From The Daily Beast
Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc recently threw his weight behind calls to convert the building from its present status as a museum into a mosque, and a right-wing opposition party in Ankara has tabled a bill in parliament calling for the conversion.
Built in the 6th century, the Hagia Sophia was the most important church of the Byzantine Empire for almost a millennium before the Muslim Ottomans turned it into a mosque after their 1453 conquest of Constantinople, as Istanbul was then called.
After the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in World War I, the founder of modern Turkey’s secular republic, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, declared the Hagia Sophia a museum open to visitors of all faiths in 1935. A UNESCO world heritage site since 1985, the majestic building draws close to than 3.3 million visitors annually and is one of Istanbul’s main tourist attractions.
The Hagia Sophia reflects both its Christian and Muslim traditions. Circular wooden frames bearing the names of Allah, the Prophet Mohammed, his two grandchildren and of the first four caliphs adorn columns under the main dome, close to a Christian mosaic depicting the Virgin and the Child in the apse of the former basilica.
But Deputy PM Arinc says he wants the Hagia Sophia to be a mosque again. “We look upon this poor Hagia Sophia today,” he said during a speech near the building last month. “We pray that she may smile again very soon.”
