Hagia Sophia

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Old news in Turkey: What does Islam teach about turning Christian churches into mosques?

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THE QUESTION:

What does Islam teach about seizing Christian churches to become mosques?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

The bitterly contested Hagia Sophia (“Holy Wisdom”) in Constantinople (the city now named Istanbul) was the grandest church in Christendom across nine centuries. Then Muslim conquerors under Mehmed II confiscated the church in 1453 and converted it into the Aya Sofia Mosque. In 1935, Turkey’s government secularized it to be an interfaith museum, but three weeks ago turned it into a working mosque once again.

Christian leaders worldwide are aggrieved by that latest development.

But apart from Christian feelings and fears for the future of the building’s celebrated artwork, in strictly Islamic terms was the 1453 takeover of a church proper? Should it be perpetuated in 2020, and are such takeovers legitimate today? Turkey’s summertime action has sparked new debate among Muslims.

A traditionalist view is well articulated at www.muslimmatters.org by Muhammad Wajid Akhter, a physician on the council of the British Islamic Medical Association who studies Islamic history.

He notes that Christian conquerors in Spain took over the Al-Hambra Palace and Cordoba Mosque, and built Granada Cathedral over the site of a mosque. That is accurate. But when was the last time Christians confiscated a mosque? Those events occurred in 1236, 1492 and 1529. In the centuries since, the world has gone through the Enlightenment, the rise of democracy and widespread support for human rights.

Tolerance-minded Muslims say Istanbul has plenty of mosques already and didn’t need to add one in 2020, Akhter, however, contends that a mosque “is owned by Allah” and Muslims have no right to simply give away “something that does not belong to us.” By the same reasoning, of course, Christians can say Hagia Sophia is sacred ground that belongs to their God, not Mehmed and his forces of 1453.

Akhter dismisses the concern some Muslims express about Christian sensitivities as “impractical” and “untenable.”


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A generation's big global issue: Can centrists win Islam's ideological civil war?

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On July 24, Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, Turkey, was converted from a museum to a mosque, giving Christians a bitter reminder that this had been the world’s grandest church for nine centuries until the 1453 conquest by Muslim forces.

Most media ignored that — two weeks beforehand — a scholarly leader of what is very likely the world’s largest organization of grass-roots Muslims posted a dramatic challenge about treatment of non-Muslims.

Excerpts from this piece by Yahya Cholil Staquf of Indonesia: “The Islamic world is in the midst of a rapidly metastasizing crisis, with no apparent sign of remission.” To “avert civilizational disaster, people of all faiths must work together to prevent the political weaponization of fundamentalist Islam.”

A summary: Believers must emulate the devout, but more culturally moderate, Muslims in what is now Indonesia who established religious freedom for all even before the young United States did so in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights.

Yet in our own era, Christianity has all but disappeared in its historic Mideast birthplace, “the latest chapter in a long and tragic history of religious persecution in the Muslim world.” In recent decades, in Africa through the Mideast and across Asia, non-Muslim minorities have, wrote Staquf, suffered “severe discrimination and violence inflicted by those who embrace a supremacist, ultra-conservative interpretation of Islam.”

This “unchecked spread of religious extremism and terror,” in turn, leads to “a rising tide of Islamophobia among non-Muslim populations.”

An “intellectually honest” examination of the situation, he added, shows that the “extremists” can rely on “specific tenets of orthodox authoritative Islam and its historic practice” from classical times, which advocate “Islamic supremacy” and encourage “enmity toward non-Muslims.” This means that, for instance, the “remarkable savagery toward Yazidis and Christians” perpetrated by ISIS in Iraq and Syria was “not a historical aberration.”

These and other newsworthy assertions come from Staquf — who is the general secretary of Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama (or NU. The name means “Revival of the Ulama,” the term for the collective body of religious scholars).


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Clock keeps ticking: Will Turkey dare to turn Hagia Sophia into a mosque -- again?

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Clock keeps ticking: Will Turkey dare to turn Hagia Sophia into a mosque -- again?

Art historian Andrew Gould had studied many copies of the exquisite mosaic of Jesus found high in Istanbul's 6th Century Hagia Sophia cathedral.

But that didn't prepare the architect and sacred artist for what he felt when he stood under the icon, illumined by the soaring windows in the south gallery that overlooks the main floor, under the central dome that is 184 feet high and 102 feet in diameter.

The Deesis ("supplication") icon -- at least twice the size of life -- shows the Virgin Mary and St. John the Baptist with their heads bowed, framing an image of Christ Pantocrator ("enthroned"). The glass mosaic cubes were set at angles to create a shimmering effect across the gold background and the many-colored images, whether viewed in daylight or with lamps and candles.

Much of this icon was destroyed a century ago as workers probed to find priceless mosaics under layers of plaster and paint added through the centuries after 1453, when the Ottoman armies of Mehmed II conquered Constantinople.

Now, Turkish leaders want to convert Hagia Sophia -- a museum for decades -- back into a mosque.

"There is no more refined icon of Christ anywhere," said Gould, of the New World Byzantine Studios in Charleston, S.C. "Just in terms of information, we have copies we can study. … But visiting Hagia Sophia and seeing this icon under natural light, seeing it in the context of the sanctuary, was crucial to the development of my whole understanding of Orthodox art."

If the "Deesis" is covered again, along with other icons, "this is not something that can be replaced with photographs in art books," he said. "It would hurt artists and believers around the world in so many ways."

The current controversy is rooted in politics, more than lingering tensions between Muslim leaders and Turkey's tiny Christian minority, which has little power other than through ties to Greece, Europe and the United States.

Hagia Sophia became a museum in 1934, a symbol of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk's drive to build a modern, truly secular state. Now, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has sent many signals that he wants Turkey to return to Islamic principles.

Debates in Turkish media have swirled around whether modern leaders retain the "right of the sword" to reclaim Hagia Sophia, noted Mustafa Akyol, a Turkish journalist and author of the book "Islam Without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty."


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Disturbing news trends in Turkey: What if Hagia Sophia returns to being a mosque?

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In recent years, Orthodox Christians around the world have watched as headlines kept appearing on obscure websites that mainstream journalists rarely visit.

Rumors grew that the famous Hagia Sophia sanctuary in Istanbul — a 6th Century wonder of Byzantine Christianity — would once again be claimed as a mosque, after decades of protection as a neutral-ground museum. Gradually, the rumors turned into symbolic actions by the Turkish government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan suggesting that this strategic move might become a reality.

Recently there was this headline at OrthoChristian.com (all caps in the original headline, along with alternative spelling “Agia”):

‘TURKISH LEADER CALLS TO PAINT OVER SERAPHIM IN DOME OF AGIA SOPHIA, CONVERSION TO MOSQUE REPORTEDLY ALREADY UNDERWAY

The question, of course is this: Is this a news story? Other questions flow out of that: Is this a “religious” media story? Is it a “conservative” media story? One more: Is it a story for hard-news media in Europe, but not America?

Meanwhile, it would be hard — from the Orthodox point of view (I have twice visited Hagia Sophia) — to offer a more distressing overture than the top of that latest OrthoChristian.com report::

As Turkish officials await the court hearing on the possibility of converting the world-famous Agia Sophia Museum back into a mosque, preparations for the change are reportedly already underway.

In this vein, the leader of the Saadet Partisi Islamist political party, Abdullah Sevim, called for Turkey to immediately take action and paint over the faces of the seraphim in the dome of the 6th-century Orthodox cathedral-turned-mosque-turned-museum, reports the Orthodoxia News Agency.

“There’s no need to wait for the decision of the State Council. We’ve already purchased the lime,” Sevim wrote on his Twitter page, calling everyone to join in a Muslim prayer to be held at Agia Sophia by President Erdogan.


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No think piece this weekend! Time to take some virtual tours of stunning religion sites

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Enough thinking, especially about the coronavirus crisis.

This is especially true for those of us who are Eastern Orthodox. Today is our Easter — Pascha — on the ancient Christian calendar.

So rather than a lengthy “think piece” to read on this Sunday — as is the norm at this blog — I would like to give readers a chance to do something relaxing and a bit inspiring.

My colleague Clemente Lisi of The King’s College in New York City has created a small collection of Internet links to virtual tours of several important religious sites and regions around the world. Thus, he writes, in a feature for Religion Unplugged:

With most of the world’s population stuck at home in an effort to stem the spread of the coronavirus, travel has come to a standstill. Springtime, and the approaching summer, are typically a time to take a flight and explore another part of the world.

Since most of us are inside and waiting for this pandemic to subside, you can still visit places virtually — with the help of your computer — from the comforts of home. Religious sites and museums, popular with pilgrims and tourists alike, are very popular this time of year.

Staying home doesn’t mean you can’t travel digitally. It is also a chance to research places you’d like to visit once normalcy resumes.

Amen. How else are you going to get to visit the Vatican, the Middle East, important mosques around the world and Westminster Abbey.

But since this is Pascha, allow me to start Lisi’s virutal here — in Hagia Sophia.


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Hey AP: St. Nicholas Orthodox Church at 9/11 ground zero will be 'flanked by towers'?

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I think about 9/11 every day, during my weeks in New York City teaching at The King's College in lower Manhattan.

There's a logical reason. When in New York, I live in a residence hotel next to ground zero. Each morning I walk around the edge of the park containing the footprints of the World Trade Center towers. That includes St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, which is being rebuilt close to its original location 250 feet from the corner of the south tower.

At night, I often go a block or two out of my way to check out the construction. I started writing about the fate of this church -- the only house of worship destroyed on 9/11 -- two weeks after the towers fell. As an Orthodox Christian, I find one detail of the church's destruction especially haunting.

Orthodox believers want to search in the two-story mound of debris for the remains of three loved ones who died long ago -- the relics of St. Nicholas, St. Katherine and St. Sava. Small pieces of their skeletons were kept in a gold-plated box marked with an image of Christ. This ossuary was stored in a 700-pound, fireproof safe.
"We do not think it could have burned. But perhaps it was crushed," said Father [John] Romas. "Who knows? All we can do is wait and pray."

The safe was never found (click here for a 2014 update). How do you burn cast iron?

I was glad to pick up my newspaper here in Oak Ridge, Tenn., and see that the Associated Press, in its advance story for this 9/11 anniversary, focused on the construction of the new St. Nicholas National Shrine at the World Trade Center. It's a pretty solid story, yet it contains one or two details that need clarification.

In one case, I am sure the Orthodox would appreciate a correction. Will the new shrine have towers like the current Hagia Sophia? Here is the overture:

NEW YORK -- A Greek Orthodox church taking shape next to the World Trade Center memorial plaza will glow at night like a marble beacon when it opens sometime next year. It also will mark another step in the long rebuilding of New York’s ground zero.


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Hagia Sophia evolving into mosque? The Los Angeles Times omits crucial Christian voices

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This past Sunday, I was at a lunch in Seattle that included someone who runs a retreat center in Turkey. She knew of only 4,000 evangelical Christians like her in the country, which under the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been encroaching on the religious freedom of non-Muslims for some time.

Evangelical Protestants are one of the smaller groups among Turkey’s 160,000 Christians, most of them Orthodox Christians linked to the city's history as a crossroads in the early church. The Christian community that was, in 1914, 19 percent of Turkey’s population is now a tiny group amidst 80 million Turkish Muslims.

So I was interested to read a Los Angeles Times story about the increasing pressure by Islamic activists to turn the Hagia Sophia back into a mosque. We've covered this before but the volume has been amped up.

So what is missing in this report on a topic that will be of special interest to Christians, as well as Muslims, around the world? Want to guess?

As the time for afternoon prayers approaches, Onder Soy puts on a white robe and cap and switches on the microphone in a small 19th century room adjoining the Hagia Sophia.
Soon, Soy’s melodic call to prayer rings out over a square filled with tourists hurrying to visit some of Turkey’s most famous historical sights before they close for the day.
The room Soy is in -- built as a resting place for the sultan and now officially called the Hagia Sophia mosque -- fills up with around 40 worshipers, drawn not by the modestly decorated space itself, but by the ancient building it shares a wall with.


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What happened in Turkey? Look for two words -- 'secular' and 'Ataturk' -- in news reports

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So what was the attempted coup in Turkey all about? It seems pretty clear at this point that no one really knows (or they are not saying). Were experts at the White House and the U.S. state department really flying blind on this one, as appeared to have been the case?

I'm no expert on Turkish history in the 20th century, but I have been to Istanbul twice and heard the local experts explain that nation's unique standing as a "secular" Muslim state. In recent years, Turkey has been swinging in the direction of some form of Islamist regime, under the leadership of President (some would say "strongman") Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

During the modern era, the Turkish military -- with strong ties to the West -- have acted as defenders of the secular state, using blunt power to crush attempts to move toward any form of Islamist rule. Is that what happened this time? Or did some rebel group within the military actually try to take Turkey in a more radically religious direction? That would be a stunning development in a nation under pressure -- in the form of terrorism, at the very least -- from the Islamic State and its supporters.

Read the coverage. Do the experts not know the answer to this question or they are not saying?

As you read, look for two words -- "secular" and "Ataturk." How far did you have to read to hit those crucial terms?

We are, of course, talking about Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, not the airport named in his honor. Here is the opening of a History Channel biography on this giant in modern Turkish history.

Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881-1938) was an army officer who founded an independent Republic of Turkey out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire. He then served as Turkey’s first president from 1923 until his death in 1938, implementing reforms that rapidly secularized and westernized the country. Under his leadership, the role of Islam in public life shrank drastically, European-style law codes came into being, the office of the sultan was abolished and new language and dress requirements were mandated. But although the country was nominally democratic, Atatürk at times stifled opposition with an authoritarian hand.

That opposition Ataturk and then his followers kept crushing?


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Mirror-image news, again: Concerning those Ramadan prayers inside Hagia Sophia

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It's time, once again, to take a mirror-image look at a story (click here for some earlier examples) that is in the news right now.

Well, it's sort of in the news. That's the whole point of this post.

Let's imagine that during a symbolic moment on the calendar -- perhaps a papal visit to Turkey, or the days leading up to a historic Pan-Orthodox Council -- a Christian leader entered the great Hagia Sophia in Istanbul and took out a prayer book and began chanting the ancient prayers of Great Vespers in Greek or even Arabic.

Turkish officials would be infuriated. Muslim leaders would be outraged. After all, this would violate agreements surrounding the status of this massive building -- once the greatest cathedral in Christendom, then a mosque after the fall of Constantinople -- as neutral territory, as a secular museum and a UNESCO world heritage site.

This would, in short, be a major news story and a threat to shatter Muslim-majority Turkey's status -- in the eyes of Europe, especially -- as a secular state that is dedicated to some protection for religious minorities.

Would this draw mainstream media coverage?

Now the mirror-image story, care of The Turkish Sun:

An angry war of words has broken out between Turkey and Greece after Athens protested a decision to allow a daily Quranic reading in İstanbul’s famous Hagia Sophia during Ramadan. The museum was for almost 1,000 years the biggest Greek Orthodox Christian church in the world.
The sahur, or pre-dawn meal, is to be broadcast each morning from the Hagia Sophia by Turkish national broadcaster TRT Diyanet along with daily readings from the Quran during the Islamic holy month, which began on Monday (June 6).
In one of the toughest diplomatic rebukes from Athens to Ankara in recent years, the Greek foreign ministry called the decision to allow the religious readings at the world heritage site, which is officially designated as a museum, “regressive”, “verging on bigotry” and “not compatible with modern, democratic and secular societies”.


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