ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — The elder brother of northeast Syria’s (Rojava) ruling Democratic Union Party (PYD) leadership member, Salih Muslim, died at a Turkish hospital on Saturday after contracting COVID-19, reported Turkish media. He was a prominent Islamic scholar and had often criticized his younger brother’s policies. Prof. Dr. Mustafa Muslim, 81, tested positive for coronavirus recently and died at a hospital in Turkey’s Gaziantep province on Saturday, reported Turkish news outlet ILKHA. Several officials from Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) confirmed his death, expressing their condolences. The Islamic scholar was the elder brother of the PYD’s leadership member, Salih Muslim, but they are known to have had drastically different political views and approaches. Salih is wanted by Turkey for his alleged terrorism links, while Mustafa was highly respected by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the AKP and Turkey’s Islamic scholars. Fleeing the Syrian crisis after 2011, Mustafa took refuge in Turkey and soon erected strong relations with the ruling AKP. He was granted asylum after eight years. He hosted a program on state-owned TRT Kurdi where he interpreted the Quran in Kurdish. He had also been the rector of Gaziantep International Ez-Zehra University since 2014. The scholar was born in Rojava’s Kobane in 1940 and studied Islamic studies in Syria. He had taught in Syria, the Kurdistan Region and Turkey. Speaking at an event, attended by Erdogan, in Diyarbakir (Amed) in June 2018, he praised Turkish president as a “believer and a Muslim.” “When a believer promises, they fulfill them … I say that they [Kurds] — all should support Erdogan in this stage,” he added. He has also claimed that no previous Turkish governments has granted Kurds the freedoms the AKP has. “Before 20-30 years, no one dared to say: ‘I am a Kurd’ or work in the market. Thanks be to Allah, Kurds have their own income and TVs. Other things are being added step by step,” said the Kurdish scholar. He was often seen on Turkish media during the country’s offensive on the Kurdish city of Afrin in 2018, as well as when PYD’s armed wing the People’s Protection Units (YPG) was resisting the Islamic State (ISIS) group’s takeover of the Kurdish city of Kobane, where the professor spoke against the activities and policies of his younger brother’s party.
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