Even more interesting: Jesus+Mary icons were kept inside the kaaba in Mecca in early Islam. Prophet Mohammed *ordered* them to stay, even as he ordered pagan idols to be demolished. They stayed some 60 years, destroyed only when the kaaba itself was pulverized by the Ummayids. https://twitter.com/seyyahphd/status/1337505514079588352

Also interesting how Muslim clerics justify the act, if they do mention it. They say the Prophet didn't need to campaign against Christians at the time because Christianity wasn't heavily present in Arabia, so he focused on the pagans. Also showed respect to Jesus not Christians.

But that lame justification works the other way. He did not need to appease Christians so he kept what many Muslim clerics today consider heretical, apparently including Erdogan who covered such symbols when he converted Hagia Sophia to a mosque.