-Muslims Demanding Apologies for “Jabba’s Palace”?

Turkish Muslims in Austria are demanding that the Lego toy company apologize for defaming the famous Hagia Sophia mosque in Istanbul. They claim that the Lego model of Jabba’s Palace from Star Wars was ‘obviously’ and deliberately copied from the famous Turkish sanctuary.

From the UK Telegraph:

The Turkish Cultural Community of Austria released a statement calling for Lego to apologise for affronting religious and cultural feelings.

The anger was provoked by “Jabba’s Palace”, a model of the home of Jabba the Hutt from Lego’s Star Wars product range based on the blockbusting series of science fiction films.

Jabba is the large slug-like creature who holds Han Solo captive in the film Return of the Jedi, and his palace is the setting for several crucial scenes, including using Princess Leia as his slave.

Jabba’s domed home and accompanying watchtower bear, according to the statement, an unwanted resemblance to Istanbul’s great Hagia Sophia, and another mosque in Beirut.

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Response: Another one of those situations where Muslim’s hypersensitivities are mistakenly bothered by crazy unintentional supposed slights and offenses. I wonder how many people will die over this if folks in the Middle East find out about it.

The toy was obviously designed from the Star Wars movie set and did not have Hagia Sophia in mind at all so Lego doesn’t owe any apologies to anyone. Maybe the Star Wars set designer was inspired by the ancient edifice but even then no slights against Islam would ever have been intended or in anyone’s imagination even suspected.

If any apologies are in order it is the Muslims who should be giving them for stealing Hagia Sophia from the Christians and making a mosque out of it in the first place. It originally stood for hundreds of years as the number one church of Christendom.               *Top