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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMuseum or mosque? The battle over the fate of Turkey's historic Hagia Sophia
Istanbuls Hagia Sophia site has stood as empires rose and fell around it, as rulers and statesmen came and went, as creeds flourished and withered.
Now the more than 1,500-year-old former cathedral and then mosque is at the center of a modern struggle between Turkeys secular roots and its presidents Islamist aspirations. The battle over who, if anybody, can pray in the UNESCO World Heritage site reflects a larger one playing out across a society split between secularism and religious conservatism.
On Thursday, Turkeys Council of State heard arguments by lawyers for the Association for the Protection of Historic Monuments and the Environment, a group asking for the Hagia Sophia to be reverted from a museum to a mosque.
The association is pressing for an annulment of the 1935 decision that turned the iconic structure into a museum, where religious services or group prayers would not be held. A decision is expected within two weeks.
If the court decides in the NGOs favor, it will be the latest in a long line of twists and turns for Hagia Sophia, which has long dominated Istanbuls skyline, a symbol of the citys status as a bridge between the East and the West, and the Muslim and the Christian worlds.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/museum-or-mosque-the-battle-over-the-fate-of-turkey-s-historic-hagia-sophia/ar-BB16k2kC?li=BBnbcA1&ocid=DELLDHP
albacore
(2,399 posts)JI7
(89,252 posts)but individuals can decide whether or not to pray to whoever they want ?
DetlefK
(16,423 posts)This is not simply about a single person praying somewhere. This is about hundreds of people putting down their prayer rugs in the middle of a museum, holding a mass, giving a sermon and praying aloud and in public.
There is no way a compromise approach wouldn't end in chaos.
msongs
(67,413 posts)yeah the peaceful religionists grab and hold