Can Hagia Sophia become a mosque?

After 86 years Friday prayers were conducted in Hagia Sophia after Erdogan decided to “re-instate” Hagia Sophia’s status to a mosque. For Greeks this is a sore spot and especially poignant. During the Arab attack on Constantinople in the 7th c, the population gathered in Hagia Sophia to pray to the Holy Virgin to protect the city from the Muslim attack. Understandably the “re-instatement” has riled Greeks especially, so I want to add some thoughts here.

Offering congregational prayers in a place does not make it a mosque. Muslims can offer congregational prayers anywhere: by the roadside, in a field, in a football pitch, in any place that is clean, free from danger and with the owner's permission.

To draw a parallel: throughout its 3,000 year history, the Parthenon was converted to a church and a mosque, but it has been and always remains a temple to Pallas Athene. In the same way, Hagia Sophia was built as an Orthodox Church and this is what it is, no matter what anyone says. Both the Parthenon and the Hagia Sophia belong to world heritage, despite what political expediency dictates. Let us not succumb to agendas that highlight religious differences for their own political aims.

© Sofia A Koutlaki 2020