(By Manasi Agarwal)

Hagia Sophia (pronounced as HaiyuhSohfeea) officially known as Ayasofya-iKebirCami-iŞerifi, literally means Holy Mosque of Hagia Sophia the Grand is a place of worship in Istanbul, Turkey. Sophia in Latin is wisdom. It was built by the eastern Roman emperor Justinian I as the Christian cathedral of Constantinople for the State Church of the Roman Empire between 532 and 537 and then had the world’s largest interior space. It is said to have “changed the history of architecture” due to its design.

It remained the world’s largest cathedral for nearly a thousand years, until Seville Cathedral, Spain was completed in 1520.In 1453, after the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire, it was converted into a mosque by Mehmed II, the Sultan of Ottoman, when he performed the Friday prayer and Khutbah (sermon) in Hagia Sophia. The church’s priests and religious personnel were performing Christian rites, prayers and ceremonies until forced to stop by the Sultan Mehmed II and his entourage entered the church.The complex remained a mosque until 1931, when it was closed to the public for four years. In 1935, the first Turkish President and founder of the Republic of Turkey, 

Mustafa Kemal Ataturk transformed the building into a museum.The World Monuments Fund (WMF) placed Hagia Sophia on 1996 and 1998 in the list of World Monuments, the most endangered cultural landmarkand secured grants from 1997 to 2002 for the restoration of the damaged dome, repairs of the roof and structural stabilization. The WMF project was complete by 2006. Since 2018, The Turkish President RecepTayyip Erdogan tried to revert the status of the Hagia Sophia back to a mosque. On 31 March 2018, he recited the first verse of the Quran in the Hagia Sophia dedicating the prayer to the “souls of all who left us this work as inheritance, especially Istanbul’s conqueror,” strengthening the movement to make the Hagia Sophia a mosque, which would reverse Ataturk’s measure of turning the mosque into a secular museum. In March 2019 Erdogan said that he would change the status of Hagia Sophia adding that it was a “very big mistake” to turn it into a museum. 

As a UNESCO World Heritage site, this change required approval from UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee. In 2020, Turkey’s government celebrated the 567^thanniversary of the Fall of Constantinople with an Islamic prayer in Hagia Sophia.In early July 2020, the Council of State annulled the 1934 decision to establish the museum, revoking the monument’s status, and a subsequent decree by the president Erdogan ordered the reclassification of Hagia Sophia as a mosque. The 1934 decree was ruled to be unlawful under both Ottoman and Turkish law as Hagia Sophia’s waqf, endowed by Sultan Mehmed II, had designated the site a mosque. The proponents of the decision argued the Hagia Sophia was the personal property of the sultan. The call to prayer was called out from the minarets shortly after the announcement of the change and broadcast by major Turkish news networks.

The conversion from museum to mosque invoked condemnation from all over the World.The Archbishop of Constantinople said that “the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque would disappoint millions of Christians around the world.It was a vital center where East is embraced with the West and would fracture these two worlds”. The Orthodox Christian leaders, the Russian Orthodox Church statedthat it is “a threat to Hagia Sophia was a threat to all of Christian civilization”.  The UNESCO announced that it “deeply regret” the conversion “made without prior discussion”. The World Council of Churches, which claims to represent 500 million Christians of 350 denominations, condemned the decision to convert the building into a mosque. The Pope of Vatican City said “My thoughts go to Istanbul. I think of Santa Sophia and I am very pained”.

The Turkish government was surprised at the reaction of UNESCO, saying that “We have to protect our ancestors’ heritage. The function can be this way or that way – it does not matter”.With all these developments in the backdrop, the Eidnamazthis year was offered in the Hagia Sophia mosque after 90 years. The mosque is the most visited tourist attraction in Turkey and around 40 lakh people visit to this place every year.