The Hagia Sophia, located in Turkey on the Europe-Asia border, has a long history. The first attempt, built in 360 A.D. by Byzantine Emperor Constantius 2, was destroyed and then the second, built in 415 A.D. by Theodosius 2, met a similar end in 532 A.D. The present Hagia Sophia was rebuilt by Emperor Justinian in 537 A.D. and was converted from a basilica to a mosque in 1453 A.D. by Ottoman Sultan Mehmed 2. This, however, was only the beginning before museumification, religion, politics and historical conservation entered the scene. Museumification became popular after the establishment of the Turkish Republic. After serving as museums for decades, some Byzantine monuments were reopened as mosques. Using the word “restoration,” the conversion to a mosque not only honors the layered past but also vandalizes the great legacy of Byzantine civilization.
Hagia Sophia: The Basilica
Constantius built the Hagia Sophia on the ground of a pagan temple. Theodosius II rededicated the rebuilt structure in 415. During the Nika insurgency in 532 A.D. The church was burned down again, providing Justinian I the opportunity to create a replacement. The Hagia Sophia was intended to be a basilica and may have been inspired by the Pantheon in Rome and to surpass it. The building has a square design with a round dome on top. The dome is built on a drum, with structural ribs and lightweight infill in between, and contains 40 clearstory windows. The dome’s weight is supported by four pillars that transfer the load from a circular to a square shape using pendentives. The thrust of the load from the dome is supported by two semi-domes on two sides. On the other side, there are massive columns that serve as flying buttresses for support.
The dome was rebuilt twice after it was destroyed by an earthquake. It was thereafter constructed on a reduced size and restored. For over a thousand years, it served as a cathedral. The crusaders invaded it around 1204. Later on, numerous designers continued to add elements, making the overall structure more complex.
Hagia Sophia: The Mosque
After the Turkish conquest of Constantinople, the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II restored the Hagia Sophia into a mosque in 1453 A.D. As the symbol of conquest and Islamic domination, turning churches into mosques during the Ottoman period became common. He kept the name Hagia Sophia but covered the Byzantine mosaics with plaster and added Islamic elements like minarets, minbar and mihrab in the direction of Mecca.
At first, there was just one wooden minaret used to call for prayers, and it was shortly destroyed. His son then had a red minaret built on the southeast corner and after that a narrow white minaret in the northeast direction. Later, in the 1500s, Ottoman architects constructed the other two white, identical minarets. After that, the Christian elements were transformed into Muslim iconography. Until the completion of the Blue Mosque in 1616, it served as Istanbul’s principal mosque.
When the founder of the Byzantine Institute of America visited Istanbul in 1931, he requested the country’s first president to convert the Hagia Sophia into a museum so that it honoured both cultures. He thought museumification will allow the place to be appreciated for its historical significance without religious or political relevance.
Hagia Sophia: The Museum
With the Turkish Republic’s foundation in 1923, Kemal Ataturk suggested turning Hagia Sophia into a museum. He secularized the building to oversee the removal of the plaster covering the Byzantine mosaics. Not long later, it was designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Museumification was done to honour the past and settle contentious issues. The conversion of the Hagia Sophia was one of the republic’s boldest moves. The practice of turning more Byzantine churches and mosques into museums out of respect for earlier cultures and to prevent destroying the Byzantine legacy led to a rapid expansion of museumification. The president elaborates the decision to restore Hagia Sophia as a museum, looking at the building’s symbolic value as both an Ottoman mosque and a Byzantine church. It didn’t last long since the Hagia Sophia as a museum was shortly back in the spotlight when talks began about converting it back to a mosque. Considered an Islamic success over Christianity and an Ottoman invasion, the museumification of Hagia Sophia sparked public outrage. Even if it was temporary, it didn’t disappear.
Architectural Restoration or Political Dominance?
The Turkish people believed that neutralization had nothing to do with the mosque’s conversion to a museum, but was simply a political decision. When the Turkish faction changed the debate of the museum’s restoration to a mosque, it was just another political gamble. According to the association, Ataturk disrespected Sultan Mehmed by illegally transforming the Hagia Sophia into a museum. It was led by a political party with political Islam roots. The decision to claim the landmark solely or share it with others was based on secular or spiritual dominance. The association saw this as a struggle for domination between the Republicans and the neo-Ottomanists. Tayyip Erdogan is considering restoring the Hagia Sophia as a mosque to prevent a dispute or perhaps to incorporate ideology as a symbol of secular dominance. However, the motivations for restoration are to safeguard the architecture and prevent the structure from degrading, but these inadequate restorations throughout the years have only caused decomposition and interventions are contradictory with the architectural character of the building. The building’s dire state demonstrates that during these repairs, symbolic association and religious dominance take precedence over architectural considerations. One could argue that the term “restoration” is being used as a tool to neutralize the multi-layered past of the building, with the underlying purpose of constructing a society based on dominance.
References:
Ancient marvels (2023). YouTube. 23 October. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qM6hWEZbeu8&t=1245sControversy behind Hagia Sophia (2020). YouTube. 10 July. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tczMpvNL9v8
Hagia Sophia – through the ages (2020). YouTube. 10 July. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqa0eXnDey4 Hagia Sophia (2023) Encyclopædia Britannica. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Hagia-Sophia
Hagia Sophia – through the ages (2020). YouTube. 10 July. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqa0eXnDey4
Pinar, A. (2019) Contesting the Byzantine past: Four Hagia Sophia’s as ideological …, heritage and society . Available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2159032X.2019.1670502
