As Turkey Turns from the West, Islanbul's Most Iconic Building Is Claimed for Islam

NEWSWEEK: Empires have risen and fallen, but the dome of the great basilica remains, dominating the skyline of Istanbul for the past 14 centuries. Built by the Roman emperor Justinian in 532 as the Church of the Holy Wisdom, the Hagia Sophia served as the principal church of Eastern Christianity for 916 years. When the Turkish Sultan Mehmet II captured the city in 1453, he stopped at the monumental porch and stooped to scatter dust on his turban as a gesture of humility before Allah the Victory-Giver.

On Mehmet's order, the church became the mosque of Ayasofya (the Turkish spelling), a symbol of the triumph of the Ottoman Turks and of the supremacy of Islam. In 1935, the founder of modern Turkey, Kemal Atatürk, ordered Ayasofya opened as a museum, a symbol of the secular, modern republic he was forging from the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. "Atatürk made the Hagia Sophia a monument to what Turkey could become," said Anthony Eastmond, AG Leventis Reader in the history of Byzantine art at London's Courtauld Institute of Art. "By turning it from a mosque into a museum, he made it a place for all people."

Now the Hagia Sophia (the usual English spelling) has once again become a symbol – this time of the very contemporary battle for the soul of Turkey between Islamists and secularists. Vocal religious-conservative activists, some with links to the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party, are pressuring the government to reconsecrate the site for Islam. … » | Owen Matthews, Sila Alici | Wednesday, June 03, 2015