We therefore know the name of the 3272nd mosque in Istanbul: the “Hagia Sophia mosque” . Examining the complaint of a Muslim association, the Turkish State Council on Friday revoked the status of museum of the millennial building. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan can now avail himself of a court decision to fulfill the dream of the Turkish Islamists: to reconquer, religiously and politically, this symbol of Istanbul.
Read also: Turkey: a court opens the way to the transformation of Hagia Sophia into a mosque
From 537 and for more than nine centuries, Hagia Sophia remained a church, a jewel of Byzantine art. When he conquered Constantinople in 1453, Sultan Mehmet II immediately made it a mosque, without destroying his Christian heritage. In 1934, eleven years after the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the advent of the Republic, its first president, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, "offered to humanity" by transforming it into a museum. For decades, circular panels proclaiming the names of Allah and his prophet Mohammed have responded to the mosaics of Christ and the Virgin
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