Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan declared Istanbul's Hagia Sophia open to Muslim worship on Friday after a court ruled that the building's conversion to a museum by modern Turkey's founding statesman was illegal.
- Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan declared Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia open to Muslim worship on Friday after a court ruled that the building’s conversion to a museum by modern Turkey’s founding statesman was illegal.
Muslims gather for evening prayers in front of the Hagia Sophia or Ayasofya, after a court decision that paves the way for it to be converted from a museum back into a mosque, in Istanbul, Turkey, July 10, 2020. REUTERS/Murad Sezer“This is a choice which offends all those who also recognise the monument as a World Heritage Site. And of course it does not only affect relations between Turkey and Greece, but its relations with the European Union” - Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis.
“Erdogan has been flooding Turkey’s public space, education policy and government with a brand of conservative Islam, and Hagia Sophia is the crowning moment of Erdogan’s religious revolution which has been unfolding in Turkey for over a decade. “Just as Ataturk nearly 100 years ago ‘unmosqued’ Hagia Sophia to underline commitment to his own secularist revolution, to take religion out of politics, Erdogan is now doing nearly the opposite. He is reconverting the building into a mosque to underline his own religious revolution.”Our Standards:
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