Hagia Sophia .. the dialectic of the church, mosque and museum

“Hagia Sophia” is a majestic Turkish religious edifice; It is predominantly Muslim and Christian alike . After it was the largest cathedral for Orthodox Christians for nine hundred years, it became one of the greatest mosques of Muslims for nearly five centuries, then it became an art museum since 1934 by political decision. It is considered by UNESCO as a historical monument belonging to the world cultural wealth .

The site
is said that the name Aya Sofia means in Greek "holy wisdom", and its edifice was constructed at the entrance to the Bosphorus in the European section of Istanbul, Turkey. Today its location is known as the "Sultanahmet District".

Architecture
when Hagia Sophia was built, it was intended - architecturally - to be the largest Christian church, and a testament to the advanced technical capabilities of the then Byzantine Empire.

Its building, which took five years to construct and represents one of the masterpieces of Byzantine art, includes a wide dome that is 55.6 meters high and 32 meters in diameter, and is based on four huge pillars of 24.3 meters each. This is in addition to the walls built of marble brought in from many countries, and decorated with shiny golden mosaics and colored stones.

The main building is 82 meters long, 73 meters wide, 55 meters high, and has nine gates. Its surface was covered with mosaic stones, and the walls - after converted into a mosque - are decorated with inscriptions of the Ottoman calligrapher. Also added four cylindrical minarets in the Ottoman style.

History
The Hagia Sophia was erected in 537 by order of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I (527-565) - whose rule extended from Spain to the Middle East region - as a religious edifice unparalleled in the Christian world, and a title of the strength of the Eastern Roman state.

It remained the official church of the Byzantine Christian state and the jewel of its capital, Constantinople, although it was destroyed and burned more than once, until the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II (known as "Muhammad Al-Fatih") conquered the city in 1453 and changed its name to "Istanbul", and entered this church where he prayed the first Friday after The conquest, and making it a large mosque, symbolizes - in the opposite direction - the power and control of the Ottoman Empire.

From that time on, the Hagia Sophia became a great Islamic mosque with a large symbolism among the Turks, until their military leader Mustafa Kemal Ataturk - who ended the rule of the Ottoman caliphate in 1923 and declared a secular republic in its place - banned religious rites in it in 1931, then transformed him in 1935 to An art museum with Islamic and Christian archaeological treasures.

Many Turks are still looking forward to the day when the Hagia Sophia Museum returns to a mosque for Muslims. On May 27, 2012, thousands of Muslims prayed in front of its building in protest of the law banning religious rites in it, on the occasion of the 559th anniversary of the victory of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror and conquest of Constantinople. The protesters chanted, "Break the chains ... and open the Hagia Sophia Mosque ... the captive mosque."

In 2013, a Turkish academic journal published a paper on Turkish historian Yusuf Halagoglu and two researchers who said that it was not possible to make the Hagia Sophia a museum, because its transformation into a museum was done "illegally" by forging Ataturk's signature on the decision on the subject.

But Recep Tayyip Erdogan responded to these demands - when he was prime minister in 2013 - that he would not consider changing the status of Hagia Sophia as long as there is another great Islamic edifice in Istanbul that is almost empty of worshipers and is the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, whose construction dates back to the 17th century, pointing to The city has more than three thousand mosques.

With the succession of demands for the return of the Hagia Sophia mosque; The Justice and Development Party government allowed the opening of a mosque in the back of the building, and the most beautiful muezzin of Istanbul assigned voices to remove the call to prayer from a building located in the “Aya Sofia” square, so that the call to prayer echoed through the loudspeakers in its minarets.

Then, in June 2016, the Turkish Religious Affairs Presidency issued a decision to recite the Qur’an daily in Ayia Sofia during the holy month of Ramadan for the year 1437 AH, and launched a religious program for Night of Destiny entitled “Better than a Thousand Month”, at the end of which the Turkish muezzin Sheikh Fateh Koca The call to prayer from the same location from which the last time the Hagia Sophia was lasted 85 years ago, which is a period equal to approximately "thousand months".

The state of Greece criticized these steps and considered that "the Turkish behavior reaches the limits of religious fanaticism, shows a separation from reality, and that these actions are not compatible with democratic and secular societies," and represents "an insult to the feelings of millions of Christians."

Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual leader of three hundred million Orthodox Christians worldwide, also demanded that the Hagia Sophia site be kept a museum.

The American Commission for Religious Freedom in the World - a US-led congressional advisory panel - issued a statement saying that the return of the Hagia Sophia Mosque "would jeopardize Turkey's international status and bring to mind the mistreatment of Christians over the past century".

But the Turks say that the Greeks have no right to object to reading the Qur’an in Hagia Sophia after they demolished many of the Ottoman monuments that remained in their country that were for centuries subject to the rule of the Ottomans, and misused other monuments to the point that one of the mosques of the city of Thessaloniki was converted into a cinema showing pornographic films, as well as Athens is among the few world capitals in which mosques are not permitted to be built.

Status
The Hagia Sophia is seen as a world archaeological landmark, reflecting the diversity of the cultural heritage of Istanbul, which is located on the point of cultural intersection between East and West, and has historically been the capital of the Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman Empires. It was included by UNESCO in 1985 in its list of World Heritage Sites.

But it represents a global cultural symbol that has a special weight for Orthodox Christians everywhere, and it is a religious tourist destination for millions of them due to its religious and emotional connotation. For the Greeks, among them in particular, it is a strong memory symbol of a historical period that embodies their hopes for a better future, not with the intention of expansion and expansion, but in terms of Christian religious consolation.

On the economic front, Hagia Sophia is ranked second among the most attractive Turkish museums for tourists. In 2012, it attracted 3.3 million visitors. Among the most famous Christian religious figures that I visited in the last five decades was the late Pope John Paul VI, who raised a surprise when he knelt and prayed during his visit to Turkey in 1967.

On the evening of Thursday, November 30, 2006, his successor, Pope Benedict XVI, visited her, then he went to visit the Blue Mosque, overcoming the great controversy that had arisen over his visit to these places. Then he repeated her visit, succeeded by Pope Francesco on November 29, 2014.