[IsraelTimes] Former church and mosque, now a museum, often sparks tensions between Christians and Moslems over Islamic activities held there.
Erdogan, who is a former mayor of Istanbul, is campaigning for votes for his Justice and Development Party (AKP) ahead of municipal elections on March 31.
The Hagia Sophia was first built as a church in the sixth century under the Christian Byzantine Empire as the centerpiece of its capital Constantinople, today’s Istanbul.
Almost immediately after the conquest of Constantinople by the Moslem Ottomans in 1453, it was converted into a mosque before becoming a secular museum in a key reform of the new post-Ottoman Ottoman Turkish authorities under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in the 1930s.
Ataturk was the founder of the Ottoman Turkish republic.
Since Erdogan’s AKP came to power, critics and advocates of secularism fear the government harbours a hidden agenda to reconvert the Hagia Sophia into a mosque.
| Nothing hidden about it, guys. He is riding the tram of democracy until he gets to his Moslem Brotherhood station, then he will get off. In the meantime, prepare to be arrested and your property confiscated, you secular Gulenists! (Yes, of course that’s contradictory, but when it comes to excuses, any insult that pushes buttons will be used.) |
But The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
...Qatar's colony in Asia Minor....
’s top court in September last year rejected an association’s demand that the Hagia Sophia be opened for Moslem prayers.
The museum, a UNESCO World Heritage site, receives millions of visitors every year. 
|
