Bethan McKernan - Ayasofya: the mosque-turned-museum at the heart of an ideological battle

By Dilip -
For 900 years, Muslim caliphs and sultans took it upon themselves to fulfil the Prophet Mohammed’s prophecy that a great conqueror would one day bring the holy city of Constantinople into Islam’s embrace.  In 1453, when Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II finally succeeded in breaking through the Byzantine city’s walls, he immediately made his way to the largest cathedral in Christendom. 

 As sunlight glittered off gold mosaics of the Virgin Mary and incense smoke drifted up into the building’s vast dome, he fell on his knees and prayed. The young conqueror’s decision to convert the Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom) in Greek, now known as Ayasofya in Turkish – into an imperial mosque was a powerful symbolic act, as was a move nearly one hundred years ago by the Turkish Republic’s secular founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, to turn the place of worship into a museum. Today, the Ayasofya is still at the heart of a potent ideological battle. 

 Converting Istanbul’s crowning architectural treasure back into a mosque has been a cause close to the hearts of Turkish nationalists and Islamists for decades. It has been opposed with equal fervour by Greece and Turkish liberals who argue the move would disrespect the history of the country’s Christian minority and erode the Republic’s secular character….
read more:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/30/ayasofya-the-mosque-turned-museum-at-the-heart-of-an-ideological-battle

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