Landmark opens as a mosque for Muslim faithful
ISTANBUL — Fulfilling a dream of his Islamicoriented youth, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan joined hundreds of faithful Friday for the first Muslim prayers in 86 years inside Hagia Sophia, the Istanbul landmark that served as one of Christendom’s most significant cathedrals, a mosque and a museum before its conversion back into a Muslim place of worship.
Thousands of other Muslims came from across Turkey and filled specially designated areas outside of the Byzantine era monument to join in the inaugural prayers. Many others were turned away, while Orthodox Christian church leaders in Greece and the United States announced a “day of mourning” over Hagia Sophia’s return as a mosque.
The prayers began with Erdogan reciting from the Quran.
The head of Turkey’s religious authority, Ali Erbas, led the ceremony and prayed that Muslims would never again be “denied” the right to worship at the internationally celebrated 6th century structure.
Adem Yilmaz, who attended the prayers, expressed joy at experiencing “the making of history.”
“This turned into a place where all hearts beat at once,” he said.
Brushing aside international criticism, Erdogan issued a decree restoring the building as a mosque earlier this month, shortly after a Turkish high court ruled that the Hagia Sophia had been illegally made into a museum more than eight decades ago.
The structure, a UNESCO World Heritage site, has since been renamed “The Grand Hagia Sophia Mosque.”
The move sparked dismay in Greece, the United States and among Christian church leaders who had called on Erdogan to maintain Hagia Sophia as a museum in recognition of Istanbul’s multifaith heritage and the structure’s status as a symbol of Christian and Muslim unity.
The reopening of Hagia Sophia as a mosque threatens to deepen Turkey’s isolation following its military interventions in Syria and Iraq and amid international disputes over oilandgas rights in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
The decision was in line with Erdogan’s ambitions to raise Islam’s profile in Turkey and to make his country a leader in the Islamic world.
Hagia Sophia’s reemergence as a mosque is also being interpreted as a move aimed at consolidating Erdogan’s conservative and religious support at a time when his popularity is sagging amid an economic downturn.
“It allows him to switch the narrative away from the economy to the culture wars, an area where he did well in the past by mobilizing his rightwing base,” said Soner Cagaptay, an analyst for the Washington Institute and author of “Erdogan’s Empire.”
Built by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian in 537, Hagia Sophia was turned into a mosque with the 1453 Ottoman conquest of Istanbul. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founding leader of the secular Turkish republic, converted the structure into a museum in 1934.