Mosque

Turkey's Little Hagia Sophia, a church which was converted into a mosque, received thousands of tourists every year prior to the pandemic.

The architectural marvel situated in the Güzelyurt district of central Aksaray province was built by Roman Emperor Theodosius I for Saint Gregorius Theologos in 385 CE.

A Turkish mosque near the Denmark-Germany border suffered an Islamophobic attack when someone wrote insulting articles on its walls, an official at the facility said on Jan. 23.

Hurşit Tokay, the president of the mosque association, told Anadolu Agency that he left the Aabenraa Mosque on Jan. 22 at 6 p.m.

An ancient Islamic necropolis has been discovered in northeastern Spain by archaeologists.

Some 400 graves have been unearthed in town Tauste, near Zaragoza city, up from 40 in 2012-13, archeologists said.

The figure could climb to 4,500 should the excavations continue, they added.

The construction of a massive mosque in Istanbul's iconic Taksim Square is close to completion and is scheduled to open during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan.

The works of the above-ground façade of the mosque, which continued in accordance with social distancing rules due to the pandemic, were completed while the precast assembly of the building is at the last stage.

A figure of a "Seraphim Angel" on a ceiling of the Hagia Sophia Mosque has come to light on dismantling a scaffold that was inside the mosque for about seven years.

"We have completely demounted the scaffold today," said the officials on Nov. 22.

Monuments that have endured through time and hardship are free of the bonds of their age, of the vision and fate of their creators. They become part of our global heritage, "judging" those responsible for their preservation.

The way that people and governments behave toward great works reveals their principles, their qualities, the future of their society.

The Holy Synod of the Church of Greece on Friday issued a statement responding to reports that the Turkish government is pondering the transformation of the Hagia Sophia UNESO World Heritage site in Istanbul from a museum into a mosque.

A debate in Turkey on whether to convert Hagia Sophia into a mosque or keep it as a museum is being used to purse domestic political agendas, Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu said on Thursday, during a discussion on the Delphi Forum.

Turkish foreign minister on June 11 said Istanbul's Hagia Sophia is "not a matter of international affairs, but a matter of national sovereignty."

Speaking in a televised interview, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu responded to the recent discussions over the possible reopening of Hagia Sophia as a mosque and said the popular site was initially a mosque after conquering of Istanbul.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has reportedly instructed government officials to "do a study" on how to change the status of Hagia Sophia, the Byzantine-era Greek Patriarchal cathedral that was later transformed into an Ottoman mosque before becoming a museum in 1935.