Hagia Sophia to revert to mosque
Status of Unesco-listed 1,500-year-old building has been hotly debated for decades

People gather in front of the Hagia Sophia
People gather in front of the Hagia Sophia, or Ayasofya, after the court ruling. Photograph: Murad Sezer/Reuters
Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has formally converted Istanbul’s crowning architectural jewel, the Hagia Sophia, from a museum into a mosque – a politically charged decision that has drawn international criticism but delighted his conservative base.

Turkey’s highest administrative court, the council of state, paved the way for the move after it ruled unanimously on Friday to annul a 1934 cabinet decree that stripped the 1,500-year-old building of its religious status.

Erdoğan signed a presidential decree turning the hugely symbolic site back into a Muslim house of worship almost immediately after the ruling was announced.

Hagia Sophia: the mosque-turned-museum at the heart of an ideological battle
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Members of his ruling Justice and Development party (AKP) greeted the decree with a standing ovation in parliament, and the call to prayer was recited from the building’s minarets on Friday afternoon while supporters celebrated outside.

The Unesco-listed Hagia Sophia (Divine Wisdom), known in Turkey as Ayasofya, was completed in 537AD by the Byzantine emperor Justinian, and for centuries served as one of the world’s most important centres of Christianity.

The cathedral was converted into an imperial mosque 550 years ago after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople, and became a museum on the orders of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic.

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