Is Hagia Sophia an election ploy?

The early morning prayers of several thousand of devout Muslims outside the Hagia Sophia Museum Saturday (May 31) sent multiple messages to everybody who is trying to decipher the complexity of present Turkish politics.

Actually it was not the first time that the Club of Anatolian Youth (AGD) had gathered in great numbers in front of this unique monument of religious architecture, now an officially declared monument of world cultural heritage. They also did so in 2012 when several thousand Muslim faithful had prayed for the return of Hagia Sophia to its former use i.e. as a Muslim mosque, to which it was converted by Sultan Mehmet II immediately after he conquered the City on the May 29, 1453. Before that, it served as a Patriarchal Church of Orthodox Christianity since its foundation in 537, except for a short period of almost sixty years in the early 13th century, when it was converted to a Catholic church under the Latin rule of the City. And it was not the first time that the anniversary of “Fetih [conquest]” became an occasion to show the advance of the Ottoman army, not just as a military victory, but as a victorious outcome of a holy war of Islam over Christianity and the West.

However, it does not go back as far in time as many would have thought. The spirit of “Fetih” was not born during the Ottoman rule. Perhaps they did not need to prove to anybody that they were they new rulers of the land. Historians tell us the Conquest was not celebrated then, but much later on: during Menderes’ time! The first celebrations for 500 hundred years of the conquest of the city were organized in 1953 by a precursor of AGD, the Istanbul Fetih Cemiyeti.

This year, the spirit of Fetih was subdued due to the tragedy of Soma...

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