Turks push to turn museum into mosque
Iconic Hagia Sophia, with both Orthodox and Muslim history, has been a symbol of secular society since 1930s
Special for USA TODAY ATHENS For eight decades, the iconic Hagia Sophia museum in Istanbul has stood as a symbol of Turkey’s commitment to a secular society. Now that tradition is under siege by growing calls to convert the historic structure back into a practicing mosque.
The 1,500-year-old structure originally was built as an Orthodox Christian cathedral. It was turned into a mosque in the 15th century after the Ottoman Turks defeated the Greek emperor in Constantinople and renamed the city Istanbul. In the 1930s, the founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Ataturk, turned it into a museum in his drive to create a secular republic on the ruins of the Ottoman Empire.
Now that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is promoting a more prominent role for Islam in Turkey, whose citizens are overwhelmingly Muslim, the idea of turning the popular tourist attraction into a house of worship again has become more appealing.
“We want Hagia Sophia to open as a mosque,” said Yusuf Yalcin, 37, of Istanbul, an information technology manager who co-founded a group devoted to that cause. “Hagia Sophia is the relic of our ancestors and symbol of our freedom.”
The idea appears to have traction in Turkey’s political circles. Last year, the Turkish Ministry of Religious Affairs appointed an imam to the Hagia Sophia. That appointment came a few months after a muezzin, who calls the faithful to pray, chanted the Islamic morning prayer inside the Hagia Sophia for the first time since 1935. Sung during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, the muezzin’s call was broadcast on Turkish state television.
Those moves are causing a backlash among Greeks here.
“Obsessions, verging on bigotry, with Muslim rituals in a monument of world cultural heritage are incomprehensible,” the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement. “Such actions are not compatible with modern, democratic and secular societies.”
Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Tanju Bilgic said in a strident retort on state television that the Greek government goes out of its way to thwart the practice of Islam in Greece.
“Greece has not given permission for the construction of a mosque in its capital for years, permanently intervenes in the freedoms of religion of the Turkish minority of Western Thrace and mistakes being against Islam for being modern,” Bilgic said.
Yalcin said Turkey, by contrast, is more open to letting Christians practice their religion.
“Many churches have been functioning freely in Istanbul” ever since the city was captured by the Ottomans, he said.
That doesn’t satisfy Greeks who still feel bitter about the loss of Constantinople, once the heart of the Byzantine Empire.
Visiting the Hagia Sophia last year was the trip of a lifetime for Dimitra Anagnostopoulou, 59, a Greek bookseller.
“I felt awe,” she said. “But I was a bit let down by the Arabic signs left there from the time Hagia Sophia was turned into a mosque.”
Some Turks also worry about the push to convert the museum.
“Turning Hagia Sophia into a mosque has always been a cause for many conservative Islamists,” said Istanbul Bilgi University anthropologist Erkan Saka.
Historians note such changes have occurred throughout history, as Christians have converted pagan temples and mosques into churches or for secular uses.
“The same happens today in the West, when empty Christian cathedrals are sold as secular buildings,” said Sotiris Mitralexis, a philosophy professor at the City University of Istanbul.
Yalcin said everyone can be satisfied by using the Hagia Sophia as both a mosque and a museum. “All of the mosques in Turkey are open to everybody,” he said. “We even recommend that the upper floor be used as a kind of museum as it is now with the display of historical works.”