Yet another chapter opened this Friday for Hagia Sophia, whose history beats the same pulse as that, chaotic, of this territory straddling two continents that is Istanbul, at the crossroads of civilizations and religions. Dating from the 4th century, destroyed, then rebuilt by the Byzantine emperor Justinian in 537, it was converted into a mosque after the conquest of Constantinople by the army of the Ottoman sovereign Mehmet II in 1453, then transformed into a museum open to all in 1934 by the will of Atatürk, founder of the secular Turkish Republic.
It was this decision, taken 86 years ago, that the Turkish Council of State, the country's highest administrative court, finally overturned on Friday. The subject of the re-Islamization of Hagia Sophia, Aya Sofya for the Turks, had become a chestnut tree since the coming to power of the AKP, the Islamo-conservative party of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in 2002. Reinforced by the legitimization of this religious speech, an Islamist association regularly demanded its return to mosque status.
"This sacred cathedral of Christianity and then of Islam was closed to worship to become a museum under the impulse of the very secularist Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who tried to give wages to the West, recalls Samim Akgönül, director of the department Turkish studies at the University of Strasbourg. This transformation into a museum was never digested by the Islamist currents of society, in particular by the brotherhoods, also subdued from the 1920s. ”
Erdogan, the firefighter turned arsonist
The current president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, liked to wave this red cloth like a tool of blackmail in the face of his Western partners. And for good reason: Muslims, Christians, Catholics, Orthodox, lovers of History, Hagia Sophia is the common good of all, classified as World Heritage by Unesco, enthroned at the top of the most visited monuments in Turkey. Unesco which has expressed its deep regret in a press release.
But faced with the economic crisis reinforced by the pandemic and its popularity at half mast, the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque was one of the last strategic cards to play for the president. Immediately after the decision of the Council of State, he signed a decree to reopen the monument as a mosque. “As an experienced pyromaniac firefighter, Erdogan consolidates his Islamist base on the one hand and gives the message of intractable leader abroad on the other. He is the one who does not give in to foreign pressures ”, assures Samim Akgönül.
But the effect could be short-lived. “Erdogan is a populist, using a rhetoric of victimization which found resonance with those who felt treated as second class citizens by the Kemalists. This rhetoric helped him maintain his base, but he mostly won the elections thanks to the phenomenal economic growth he brought to the country, explains Soner Cagaptay, director of research on Turkey at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. But, since 2018, the economy has been in crisis and this populist rhetoric no longer works, it is struggling to mobilize its base. One of his last assets was the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque. This will bring him a rebound of a few points, but not large enough or lasting enough to compensate for his loss of popularity. "
The mosque will remain open to non-Muslims
"We are going to perform Friday prayers together in Hagia Sophia on July 24 and thus open it up for (Muslim) worship," said President Erdogan in a speech. While adding that the former basilica, a major tourist destination in Istanbul (with 3.8 million annual visitors and a ticket whose price, around 13 euros, has doubled in recent years), “would remain open to all, Turks and foreigners, Muslims and non-Muslims. "
"Hagia Sophia is Erdogan's right of conquest," analyzes Hamit Bozarslan, historian and director of studies at Ehess. The moment of the conquest of Constantinople and the basilica transformed the Ottoman beylicat into an empire. Hence its importance for Erdogan who believes that the Turks have a historic mission: that which consists in dominating the world to bring it justice and harmony, and to serve as an armed wing of Islam. "
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The Orthodox world expressed its anger through the voices of Greece and the Russian Church. Vis-à-vis other European partners, Soner Cagpatay doubts that the conversion of Hagia Sophia will have an impact. “Since the refugee agreement in 2016, France and Germany have entered into transactional relations with Turkey. And in this type of exchange, values like those linked to Hagia Sophia do not count. "
