmet Simsek on Erdogan’s visit to the southeastern province of Sanliurfa on March 9th. Yet the Finance Minister did not face any sanctions from Erdogan for declaration of divinity and neither did AKP lawmaker Fevai Aslan who on January 16th when he said: “Erdogan is a leader who gathers all of Allah’s qualities in himself”. Neither did the Deputy Health Minister Agah Kafkas was reprimanded when on May 19, 2013 he said: “To do what Erdogan does is sunna”. “Sunna” which the Deputy Health Minister was referring to is the obedience to Muhammad. In other words, to obey Erdogan is to obey the Prophet himself! And neither was AKP lawmaker Huseyin Sahin on July 20, 2011 was reprimanded by Erdogan for saying: “Believe me, even touching our prime minister is worship to me.”
These are major figures and Erdogan is acting as if he is Christ who did not denounce worshiping Him and Erdogan did not denounce worship either. And if one thinks that it’s only the followers who elevate Erdogan to prophet, healer, master of the universe and nature, or deity, think again. One news media from Istanbul, wrote this regarding Edrogan himself, firing anyone who denounces him being God:
“Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate fired an imam who is highly regarded as a hafiz — a person who has memorized the entire Quran — in İzmir on Feb. 23 because of posts on Facebook criticizing President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s use of religious terminology to praise himself. The imam, who asks that his name not be revealed because of the judicial process he has started against the directorate, told Today’s Zaman that directorate inspectors started an investigation against him when İzmir Mufti’s Office filed a complaint in May of last year regarding posts the imam had written, arguing that language used by Erdoğan and his followers goes against the principles of İslam. The anonymous imam insisted that it is a duty of religious officials to warn people when their behavior, attitude and language contradict religious mandates. In a speech in March of last year that many theologians found to be problematic, then-Prime Minister Erdoğan said, “Our mercy will prevail over our wrath,” to a crowd in Muğla province, using terminology from a hadith qudsi (sacred hadith), a category of the sayings of the Prophet Muhammad which are attributed to God. The hadith qudsi in question states: “When God decreed the Creation, He pledged Himself by writing in His book which is laid down with Him: My mercy prevails over my wrath.”
In other words, Erdogan Islamically proclaims himself as Allah. The statement “Our mercy will prevail over our wrath” in Islam only pertains to Allah himself.
But this is not only Erdogan using Islamic terminologies for such claims of deity. Speaking to the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) consisting of 57 member states from every Muslim nation on the globe, Erdogan uses termminology that only is known to have been said of Christ in the Bible. For example, God, in Zechariah calls Jerusalem “the apple of my eye” and Erdogan does the same in denouncing what Christ said that “Jerusalem is the apple of My Eye,” that is Christ’s eye. Erdogan said: “Jerusalem is the apple of every Muslim’s eye”. Such biblical terminology belongs to Christ, God, regarding His Temple in Jerusalem. The prophet Zechariah prophetically declared what Jesus will proclaim regarding a temple that is prophetically built for Him in Jerusalem with use of this terminology:
Then I looked up, and there before me was a man with a measuring line in his hand. I asked, “Where are you going?” He answered me, “To measure Jerusalem, to find out how wide and how long it is.” While the angel who was speaking to me was leaving, another angel came to meet him and said to him: “Run, tell that young man, ‘Jerusalem will be a city without wallsbecause of the great number of people and animals in it. And I myself will be a wall of firearound it,’ declares the Lord, ‘and I will be its glory within.’
“Come! Come! Flee from the land of the north,” declares the Lord, “for I have scattered you to the four winds of heaven,” declares the Lord.
“Come, Zion! Escape, you who live in Daughter Babylon!” For this is what the LordAlmighty says: “After the Glorious One has sent me against the nations that have plundered you—for whoever touches you touches the apple of his eye—I will surely raise my hand against them so that their slaves will plunder them. Then you will know that the Lord Almighty has sent me.
How Erdogan knows this, or why he is using such blasphemy is unknown, or whether he manifests a demon or Lucifer himself remains to be seen. While Erdogan is the changer of Turkish laws, the dishonorer of women’s desires, the writing is on the wall, this man undeniably desires to be deified and Jerusalem is his focus. Must this not be a reason for all who are required to heed Paul’s instruction in 2 Thessalonians 2?
I believe it should. But we need all pieces to proclaim him The Antichrist. While he proclaims himself attributes of prophet and deity, he must enter the Temple of God making such declaration there. It is either Hagia Sophia, the Jewish Temple in Turkey or a rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem, only time will tell.
On a side note, we must be as candles that burn and melt in order to be a light to the world. In life always remember, Christians who are persecuted resemble Christ’s body “For I was hungry and you gave Me food …” So please consider the serious issue on Christian persecution, which will increase as we see the falling away unfolds before our very eyes. We are (Rescue Christians) who simply do what the label says “rescue Christians”. To see an example out of the thousands we rescue, click here, and listen to the amazing testimonies first hand on how you can help and make a difference, now in this life and for eternity.
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