Situated on a hill overlooking the Sea of Marmara and the Bosphorus, Hagia Sophia has gone through various transformations since it was built in what is now Istanbul in 537 and it remains one of the most important monuments of the world. And now it will once again house prayers while remaining open for visitors. But let's first look at how the majestic structure came into being and how it functioned over time. Byzantine Emperor Constantius II commissioned the construction of the first Hagia Sophia in 360. It was built with a wooden roof, and was soon burned to the ground in riots. Theodosius II built a second version as a grand marble structure in 415, which was razed to the ground for the second time during the Nica Revolt in 532. Some fragments of that building still remain today.
The building that does remain today was built in 537 during the reign of Emperor Justinian I, whose desire was to build the largest church of his time. According to oral tradition, after its completion, he exclaimed, Solomon, I have surpassed you. Referring to the first temple built by King Solomon. Hagia Sophia then remained the world's largest church for nearly a thousand years. The church was fortified and turned into a mosque after the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II conquered Istanbul in 1453. The Sultan kept the name Hagia Sophia while he had the church repurposed as a mosque after covering mosaics along its walls with plasters.
He also added Islamic features such as minarets and a mihrab, a niche in the wall where the Muslim Imam would lead prayer in the direction of Mecca. It remained the principal mosque in Istanbul right up until 1616, when construction on the Sultan Ahmet Mosque, also known as the Blue Mosque, was finally completed. In 1931, the founder of the Byzantine Institute of America, Thomas Whitmore, traveled to Istanbul and obtained the permission of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the first president of the Republic of Turkey, to oversee the removal of plaster covering the Byzantine mosaics in Hagia Sophia and turn it from a mosque into a museum.
The 1972 book, Haya Sofya, A History of Constantinople, quotes Whitmore as saying, Santa Sofia was a mosque the day I talked to him. The next morning, when I went to the mosque, there was a sign on the door written in Ataturk's own hand. It said the museum is closed for repairs. While some say these steps are what led to the conversion, some Turkish historians claim Ataturk considered turning Haya Sofya into a museum as early as 1923, the year the Turkish Republic was founded.
But it was in 1935 that Atatürk ordered the conversion along with the Turkish Assembly of Ministers. The majestic dome structure was named one of UNESCO's World Heritage Sites and it has been Turkey's most popular tourist attraction ever since, seeing 3.8 million visitors in 2019. In recent years, there have been calls to return the eclectic structure back into a mosque to honor the Islamic history of the country and the legacy of Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II. A hearing on whether Hagia Sophia should remain a museum where no prayer is allowed was held on July 2. The court has now decided that prayers will be able to resume once more at the Hagia Sophia, paving the way for it to become a mosque once more, while visitors will still be able to visit the historical site. Turkish President Erdogan says the Ottomans converted the building into a mosque instead of raising it, a fate he says was suffered by many mosques taken from the Ottomans and that its historical, cultural and sentimental value has been protected ever since. He also noted that there are 435 churches and synagogues in Turkey where Christians and Jews can pray.