It was an actual scare quote free mosque from 1453 to 1934, so if anything the secular museum phase was out of character.

It's not a coincidence that the conversion to a museum coincided with Ataturk's sweeping reforms in making a secular state. The reversion is a mark of a return to fundamentalism and a decline into theocracy.

Hopefully there's something in between a pure secular state vs fundamentalism and theocracy that they'll settle on.

A tidbit info: Today's Hagia Sophia is version three of the original church. The original was made of wood and burned down. The second version was of stone and collapsed in an earthquake. The third version took 20+ years to build.

Another tidbit: Hagia Sophia can be translated to english as Saint Sofia. It is pronounced in Turkish as Aya Sofia. Aya is from an arabic word that means "sign" like sign of god (similar to "aya"-tullah in Iran). The similarity between "Hagia" and "Aya" is so strong as though it follows the concept of changing the "j" sound to "h" or "y" sound. When applying that same rule to "Ayatollah", you could basically translate the word to "Saint of God". Every time I think of this, it gives me the jitters.

Ayasofya seems more likely to be a Turkish transliteration of Hagia Sofia, given it is pronounced exactly the same.

transliteration of Greek "Αγία", to be more specific.

Probably not since a lot of churches start with the name Aya in Turkish because they are named after saints. (Like this one: https://tr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aya_%C4%B0rini)

Aya Irene is from the Era preceding Ottomans. That word means "Peace".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hagia_Irene?wprov=sfti1

They will never fully convert back to a mosque, absolutely no way they want the loss of tourism that will result from making probably the most iconic draw for tourism to the city a place that isn't open to the public in all respects.

Last time I was there a few years ago I recall there's a small section near one of the lower galleries off to the side that has been reopened for use as a sort-of-mosque but it's the size of a couple double wide trailers and not really part of the main structure as people think of it. It might be a test of the waters to see how far they can go but I promise you, money will trump religion in this case no question about it.

They have changed it since you last visited. It is now primarily used as a mosque instead of a museum. The old floors have been covered by a carpet and it hosts several prayers a day.

https://www.dailysabah.com/turkey/istanbul/istanbuls-reverte...

the floor is now covered, the upper levels are closed off to visitors. it seems to be working just like any other mosque, which you can also visit (like the one in the article, for example)

I've been several times over the last decade, and you've missed the most recent changes: As of my last trip a couple weeks ago it's now pretty heavily leaned into the mosque angle, with you having to take off your shoes to enter just like any other mosque, and they also covered up the stucco depictions of humans inside with large tapestries.

It's still aggressively available to the public, but you're not going to see much of the pre-Ottoman era inside.

It sounds like I did miss quite a lot of change, as of 2016 or 2017 I could still walk around pretty much anywhere on both levels and all of the main frescoes were still exposed (although a lot of material was still covered under plaster ... ostensibly for preservation). there was an minbar bar in the apse but it was skewed at an odd angle in a way that looked like it hadnt been used in quite a long time.

Did they cover up the frescoes in the pendentives of the main dome that depict the (very much non-human looking) seraphim?

> as of 2016 or 2017

They converted it to a mosque in 2020.

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..

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".

You forgot to mention that it was converted to a mosque in 1453 and stayed like that until 1930s. It was the symbol of the victory by Mehmet II.