When Hagia Sophia was converted from a Church into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest in 1453, the time was different. From invasions to persecutions, everything was like an unwritten constitution of international relations of that age.
Recently, President Tayyip Erdogan announced to turn Hagia Sophia into a mosque again after roughly 90 years of its status as a museum. A magnificent edifice that outlasted both Byzantine and Ottoman glories has now become a victim to an ancient system we call religion.
Indeed, Turkish PM has the right to exercise his country’s sovereign right in converting the 1500 years-old cathedral into a mosque. However, it takes a lot of courage to disregard the sentiments of around 2.3 billion (or roughly 30%) people in the world.
For thousands of years, conquests had been the hallmark of human dignity. Things only began to change probably after the Treaty of Westphalia (1648) that catapulted Europe, and then eventually to the world, to the modern political order.
It has been particularly after the treaty that the modern nation-state system allowed sovereignty to be respected as the national right. Since then, particularly, wars, invasions, and conquest have been considered taboos, and sovereignty of the state, howsoever small, is revered as an uninfringeable right.
So, President Erdogan and contemporary Turkey have the right to exercise their sovereign rights within their state boundaries, including Hagia Sophia.
But there are things that are certainly beyond individual glory or national pride, or even sovereign rights. Though religion is a significant aspect of life- particularly among the Muslims, who make up over 95 percent population of Turkey- it should not be allowed to encroach upon nostalgic history, shared culture, and internationalism.
Each year, around four million tourists come to visit Hagia Sophia to marvel at the glory of the monument built around 537 CE. Until now, they had been visiting Hagia Sophia to become a part of a cherished history that Mr. Erdogan has been able to distort now.
Critics believe it has been the president’s long-time dream to pose himself as the “new conqueror” of Constantinople. Perhaps by doing so, Erdogan may feel the feeling of what Muhammad II might have felt after conquering Constantinople, and by offering prayer in Hagia Sophia.
But neither is Erdogan the conqueror of the 15th century nor was Ataturk, whose reforms the incumbent president overturned, was Constantine.
Maybe, it has nothing to do with religion at all.
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Perhaps, Hagia Sophia is but a collateral damage that might serve to further Erdogan’s political agenda to attract his Islamist voters. In any case, the political decision of turning a site that belongs to humanity rather than the Turk nation exclusively has come at the expense of inter-faith harmony.
