A grouse sits on Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s head and refuses to leave. August 14, 2015. REUTERS/Stringer

By Walid Shoebat

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Friday inaugurated a mosque built atop a 1,200-meter mountain in his parents’ Black Sea hometown when birds landed on his head. Seeing birds flying or circling over one’s head is seen by Muslims to indicate the attainment of an administrative post and ruling a great dominion. Islam The World’s Greatest Religion explains:

Seeing birds flying or circling over one’s head in a dream may indicate the attainment of an administrative post. [Sharh as Sunnah vol 12 p 221] Based on: Verses referring to Prophet David (Daoud) “The birds assembled, and all (with David) turned to (Allah in praise and repentance) and I strengthened his dominion” [Surah Saad (38_: 19-20] (see also here)

In other word, Erdogan with this incident is seen by Muslims as a man ordained with a great position in which he (like King David) will gain great dominion.

The incident happened when Erdogan inaugurated a new mosque built on top of Kıble Mountain, the name of the mountain referring to the term “Qibla,” the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca that should be faced when a Muslim prays, in the Güneysu district of the Black Sea province of Rize.

The mosque was originally built two centuries ago but was destroyed in a fire in 1960. In 1963, a small mosque was built in its place. Erdoğan, who was prime minister at the time, visited the mosque in 2010 and ordered its restoration, based on a model of a mosque in Üsküdar, İstanbul.

During the inauguration, Erdogan released pigeons and grouses, one of which landed on his head. The pigeon instantly departed while the grouse was persistent and refused to leave wanting to nest on Erdogan’s head. It only flew away later after his bodyguards had to intervene.

While in Islam seeing birds hovering on one’s head is viewed as a good sign, Joseph in the Bible saw it as bad news when:

“the chief baker saw that the interpretation was good, he said to Joseph, “I also was in my dream, and there were three white baskets on my head. In the uppermost basket were all kinds of baked goods for Pharaoh, and the birds ate them out of the basket on my head.” So Joseph answered and said, “This is the interpretation of it: The three baskets are three days. Within three days Pharaoh will lift off your head from you and hang you on a tree; and the birds will eat your flesh from you.”

While the Bible sees doves and pigeons as good signs, other birds are viewed as a sign of a curse and symbolic of something evil. Mark connects birds with “Satan” (Mark 4:4, 15), and Luke links them to “the devil” (Luke 8:5, 12). In Genesis 15:11, fowls swoop down on Abraham’s sacrifices, and he has to drive them away (see Deuteronomy 28:26). The end-time Babylon becomes “a habitation of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird” (Revelation 18:2). In the parable, Jesus predicts the birds of the air would lodge in the branches. These “birds,” demons led by “the prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2), have continually been interpreted as the satanic realm trying to infiltrate the church. Upon the unsuspecting early church, Satan moved quickly to implant his agents in it to teach false doctrine while appearing to be true Christians. Just as God permitted Satan to tempt Job intensely (Job 1:12; 2:6) and to sift Peter as wheat (Luke 22:31), He has allowed antichrists to lodge within His church (I Corinthians 11:18-19). And in Matthew 13:4 birds eat the seed. The “birds of the air” are “the wicked one” devouring the seed. And in Genesis 15:11, where Abraham is making a covenant with God: “And when the vultures came down on the carcasses, Abram drove them away.” The birds were interfering between God and man, trying to defile Abraham’s sacrifice. Birds go for the stragglers, the weak, and the newborn, because they are the easy pickings.