Istanbul - President Tayyip Erdogan
declared Istanbul's Hagia Sophia a mosque on Friday with the
first Muslim prayers to begin in two weeks, after a top court
ruled the ancient building's conversion to a museum by modern
Turkey's founding statesman was illegal.
Erdogan spoke on Friday just hours after the court ruling
was published, brushing aside international warnings not to
change the status of the nearly 1,500-year-old monument that is
revered by Christians and Muslims alike.
The United States, Russia and church leaders were among
those to express concern about changing the status of the UNESCO
World Heritage Site, a focal point of both the Christian
Byzantine and Muslim Ottoman empires and now one of the most
visited monuments in Turkey.
Greece's culture ministry described the court decision as an
"open provocation" to the civilized world, while UNESCO said it
regretted it was not notified ahead of time and would now review
the building's status.
Erdogan has sought to shift Islam into the mainstream of
Turkish politics in his 17 years at the helm. He has long
floated restoring the mosque status of the sixth-century
building, which was converted into a museum in the early days of
the modern secular Turkish state under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
"With this court ruling, and with the measures we took in
line with the decision, Hagia Sophia became a mosque again,
after 86 years, in the way Fatih the conqueror of Istanbul had
wanted it to be," Erdogan said in a national address.
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, backdropped by a photograph of the Byzantine-era Hagia Sophia, delivers a televised address to the nation, in Ankara. Picture: Presidential Press Service via AP
In a telling of history at times critical of the Byzantine
Empire and the modern republic's founders, Erdogan said Turkey
could now leave behind "the curse of Allah, profits and angels"
that Fatih - the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet II - said would be on
anyone who converted it from a mosque.
"Like all our mosques, the doors of Hagia Sophia will be
open to all, locals and foreigners, Muslims and non-Muslims,"
said Erdogan, who earlier on Friday signed off on the Religious
Affairs Directorate managing the site.
APPLAUSE
The association which brought the court case, the latest in
a 16-year legal battle, said Hagia Sophia was the property of
Sultan Mehmet II who captured the city in 1453 and turned the
already 900-year-old Greek Orthodox cathedral into a mosque.
The Ottomans built minarets alongside the vast domed
structure, while inside they added panels bearing the Arabic
names of God, the Prophet Mohammad, and Muslim caliphs. The
golden mosaics and Christian icons, obscured by the Ottomans,
were uncovered again when Hagia Sophia became a museum.
In its ruling the Council of State, Turkey's top
administrative court, said: "It was concluded that the
settlement deed allocated it as a mosque and its use outside
this character is not possible legally.
People chant slogans following Turkey's Council of State's decision, outside the Byzantine-era Hagia Sophia in the historic Sultanahmet district of Istanbul. Turkey's Council of State threw its weight behind a petition brought by a religious group and annulled a 1934 cabinet decision that changed the 6th-century building into a museum. Picture: Emrah Gurel/AP
"The cabinet decision in 1934 that... defined it as a museum
did not comply with laws," it said, referring to an edict signed
by Ataturk.
Erdogan, a pious Muslim, threw his weight behind the
campaign before local elections last year which dealt a painful
blow to his ruling Islamist-rooted AK Party. Members stood and
applauded in parliament on Friday when his decree was read out.
In Istanbul, hundreds of people gathered near Hagia Sophia
to celebrate the ruling. "Those who built this did it to worship
God as well," said Osman Sarihan, a teacher.
"Thank God today it reverted to its main purpose. Today God
will be worshipped in this mosque."
Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, backdropped by a photograph of the Byzantine-era Hagia Sophia, delivers a televised address to the nation, in Ankara. Picture: Presidential Press Service via AP
REVERSING ATATURK STEP
By reversing one of Ataturk's most symbolic steps, which
underlined the former leader's commitment to a secular republic,
Erdogan has capped his own project to restore Islam in public
life, said Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research
Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
"Hagia Sophia is the crowning moment of Erdogan's religious
revolution which has been unfolding in Turkey for over a
decade," he said, pointing to greater emphasis on religion in
education and across government.
An aerial view of the Byzantine-era Hagia Sophia. Picture: AP
The Russian Orthodox Church said it regretted that the court
did not take its concerns into account and said the decision
could lead to even greater divisions, the TASS news agency
reported.
Previously, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual
head of some 300 million Orthodox Christians worldwide and based
in Istanbul, said converting it into a mosque would disappoint
Christians and would "fracture" East and West.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had also urged Turkey to
maintain the building as a museum.
But Turkish groups have long campaigned for Hagia Sophia's
conversion, saying it would better reflect Turkey's status as an
overwhelmingly Muslim country.