Hagia Sophia Is Still Symbolic of Christianity and Islam’s Shared History

Hagia Sophia Is Still Symbolic of Christianity and Islam’s Shared History

Hagia Sophia’s conversion from a museum into a mosque has seen thousands and thousands of words committed to the page across the globe.  Most of it recycles the same information – that the great church was built in the sixth century under the Byzantine emperor Justinian, that it was converted to a mosque when Mehmed the Conqueror captured…

Mosques, Museums and Politics: The Fate of Hagia Sophia

Mosques, Museums and Politics: The Fate of Hagia Sophia

When the caustic Evelyn Waugh visited the majestic sixth century creation of Emperor Justinian, one subsequently enlarged, enriched and encrusted by various rulers, he felt underwhelmed. “‘Agia’ will always win the day for one,” he wrote of Istanbul’s holiest of holies, Hagia Sophia, in 1930. “A more recondite snobbism is to say ‘Aya Sofia’, but…

Hagia Sophia: Clash of Civilizations or Reassertion of Civilizational Identity?

Hagia Sophia: Clash of Civilizations or Reassertion of Civilizational Identity?

Turkey’s controversial decision to reconvert Hagia Sophia from a museum into a mosque has been met with sharp criticism abroad from those who claim that it’ll exacerbate the so-called “Clash of Civilizations” and reverse the secular reforms of Ataturk while supporters of this move claim that it’s a justified reassertion of civilizational identity in an…