Turkey museum Hagia Sophia into mosque

President Tayyip Erdogan declared Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia open to Muslim prayer as a mosque on Friday after a top court ruled that the building’s conversion to a museum by modern Turkey’s founding statesman was illegal.​The Council of State, Turkey’s top administrative court, said in its ruling: “It was concluded that the settlement deed allocated it as a mosque and its use outside this character is not possible legally. The Cabinet decision in 1934 that ended its use as a mosque and defined it as a museum did not comply with laws,”

• It was 1,500-year-old monument that is revered by Christians and Muslims alike.
• Hagia Sophia act as focal point of both the Christian Byzantine and Muslim Ottoman empires and now one of the most visited monuments in Turkey.

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