{"id":30033,"date":"2020-07-20T07:30:30","date_gmt":"2020-07-20T02:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kashmir.today\/?p=30033"},"modified":"2020-07-20T07:30:30","modified_gmt":"2020-07-20T02:00:30","slug":"erdogan-visits-hagia-sofia-after-reconversion-to-mosque","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/?p=30033","title":{"rendered":"Erdogan visits Hagia Sofia after reconversion to mosque"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Turkish president took stock of the conversion work during the surprise visit.<\/em><\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

AFP<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"It
It was unclear whether Mr. Erdogan planned to be among some 500 worshippers set to attend Friday prayers. | Photo Credit: AFP<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan paid a surprise visit to Hagia Sofia on Sunday just days before the first Muslim prayers are due to be held at the Istanbul landmark since it was reconverted to a mosque last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

In a lightning visit billed as an inspection, Mr. Erdogan took stock of the conversion work, the president’s office said, providing pictures showing scaffolding inside the building.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Diyanet, the country’s religious authority, said Christian icons would be curtained off and unlit \u201cthrough appropriate means during prayer times\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur goal is to avoid harming the frescoes, icons and the historic architecture of the edifice,\u201d Mr. Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said in a television interview on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

It was unclear whether Mr. Erdogan planned to be among some 500 worshippers set to attend Friday prayers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Turkey’s top court paved the way for the conversion in a decision to revoke the edifice’s museum status conferred nearly a century ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

The sixth-century building had been open to all visitors, regardless of their faith, since its inauguration as a museum in 1935.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this week, Diyanet said the building would continue to be open to all visitors outside the hours given over to prayer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

The UNESCO World Heritage site was built as a cathedral during the Byzantine empire but converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was designated a museum in a key reform of the post-Ottoman authorities under the modern republic’s founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Mr. Erdogan said last year it had been a \u201cvery big mistake\u201d to convert the Hagia Sophia into a museum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reconversion sparked anger among Christians and tensions between historic foes and uneasy NATO allies Turkey and Greece.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

With inputs from The Hindu<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Turkish president took stock of the conversion work during the surprise visit. AFP Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan paid a surprise visit to Hagia Sofia on Sunday just days before the first Muslim prayers are due to be held at the Istanbul landmark since it was reconverted to a mosque last week. In a lightning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":30038,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30033","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30033","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30033"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30033\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30033"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30033"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kashmir.watch\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30033"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}