IT’S A CHURCH. NO, IT’S A MOSQUE. WAIT, WASN’T IT A MUSEUM? Today’s Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque has been all of these! Back before Constantinople became Istanbul, sometime around 325AD when the city was still called Byzantium, Constantine I ordered a church to be built on the site of a pagan temple.
Transitioning from a Square to a Round Dome isn't as simple as it looks
The building was destroyed by fire and rebuilt twice over the next two centuries. Today’s structure was designed by a pair of Greek architect/mathematicians who figured out a way to place a circular dome atop a square base—sort of. As anyone who follows the news today knows, Turkey lies on a major fault line and earthquakes are common—Connie noticed our room shaking just last night—and the dome suffered several partial collapses. Buttressing the walls and making the dome lighter and smaller seems to have been the solution and Hagia Sophia was the Cathedral of the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople for the next 1000 years.
Minbar or pulpit from where the Koran is read
Mihrab points the way to Mecca
Original Mosaic was plastered over then uncovered
Moasics outside of the main hall
After the Muslim conquest of Constantinople in 1453, Sultan Mehmed II declared Hagia Sophia as a mosque, added minarets, mihrab and minbar and ordered it protected in perpetuity. In defiance of Muslim tradition of not depicting human forms—only Allah can do that—Mehmed did not order the mosaic of Mary and Jesus destroyed. It remained uncovered in the mosque until 1739 when it was plastered over.
View from the gallery, no lonter permitted (from internet)
Mosaic of Mary and Jesus before and after draperies were added (from internet)
How it looks today
In 1934, Turkey’s charismatic leader Kemel Atatürk ordered the building secularized, eventually turning into a museum. The plaster over the mosaic of Mary and Jesus, along with many others, was carefully removed. This is the Unesco World Heritage Hagia Sophia that we saw in fifteen years ago. Jump forward—or back—to June, 2020 when current president Erdogan made the decision to turn Hagia Sophia back into a mosque and soon calls to prayer from its minaret joined those from Istanbul’s other 2200 mosques.
Hagia Sophia is still pretty spectacular
Roman columns with lacey capitls
Islam on a grand scale
Interior of Hagia Sophia
Free admission aside—most attractions in Istanbul cost a bundle—we almost skipped it. It just wouldn’t be the same experience. Visiting hours revolve around daily prayer times, the wonderful mosaics are covered and you can no longer visit the upper galleries. Then we realized that our photos weren’t digital, Connie scanned them from film and there are blessed few of them—remember how much film and developing used to cost!—so we queued up in the rain at 9am, removed our shoes at the door and wandered around until our feet were too cold. It wasn’t the same experience but we're glad we did it. You can hardly visit Istanbul without visiting “Holy Wisdom.”
