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Ramadan: Hagia Sophia A Glimpse of Turkey’s Modern Transformation

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4 years ago

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Hagia Sofia has been a cathedral, a mosque, a museum, and now a mosque again after Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced the decision in 2020

 

With tarawih prayers resuming after 88 years this Ramadan, the museum-turned-mosque stands as a sublime feat of Turkey’s Ottoman past.

Istanbul, Turkey – With the end of twilight covering this city, the sound of Isha prayer breathes heavily around the complex of Hagia Sophia.

As Muslims and non-Muslims – some tourists, some not – manoeuvre their way towards the antique wonder, many wait to pray and also experience the special tarawih prayers resuming in the museum-turned-mosque after 88 years this Ramadan.

Ibrahim Cetin, 50, is visiting the Grand Mosque of Hagia Sophia for the first time and remains overwhelmed with emotions.

“Despite living in this city for the past 30 years, I’m stepping into this building for the first time because I want to pray tarawih here,” he told Al Jazeera.

“I’m extremely happy that it is a mosque again. It is hard to say it in words to describe what this moment means for me,” he added as he broke down in tears.

Hagia Sophia throughout time stood as a central emblem of historic battles and shifts: the monument has been coveted and mourned by emperors, sultans, and modern-day politicians.

It has been a cathedral, a mosque, a museum, and now a mosque again after Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced the decision in 2020. The first prayer was then held under the building’s sky-high dome on July 24 that year.

Erdogan’s move received a lot of backlash and was deemed to be “politically motivated” by critics. Nuh Atikoglu, 52, a visitor to Hagia Sophia echoed similar views.

“It doesn’t matter to me if it is a mosque or a museum. I’m indifferent since there is the Blue Mosque close by as well. Erdogan took this decision to distract Turkish citizens from the ongoing political crisis at that time,” Atikoglu said.

The conversion, however, was also considered to be a longstanding demand of Turkish conservatives. Cetin had “never expected that Hagia Sophia will be a mosque again, but it is a monument belonging to our Ottoman forefathers”, he said.

Hagia Sophia throughout time stood as a central emblem of historic battles and shifts 

Changing meaning with history

In the first 900 years of its existence, Hagia Sophia was central to Byzantine culture and politics. Considered an architectural marvel, it was built as a basilica for the Greek Orthodox Christian Church in 537 CE during the reign of Emperor Justinian I.

Therefore, although it stands still in its form and structure, its meaning remains fluid, reflecting the political transformations of old and modern Turkey.

A significant historical shift for the building took place in 1453 when Sultan Mehmed II conquered Istanbul. Jubilant on seeing the grand monument, he prevented its destruction and converted it into a mosque.

“Mehmed II is an extremely intellectual leader, his mother is a Christian so he wants to lead the Christians of the city, and rather than destroying Hagia Sophia, he expanded it,” said Kaya Genc, author of, The Lion and the Nightingale.

Hagia Sophia became the symbol of imperial and sacred prestige for the Ottoman empire – it stood along in significance with the Kaaba in Mecca and the Dome of Rock in Jerusalem.

Interior conversions also took place during Ottoman rule. Islamic roundels – featuring the names of God, Prophet Muhammad, the first four caliphs, and the prophet’s two grandsons – were hung on the columns in the nave.

A mihrab – an altar that indicates the direction of Mecca – was installed in the wall.

The mihrab in Hagia Sophia is right under the Mosaic of the Theotokos, “because the direction of Mecca is in the same way towards the east, there was no requirement of shifting the direction or focus within the Church”, said an art historian who asked to remain anonymous because of sensitivities over Hagia Sophia.

To further add an Islamic character to the building, four minarets and the minbar were also added throughout its history under the Ottomans.

“The building itself affected the buildings that were to come later, with the construction of imperial mosques in Constantinople and Istanbul. Their form, their size, the complexes that formed around them all affected the construction of imperial religious buildings throughout the Muslim world.”

Hagia Sophia became the symbol of imperial and sacred prestige for the Ottoman empire – it stood along in significance with the Kaaba in Mecca and the Dome of Rock in Jerusalem

The modern era

As the Ottoman Empire declined at the start of the 20th century, Turkey became a secular republic in 1923. The political shift from an empire to becoming a republic also led Hagia Sophia to acquire another meaning as it was turned into a museum in 1934.

Genc said this was strategic political continuity for the significance of the building.

“What Ataturk did in 1935 is a form of continuity in the new modern Turkish society. Just as Islam is the continuation of Christianity, secularism is the continuation of Islam in its modern version. The formation of the republic came due to the modernised Islamists of that era.

“But the more religious sections of the society were disappointed, just how Christians were when Mehmed II converted the monument into a mosque in the 15th century,” he added.

For Turkish conservatives today, the conversion back to a mosque marked the fulfilment of a long-held ambition of restoring a symbolic monument of Ottoman glory.

“Ataturk made a prompt decision as well – it was sudden and brief. Erdogan, too, made a sudden and brief announcement over Twitter to change it back into a mosque,” Kaya said.

Last week, Erdogan also inaugurated the Hagia Sophia Fatih Madrassa in Istanbul. The Madrassah was built by Mehmed II, serving as the first madrassah of the city next to Hagia Sophia, and was demolished during the republican era.

Speaking at the inauguration ceremony, Erdoğan said his government was pleased “to give back the city another important structure whose traces were deliberately erased”.

After Hagia Sophia’s re-conversion to a mosque, the mosaics inside are again covered with white sheets, the Islamic roundels remain hanging, golden chandeliers light up the colossal space, and a turquoise carpet covers the floor as people pray tarawih.

Hamza Cheroui, 32, a tourist visiting from Belgium, said he was ecstatic about its conversion. As a Muslim living in the West, Hamza said, Erdogan’s decision was mostly criticised by people holding “anti-Islamic sentiments” in Europe.

As a frequent visitor to Hagia Sophia over the years, the space “feels more spacious and clear than it did as a museum”, he told Al Jazeera.

For many Turks, the conversion back to a mosque marked the fulfilment of a long-held ambition of restoring a symbolic monument of Ottoman glory 

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
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Israel’s War On Gaza: List of Key Events, Day 101

Published

3 years ago

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15th January 2024

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Israel's war on Gaza: List of key events, day 101 | Israel War on Gaza News | Al Jazeera

Dozens of Palestinians killed in overnight Israeli strikes in central and south Gaza as Red Sea tensions rise.

Here’s how things stand on Monday, January 15, 2024:

Latest updates and human impact

  • Israeli attacks continue unabated overnight killing and wounding dozens of civilians in central and southern Gaza. At least 22 people were killed and a large number injured as a result of Israeli forces targeting al-Thalatheni Street in the central Gaza Strip.
  • Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired an antiship cruise missile toward an American destroyer in the Red Sea, which was shot down by a US fighter jet, announced US Central Command (CENTCOM) on X.
  • This was the first US-acknowledged Houthi attack since the US strikes on Yemen on Friday.
  • Hamas released a 37-second video showing three Israeli captives held in Gaza on Sunday, saying they would reveal the fate of the captives on Monday and urging the Israeli government to stop the offensive.
  • The Israeli military says it has shifted to a new phase of the war focused on the southern end of Gaza, where almost 2 million internally displaced Palestinians are running out of safe spaces to shelter.
  • The Gaza Ministry of Health has said almost 24,000 people have been killed in the Israeli offensive. More than 60,000 people have been wounded in 100 days of war.

Diplomacy

  • Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that his country will pursue its war against Hamas until victory and will not be stopped by anyone, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
  • The White House said on Sunday that “it’s the right time” for Israel to scale back its military offensive in the Gaza Strip.
  • Egypt’s State Information Service (SIS) said in a statement on Sunday that one of the biggest obstacles to the timely delivery of sufficient aid to Gaza was Israeli inspection of the aid. The statement came after Israel blamed Cairo for the delay in aid delivery to Gaza during its defence at the ICJ.
  • US Secretary of State Antony Blinken posted on X on Monday, calling for the release of the remaining captives held in Gaza on the 100th day since they were taken by Hamas. He did not mention the Palestinian casualties.
  • Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who described herself as a “friend of Israel” to the press, will travel to Jordan, Israel, the occupied Palestinian Territories and the United Arab Emirates this week, her office said on Monday.

West Bank raids and violence

  • Israeli forces arrested 25 students staging a sit-in in protest against high tuition fees at An-Najah University in Nablus. Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut reported that the protesting students received a text message from Israeli forces telling them to “surrender now”.
  • Israeli forces have reportedly raided the family home of Nael al-Barghouti, the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner, in the village of Kobar, in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.
  • The Israeli army said on Friday that it killed three Palestinian men who infiltrated a West Bank settlement and fired upon soldiers.
  • The Israeli military killed two Palestinians after accusing them of ramming their car through a checkpoint near Hebron.
  • Local sources reported that Israeli forces bulldozed two Palestinian-owned houses during a Sunday midnight raid in the city of Qalqilya, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
  • Armed Israeli settlers broke into the village of Burin, south of Nablus, and attacked Palestinian residents’ houses and properties after midnight on Sunday, Wafa reported.
  • “Violent raids and arrests have become part of the fabric of daily life in the occupied West Bank,” Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Jamjoom, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, said. At least 347 Palestinians have been killed and thousands have been arrested since October 7.

 

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
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Hamas Says Will Kill Hostages if Israeli Attacks On Gaza Civilians Continue

Published

3 years ago

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10th October 2023

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Flames and smoke billow during Israeli attacks against Gaza on October 9, 2023

Human Rights Watch terms Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant’s call for a ‘complete siege’ on Gaza a ‘war crime’.

The Hamas movement has threatened to kill an Israeli hostage every time Israel bombs a Palestinian home without warning as Israel mobilised some 300,000 reservists and imposed a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, denying the enclave’s millions of residents access to food, water and fuel.

The warning from Hamas came on Monday as the death toll from the armed group’s surprise weekend attack climbed to 900 in Israel and revenge attacks by Israeli forces on the besieged Gaza Strip killed more than 700 people and left some 3,700 others wounded.

Residential apartment blocks, hospitals, schools and a mosque have been among the sites attacked by Israeli fighter jets, artillery and drones, according to media reports and witnesses.

Hamas spokesperson Abu Ubaida issued the threat to kill Israelis from the dozens held captive by the armed group. He said an Israeli hostage would be killed for every Israeli bombing of a civilian house without warning.

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said more than 100 people were taken captive by Hamas during the deadly cross-border incursion over the weekend.

As Israeli forces conducted intense retaliatory attacks on Gaza on Monday, Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant drew international condemnation by announcing a total blockade of the densely populated and besieged enclave, which is home to 2.3 million people.

Gallant said Israel would impose a “complete siege” on Gaza. “No electricity, no food, no water, no gas – it’s all closed.”

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply distressed” by the siege announcement and warned that Gaza’s already dire humanitarian situation will now “only deteriorate exponentially”.

A mourner carries the body of Palestinian boy Saad Lubbad, who health officials said was killed in Israeli strikes, during his funeral in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, October 9, 2023. REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
A mourner carries the body of Palestinian boy Saad Lubbad, who health officials said was killed in an Israeli attack, during his funeral in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on October 9, 2023 [Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters]

Guterres also said some 137,000 people were taking shelter with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) at schools across Gaza.

UNRWA said on Tuesday that almost 190,000 people have been displaced in Gaza amid the Israeli attacks and the figure is expected to grow further as the violence intensifies.

Nearly half a million people have also not received food rations this week in Gaza as UN food distribution centres have been forced to remain closed amid the Israeli onslaught, UNRWA said.

Human Rights Watch said Israel’s total blockade on the necessities of life for everyday people in Gaza was a war crime.

“Defense Minister Gallant’s statements are abhorrent,” Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

“Depriving the population in an occupied territory of food and electricity is collective punishment, which is a war crime, as is using starvation as a weapon of war. The International Criminal Court should take note of this call to commit a war crime,” he said.

Shakir also condemned the threat by Hamas to kill hostages, warning that such action was also a war crime.

“All hostages should be safely released to their families,” he said.

On the diplomatic front, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Hamas and Israel to immediately end violence and protect civilians, the Egyptian presidency said.

Erdogan urged Israel against “indiscriminately” attacking civilians and delivered measured criticism of Hamas, urging both sides to respect the “ethics” of war.

The United Kingdom, French, German, Italian and US governments issued a joint statement on Monday recognising the “legitimate aspirations” of the Palestinian people and supporting equal measures of justice and freedom for Israelis and Palestinians alike.

INTERACTIVE_DEATH_TOLL_INJURED_ISRAEL_PALESTINE_OCT10_2023_0415
They said they would remain “united and coordinated” to ensure Israel can defend itself.

But the prospect that fighting could spread also alarmed the region and the world.

Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel in response to at least three of its members being killed in Israeli shelling of Lebanon.

Israel said one of its deputy commanders was also killed in an earlier cross-border raid from Lebanon.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES

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Western Leaders Accused of Hypocrisy Over Response To Palestine, Ukraine

Published

3 years ago

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10th October 2023

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US President Joe Biden holds a bilateral meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the 78th United Nations General Assembly in New York City, the US, September 20, 2023

Social media users, including journalists and observers, are calling out what they call a ‘double standard’.

After Saturday’s surprise attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Israel, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took to the social media platform X to offer “condolences go out to everyone who lost relatives or close ones in the terrorist attack”.

He also stated, “Israel’s right to self-defence is unquestionable.”

Many world leaders, including US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, shared similar sentiments.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated, “Israel has the right to defend itself – today and in the days to come. The European Union stands with Israel.”

Accusations of Western ‘double standards’

Some social media users have criticised these statements, saying they highlight a double standard.

Ukraine’s right to defend itself is praised by most international leaders while Russia’s invasion is condemned, but commentators said the same cannot be said about Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

Aaron Bastani, a leftist British journalist, said on X that there’s a “clear double standard in endorsing terrorism against civilian targets in Ukraine … and condemning it by Palestinians”.

Many users said Western diplomats and media support the Ukrainians who defend their land, but label the Palestinians fighting against Israel as “terrorists”.

https://twitter.com/KhaledBeydoun/status/1710787817415082349?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710787817415082349%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine

An illustration of a woman’s face, in which one eye is closed beside a Palestinian flag, and one eye open beside a Ukrainian flag, has been regularly shared as a symbol of the West’s alleged double standards in how the two conflicts are viewed.

https://twitter.com/OnlinePalEng/status/1710994682883273172?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710994682883273172%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine

Clips also emerged on social media from a CNN interview with Mustafa Barghouti, the general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, in which he posed the rhetorical question, “Why does the United States support Ukraine in fighting occupation – while here they support the occupier, who continues to occupy us?”

It is not the first time Western nations have been accused of double standards in their stance on the Ukraine war.

Earlier in the year, Amnesty International published a report highlighting the West’s “double standards” on global human rights.

Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary-general, told Al Jazeera at the time that the occupation of Palestinian territory was a “particularly important one”.

“Without making any comparison between Russia’s aggression and Israel … it is clear the Palestinian people are under a regime of oppression – a regime of occupation and a regime of apartheid,” Callamard told Al Jazeera.

Over the last three days, X users recirculated earlier statements calling out what they called Western hypocrisy, sharing video by the Irish lawmaker Richard Boyd Barrett from March 2022 in which he berated the Irish government’s double standards regarding Ukraine and Palestine:

“You’re happy to use the most strong and robust language to describe the crimes against humanity of [Russian President] Vladimir Putin, but you will not use the same strength of language when it comes to describing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.”

Barrett on Sunday again called out what he described as “shocking double standards of Western leaders supporting Ukraine resistance but condemning Palestinian[s].”

Meanwhile, others warned against comparing conflicts.

https://twitter.com/denfordauthor/status/1710993737738768607?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710993737738768607%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine

And some cautioned that Hamas and the Palestinians should not be seen as one and the same.

Ukrainian footballer Oleksandr Zinchenko, who plays for Arsenal, posted on Instagram, stating he “stands with Israel”.

Zinchenko has been a vocal supporter of his home country in its ongoing defence against Russia, and he participated in a Game4Ukraine charity match in London earlier this year to raise money for Ukraine.

After online backlash, with some questioning an alleged double standard in his support of Israel, the footballer removed the post and switched his social media account to private.

Several people claimed that Zinchenko’s football club, in not responding to his comments, was guilty of hypocrisy after they had distanced themselves from former player Mesut Ozil’s comments in 2019 over alleged human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims in China.

SOURCE: AL JAZEERA
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