Popular News From Popular Sites: Muslims pray to turn Turkey's greatest monument back into a mosque

Friday, May 30, 2014

Muslims pray to turn Turkey's greatest monument back into a mosque

Local and foreign tourists visit the Byzantine monument of Hagia Sophia, or Ayasofya, which is now a museum in Istanbul By Ayla Jean Yackley ISTANBUL (Reuters) - It has served as the exalted seat of two faiths since its vast dome and lustrous gold mosaics first levitated above Istanbul in the 6th Century: Christendom's greatest cathedral for 900 years and one of Islam's greatest mosques for another 500. Today, the Hagia Sophia, or Ayasofya in Turkish, is officially a museum: Turkey's most-visited monument, whose formally neutral status symbolises the secular nature of the modern Turkish state. But tens of thousands of Muslim worshippers gathering there on Saturday hope it will again be a mosque, a dream they believe Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan can fulfil. "This is a serious push to break Ayasofya's chains," said Salih Turan, head of the Anatolia Youth Association, which has collected 15 million signatures to petition for it to be turned back into a mosque.




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