SUN SETS ON THE MUSEUM

Last week this 1,500-year-old building in Istanbul held Friday prayers for the first time in 84 years after the controversial decision to turn it from a museum back into a mosque. The change — 15 years of court cases in the making — has been hugely divisive, with critics calling it a populist political move that alienates non-Muslims, and will no doubt have a negative impact on visitors’ ability to admire the treasures within.

Built in 537 on the orders of Byzantine Emperor Justinian I, the building has been a church — an Eastern Orthodox cathedral, a Roman Catholic cathedral, then an Eastern Orthodox cathedral again — and was converted into a mosque in 1453. In 1934, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founding father of the Turkish republic, had it declared a museum — what the Washington Post calls “a monument to a universal legacy that transcends religion and underscored Istanbul’s place at the heart of different cultures and faiths”.

Today, it is one of Turkey’s top attractions; an estimated 3.7-million visited in 2019.

Though the government has said it will remain open to visitors of all nationalities and faiths, and that the Christian iconography inside will be preserved (but covered up during prayers), not all are convinced. Unesco, for one, says it may be stripped of its world heritage status as a place of “universal value”, since the “inclusive and equitable participation of communities” is a condition that the building may no longer meet.

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