Turkey To Convert Hagia Sophia Into A Mosque

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Status of Hagia Sophia

2 July 2020 – A Turkish court heard a case aimed at converting the Hagia Sophia back into a mosque.
It will announce its verdict within 15 days.
The 1,500-year-old structure, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, was originally a cathedral before it was turned into a mosque.

The History of Hagia Sophia

360 AD and 415 AD – 2 Churches were built at the site where the modern Hagia Sophia stands. They were later destroyed.
537 AD – The current structure built as a church during the reign of Emperor Justinian
It was built to become the seat of the Patriarch of the Eastern Orthodox Church and remained so for approximately 900 years.
It was the world’s largest building in world at the time and an engineering marvel.
It is famous for its large dome.
Hagia Sophia = Holy Wisdom

Cathedral to Mosque

In 1453, Constantinople fell to Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II
The Hagia Sophia was ransacked (but not completely destroyed) by the Ottoman armies.
It was turned into a mosque shortly after.
Massive interior renovations were carried out – the signs and symbols of Christianity were plastered over but still remain visible.
Minarets were added according to Islamic architecture.

Mosque to Museum

1919 – Ottoman Empire came to an end after WW1
1922 – The modern and secular Republic of Turkey was established in 1922 under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Pasha ‘Ataturk’.
1934 – Ataturk ordered that the Hagia Sophia be converted into a museum.
Hagia Sophia was chosen a World heritage site by UNESCO in 1985.
3 million visitors annually

The rule of Recep Tayyip Erdogan

2013 – Govt allowed the muezzin to call for prayer from the minarets of the museum.
2016 – On 1^st July, Muslim prayers were held again in the Hagia Sophia for the first time in 85 years
2018 – Erdogan Himself led prayers inside the museum.
2019 – The conversion issue was raised during local elections. Erdogan’s party lost the municipal elections in Istanbul.

2020 – Special Islamic prayers were held in the museum structure on the 567th anniversary of the Ottoman invasion
2020 – Erdogan’s rhetoric increased
Association for the Protection of Historic Monuments and the Environment, a group asking for the Hagia Sophia to be reverted from a museum to a mosque filed a case in Turkish courts.
Local media reports say the government was considering the possibility of keeping Hagia Sophia open to tourists even if it were turned into a mosque.

UNESCO

Decisions concerning the implementation of the Convention on the Protection of the World Cultural Heritage are taken by the World Heritage Committee.
If a country has signed on to the Convention and wants to change the name of a monument, it will have to submit its proposal for approval to the committee
The proposal has been criticised by several religious and political leaders, including the Istanbul-based Ecumenical Patriarch, spiritual leader of the world’s Orthodox Christians, as well as Greece, France and the United States.