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Comment by fathyb | Hacker News Reader

Nice use of scare quotes but that's false. It has been a mosque from 1453 until the 1930s.

I have to say, I'm seeing this kind of "byzantine fake news" more and more on HN threads related to Islamic history.

It was the premier eastern orthodox christian church for a 1000 years before that and taken by conquest. Of course some people are still salty about that. It would be like the Jews turning Mecca into a synagogue or st peters basilica being turned into a mosque

As a non-religious person, I find the indignation about the idea of turning one flavor of house of worship to the god of Abraham into another flavor of house of worship to the god of Abraham to be pretty amusing. And when it happens, it seems so spiteful! Last year I saw the Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba, and I was struck that the Catholics seemed to be stuffing figurative art _everywhere_, and I guessed it was partly to thumb their noses at the Muslims.

My understanding is that: (a) the three big Abrahamic religions all place the most emphasis on worshiping as a congregation on different days and (b) among each group, a minority of people who identify with the label actually go to worship with a congregation regularly. Would it really be _so_ bad if you had one big fancy palace which switched from hosting Muslims on Friday, Jews on Saturday, Christians on Sunday and could be a museum / community space / charity space Mon-Thurs?

With that view it can get even more amusing when you consider that it was first conquered by the latin empire during the 4th crusade and converted into a catholic church, and then back into an orthodox church about 60 years after, and then finally into a mosque about 200 years after!

As for an interfaith building, it's an interesting thought. There might be issues with ceremonies such as weddings, funerals, and events. There is the Abrahamic Family House in Abu Dhabi, but it's not a single building. I thought something like this might exist in Jerusalem, but I couldn't find any..

>Would it really be _so_ bad if you had one big fancy palace which switched from hosting Muslims on Friday, Jews on Saturday, Christians on Sunday and could be a museum / community space / charity space Mon-Thurs?

1. Muslims, Christians, and Jews view each other as disbelievers.

2. Mosques, and I assume churches and synagogues (I'm less familiar) do act as community and charity spaces.

3. Making a museum out of a place built for the worship and glorification of God is extremely offensive.

4. Mosques, and I assume churches and synagogues are not only used on Friday/Saturday/Sunday.

5. Your cariciature only makes sense if you view faith as a hobby to be set aside once you leave the mosque/church/synagogue gates, an ardently secular worldview at odds with faith.

Meditation rooms in many airports have a shared sacred space concept. They are often hard to find, but a practical example of cooperation and coexistence.

The Cathedral of Cordoba was a church (Arianism branch of Christianity) before the Muslims converted it to a mosque.

The Visigoth Kingdom was completely wiped out by Muslim invaders.

> As a non-religious person, I find the indignation about the idea of turning one flavor of house of worship to the god of Abraham into another flavor of house of worship to the god of Abraham to be pretty amusing.

It didn't happen by some committee decision, but mostly by killing everybody involved with the old version. That's an important detail.

What exactly is "false" or "fake news" about the parent comment? All three sentences look entirely factual to me:

The Hagia Sophia was indeed a church. The Hagia Sophia was also indeed a museum. The reconversion into a Mosque was also widely criticized.

The omission of the fact that it was a mosque since 1453. It hasn't been a Christian orthodox church for 567 years.

Do you think this is an accurate summary of your opinion on this matter?

>What exactly is "false" or "fake news" about the parent comment? All three sentences...to me. The...museum...was also widely criticized.

Lying by omission is still lying. Context matters.

That is not even a good example of lying by omission. You directly altered the facts as I presented them by joining sentence fragments. In this case, the grandparent comment is replying to an article that mentions the Hagia Sophia in the same breath as buildings that were built as mosques and have gone through their entire lifetimes as mosques. The comment does not have to restate the article point by point. If anyone is guilty of lying by omission it's the article's writer. They've erased most of the building's history.

>That is...a good example of lying by omission. You directly...presented...this case...point by point.

Thank you!

What the article's author wrote is fine. The Hagia Sophia was a mosque for about five hundred years. It is a mosque today. The last time it was a church is the 15th century. It is perfectly fine to mention a famous mosque in an article about mosques without getting into its (literally) ancient history.

pirate787, on the other hand, deliberately hid its long history as a mosque in service of proving a point.

And it's also perfectly fine to point out the rest of the building's entirely true and factual history, without having to accept snide remarks like "byzantine fake news".

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