Thu 02 July 2020:
Turkey’s top court completed the hearing on whether Hagia Sophia should remain a museum or be turned into a mosque ends and will deliver a written verdict within 15 days.
From a symbol of Christendom after its establishment by Byzantine emperor Justinian I in the sixth century, to an emblem of the Muslim Ottoman Empire‘s sprawling influence, the Hagia Sophia has been at the heart of a centuries-old ideological and political battle.
After Fatih Sultan Mehmed II conquered Constantinople in 1453 and brought the city – which later became known as Istanbul – into the fold of Islam, he converted the Hagia Sophia from a cathedral to a mosque.
For hundreds of years, Muslim worshippers from around the world flocked to the city‘s red-coloured architectural jewel to perform their daily prayers as it stood high with its imposing grey dome and towering minarets.
But in the early 1930s, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the modern Turkish republic, closed the mosque and turned the building into a museum as part of his drive to secularise and modernise the country.
Calls to reconvert the Hagia Sophia, also known as the Ayasofya, back into a mosque have since been on the rise.
Growing sharper in recent years, the demand came mostly from Turkey‘s religious-leaning and nationalist constituencies, many of whom regularly demonstrated at the gates of the Hagia Sophia every May 29, the anniversary of the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople.
Not a domestic controversy
For Hamdi Arslan, a Turkish academic and longtime supporter of the cause, Hagia Sophia holds “both religious and symbolic significance,” he told Al Jazeera, while reminiscing over the times he demonstrated alongside Erdogan at its gate in the 1970s.
“For 50 years, I’ve been waiting for the shackles around the Hagia Sophia to be removed and its original identity as a mosque restored. We won’t give up on that,” he said.
According to Galip Dalay, a Tukey specialist and fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy, the potential move has not been controversial domestically, but rather on the international stage.
“The controversy isn’t inside Turkey, but between Ankara and the EU [European Union], Greece or even the US. None of the political parties oppose the idea of opening the Hagia Sophia as a mosque,” said Galip.
“That’s because most parties either support this move or they don’t want to give Erdogan another tool to polarise society because they know the majority of Turks are for it.”
A poll published last month found 73 percent of Turks were in favour of the conversion.
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