Hagia Sophia: A matter of sovereignty or political narrow-mindedness? | Inside Story

One of the world’s most famous landmarks, the Hagia Sophia museum in Istanbul, has been turned back into a mosque. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says the site will be open to Muslim worship in less than two weeks, after a top court ruled the building’s conversion to a museum in 1934 was illegal. Built 1,500 years ago as an Orthdox Christian cathedral, Hagia Sophia was converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest in 1453. While UNESCO and Greek, Russian and other church leaders have denounced