Turkey reconverts Istanbul's Hagia Sophia museum into a mosque
aljazeera.com
aljazeera.com
What's happening here is very subtle and very sad. Other mosques have either limited or no access to non-muslims and it would be tragic if that happened to the Hagia Sophia and I don't think that anyone is going to speak out against this and even if they did, Erdogan has no reason to care.
All that said, I do recommend visiting Istanbul. It was a fantastic (if brief) trip with some really breathtaking things. I think we spent like two hours getting lost inside the old bazaar and never once walked the same street twice. The food is also so good. I could live on Turkish coffee and Baklava with some Kunefe for desert.
That's already blocking off a decent % of the day day, meaning the effective visitor capacity is similarly reduced.
Not to mention that having to force everyone out at scheduled times. When I was there we visited several mosques (also amazing places) and our guide scheduled our visits around prayer times and it made the logistics much more complex for those visits.
I also hate invoking the slippery slope arguments, but, if they were going to restrict access entirely (as with some mosques like Al-Aqsa and Dome of the Rock in Israel where I was last year) they would start by simply restricting things a bit. It's hard to see.
All that said, Turkey is free to do what they want and the Turkish people are going to support Erdogan. I'm just sad that in the future other people may never get to see this incredible site.
The Blue Mosque just across Hagia Sofia Mosque also allow visitors even during the prayers, except probably during the Friday prayer since it is really crowded. I never had the change to attend Friday prayer there so I am not sure, but I did at other times. Tourist are allowed to visit during prayers and even has the opportunity watching the prayer.
I think it will be very similar if not exactly the same manner. No worries about the visitors of any religion or of no religion. You can experience these majestic structures. I recommend Suleymaniye Mosque, which is much larger than then Blue Mosque but not as big as Hagia Sofia. The mosque at Edirne is from the same architect (Sinan [1]) and bigger than Hagia Sofia.
Current Hagia Sofia is actually the 2rd rebuilt of the original structure. Original was like the churches in Europe and more rectangular than this one, and did not have a dome. The last structure had dome initially but collapse couple of times and was rebuilt. The reason that it collapsed each time is due to the rectangular shape of the base and did not have enough support of half and quarter domes around it. Sinan the architect is actually the one succeeded to keep the dome from collapsing.
There's also an ayasofya in trebizond that was converted back to a mosque in 2013. That building is still open for visitors but unfortunately the main dome and its mosaics are now obscured by barriers put up during the conversion.
It would be a trajedy if the same thing happens in Istanbul. Hopefully it's enough of a tourist attraction that it doesn't happen.
Ayasofya is an incredibly impressive and beautiful building. There's nothing else like it in the world (even though it was a major influence on subsequent buildings for a thousand years.) Far more beautiful than European churches.
Fun facts, most of the mosques all over the world copied the Christian's origin Haghia Sophia's dome based architecture and the dome becomes a generic symbol for mosque in apps, etc. On the other hand, churches all over the world are mainly based on the Gothic architecture. The Gothic architecture is most probably originated from Muslim Spanish empire although it's claimed to have Roman and French influences [1]. This can be seen from the infamous architecture of Great Mosque of Cordoba or Mesquita (built AD784) the world's largest mosque during its time, now a church. The other popular mosque inspired by Mesquita mosque is Spanish Mosque (built AD1906) in Hyderabad, India.
Arguably, the more visually appealing and beautiful architecture based on Haghia Sophia is what made it being adopted by most of the mosques around the world and the demise of Muslim Spanish in the 15th century that really sealed the fate of the Gothic based architecture for adoption in modern mosques.
[1]https://muslimheritage.com/muslim-origin-of-gothic-architect...
Not really, The Selimiye Mosque [2] surpassed Hagia Sofia, not only the diameter of the dome also its robustness of its structure. Taj Mahal is a product of inspiration taken from Mimar Sinan and they studied Sinan's work.
"Mimar Sinan's architectural concepts were incorporated into the design of the famous Taj Mahal" [1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimar_Sinan [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selimiye_Mosque,_Edirne
”For it soars to a height to match the sky, and as if surging up from among the other buildings it stands on high and looks down upon the remainder of the city, adorning it, because it is a part of it, but glorying in its own beauty.”
The "Viking grafitti" is really interesting!