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Istanbul
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Whether you’re a believer or not, visiting Hagia Sophia is a religious expertise. The architectural genius of this place of worship — which was constructed as a church in 537CE earlier than its conversion right into a mosque in 1453 — creates an phantasm of vastness. It looks like the house begins to broaden once you enter the constructing.
Acoustic alchemy transforms guests’ murmurs into shimmering sounds, suspended weightless in the air, like echoes of a prayer in an historic language.
The artwork inside the constructing is a testomony to coexistence. There is not any different place on Earth the place Christian mosaics of saints and Byzantine rulers are juxtaposed with Islamic calligraphy, often known as Hüsn-i Hat — giant roundels displaying the names of Allah (God), the prophet Mohammed and the 4 caliphs, the leaders of Islam following the demise of Mohammed.
Today, Hagia Sophia is one of the world’s most extraordinary mosques — but it surely’s greater than that. It’s additionally an emblem, a cultural phenomenon, and a monument.
Naturally, like most monumental buildings, Hagia Sophia has its personal mythology. Of the many tales about the constructing, some are true, some are exaggerations, and a few are outright fantasies.
Bigger and higher
The present Hagia Sophia was inbuilt the sixth century when Constantinople — as Istanbul was then referred to as — was the coronary heart of the Orthodox Christian Byzantine Empire that emerged as Ancient Rome’s domination dwindled and dominated swathes of Europe and northern Africa, as distant as modern-day Spain, Libya, Egypt, and Turkey, till the metropolis fell to the Ottomans in 1453.
The constructing we see right now isn’t unique, having been preceded by two earlier church buildings at the identical location — which had been themselves constructed over a pagan temple.
The first was mentioned to have been commissioned by Constantine, the Roman emperor who transformed to Christianity and moved the Roman Empire’s heart to Constantinople, ushering in the Byzantine period.
Called “Magna Ecclesia” — Latin for “Great Church” — it was inaugurated by Constantine’s son, Constantius II, in 360 CE. It was later destroyed by followers of Saint John Chrysostom, a former archbishop of Constantinople who was banished from the metropolis. Its second iteration was inaugurated in 415 CE by the emperor Theodosius II, however was burned down once more in 532 CE.
The third church, right now’s Hagia Sophia, was constructed by Justinian I, an bold emperor who ordered its building on 23 February 523 CE.
If an nameless historic supply quoted in the “Istanbul Encyclopedia” by the Twentieth-century historian Reşad Ekrem Koçu is to be believed, Justinian wished his church to be bigger and extra ornate than Jerusalem’s Temple of Solomon, the legendary resting place of the Ark of the Covenant, mentioned to have been inbuilt the tenth century BCE.
During its five-year building, Justinian instructed his provincial governors to ship the most beautiful artifacts from historic ruins of their territories to Constantinople to be used in Hagia Sophia.
This, apparently, did the job. That identical nameless supply says Justinian was struck by awe when he first entered. He ran to the altar, appeared as much as thank God for giving him the probability to construct such a surprise — and screamed, “I surpassed you, Solomon!”
It’s a beautiful story — however one that historian and Hagia Sophia professional Sedat Bornovalı says is unfaithful.
That anonymously sourced intel was written roughly 300 years after Hagia Sophia’s building. The anecdote by no means seems in the works of Procopius, Justinian’s official historian, who additionally wrote a essential e-book about the emperor, “Secret History.”
“If these claims were true, we would see them either in ‘Buildings’ or in his ‘Secret History,’” says Bornovalı, who provides that Procopius would have written one thing stinging like, “The presumptuous man compared himself to the prophet Solomon.”
However, whereas his “Secret History” exhibits the historian’s disdain for Justinian and his spouse, Procopius nonetheless writes about Hagia Sophia with admiration.
Whatever the motivations behind it, the value of the challenge and the hurry to start the building of what was one of the megastructures of its time even have nearly legendary standing.
The price ticket was mentioned to be astronomical. In his e-book “The Fall of the Roman Empire, A New History of Rome and the Barbarians,” historian Peter Heather mentioned Justinian paid “15-20,000 pounds of gold.” The “Istanbul Encyclopedia” of 1945 places it at a extra modest, however nonetheless breathtaking $75 million, equal to $1.3 billion right now. That’s greater than the $1 billion value to rebuild Notre Dame.
The building of the church began solely weeks after the Nika Revolt, a devastating rebel towards Justinian that destroyed most of Constantinople, together with the second Hagia Sophia.
Bornovalı thinks it’s attainable that Justinian seized the property of his political opponents and picked up an enormous quantity of taxes to finance the building. “How it was possible to create such a complex design and resolve the logistical issues within [weeks] remains among the unanswered questions,” he writes in his e-book, “History’s Longest Poem.”
Not least as a result of, he says, it “would have taken years to deliver the stones and other building materials.”
He thinks the price range and plans had been most likely prepared, and Justinian took benefit of the aftermath of the Nika Revolt to start out constructing Hagia Sophia the place it’s now.
“If the previous Hagia Sophia had not been destroyed, Justinian would have ordered a new version to be built elsewhere anyway,” says Bornovalı.
Under the Byzantines, Hagia Sophia grew to become the hub of Orthodox Christianity and the final standing image of their empire. But in 1453, when Ottoman sultan Mehmed II (a.okay.a. Mehmed the Conqueror) captured Constantinople, his victory paved the means for the Ottoman Empire, which might final till 1922.
To recommend to the world not solely Islam’s superiority but additionally that the Ottomans had been the true heirs of the Romans, Mehmed transformed Hagia Sophia to a mosque — however saved its unique identify. Although “Hagia Sophia” sounds as if it was named for a Christian saint, it truly means “Holy Wisdom” in Greek.
After conquering Constantinople, the younger sultan — he was solely 21 — carried out his first Friday prayer right here, beginning a practice for all subsequent sultans of the Ottoman Empire.
“There were three steps that defined the reign of the sultans,” says Turkish historian A. Çağrı Başkurt. “The first is to take the throne in the palace, the second is to wield a sword in Eyüp [an historic district in Istanbul], and the third is to perform the first Friday prayer in Hagia Sophia.”
Mehmed additionally claimed the title “Caesar of Rome” (Qaisar-e-Rum or Kaiser-i Rum) upon taking Constantinople. His successors continued to make use of the title till Mustafa Kemal Atatürk abolished the sultanate in 1922, creating the fashionable state of Turkey a 12 months later.
Hagia Sofia has withstood many revolutions, occupations, riots, plunderings, and pure disasters (its building on a base of strong rock is claimed to have helped it survive earthquakes). Few buildings of its age have been preserved as flawlessly and in such a whole state.
The Ottoman dynasty, notably Mehmed II, performed a pivotal function in its preservation. “[Mehmed] told his army that if they conquer the city, the city is theirs for three days with the exception of Hagia Sophia,” says editor and concrete researcher Hasan Mert Kaya.
Koçu writes in the “Istanbul Encyclopedia” that Mehmed didn’t order the Christian mosaics to be coated regardless of the reality that Islam bans figurative artwork in spiritual contexts.
However, a century later, sultan Suleiman I had them plastered over.
It’s because of the creation of the Turkish Republic created by Atatürk, a secularist, that we will see them right now. In 1926, the authorities undertook a complete renovation after European media claims that Hagia Sophia was at risk of collapsing.
The constructing was closed to the public in the early Thirties for restorations, then transformed right into a museum in 1935 as half of a decree by Atatürk. He additionally commissioned the uncovering and restoration of the Byzantine mosaics.
From mosque to museum… and mosque once more
In a controversial transfer, in 2020, it was transformed again right into a mosque. The determination, involving one of the metropolis’s most essential landmarks and a UNESCO World Heritage website, was criticized by worldwide spiritual and political leaders, with UNESCO, the UN’s cultural company, and the pope amongst these voicing concern, although the transfer didn’t immediate extensive opposition inside Turkey.
However, the second ground has been serving as a museum since 2024. Tourists should buy tickets to enter the gallery and see the prayer ground from up above. The Byzantine mosaics and pictures are nonetheless seen throughout visiting hours, and are coated with particular lighting results throughout worship and prayer hours.
Whether Hagia Sophia must be a mosque or a museum remains to be debated. While some argue it must be transformed again to a museum and by no means used for worship, others, like city researcher Kaya, assume it ought to keep as a spot of worship — although solely up to a degree.
“Hagia Sophia should be a building where only Friday prayers, Eid and, perhaps during Ramadan, tarawih prayers are performed — fulfilling its function as a place of worship symbolically, and where limited people are allowed in at once,” he says.
The prayers Kaya mentions are particular ones for Muslims that have a larger which means when carried out with the neighborhood.
Besides all the preservation efforts over the years, it’s mentioned that the Turks got here near fully leveling Hagia Sophia.
During the 1918-1922 occupation of Istanbul by the British, French, Italian and Greek armies who occupied the metropolis after World War I after the Ottomans had sided with the shedding German-led alliance — Tevfik Pasha, a Turkish elder statesman, threatened the British with destroying the constructing in the event that they tried to transform it again right into a church.
Some tales about Hagia Sophia are clearly figments of the creativeness, however even they serve a objective.
One goes that when a catastrophic earthquake in the late 500s cracked the central dome, royal advisors and the clergy informed Justinian that they learn the stars, checked the prophecies, and that the final messenger of God, a brand new prophet, had been born in Arabia.
To repair the dome, they need to put together a particular mortar. It ought to embrace the saliva of the younger Prophet, Zamzam water (“holy” water from the Zamzam Well in Mecca), and soil from Mecca. According to the story, this “holy mortar” combine was duly created and the cracks in the Christian church mounted.
“These legends and myths surrounding Hagia Sophia bind people to it; they reinforce the perception that this is their mosque, their temple,” says Hasan Mert Kaya.
Başkurt says, “When we look at it from the perspective of the [sultan’s] subjects, Hagia Sophia has been defined as an absolute symbol of conquest.” It remains to be like that in the minds of many Muslim residents of Turkey.
Today, Hagia Sophia is open to guests like many different mosques in Istanbul, reminiscent of Sülemaniye, the Blue Mosque, and Fatih Mosque. While the 2024 introduction of a 25 euro ticket value might have raised eyebrows, 2025 noticed the begin of a three-year conservation challenge, which is able to restore the central dome — the most complete works in almost 1,500 years of historical past.
The works will improve the constructing’s earthquake resilience whereas preserving the mosaics — which means that guests from throughout the world can proceed to flock to the place of “Holy Wisdom.”