As I walk uphill on many of the streets in the old town Istanbul you can see the tips of the Mosques come into focus. The streets of Istanbul are cobble street. I feel this gives this city charm.
The Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque / Ayasofya-i Kebir Cami-i Şerifi, with its innovative architecture, rich history, religious significance and extraordinary characteristics has been fighting against time for centuries, was the largest Eastern Roman Church in Istanbul. Constructed three times in the same location, it is the world’s oldest and fastest-completed cathedral. The Hagia Sophia was built during the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian between 532 and 537. Hagia Sophia has been the biggest and largest domed temple for more than a thousand years.
The marble used to build the mosque was brought to different regions of the Byzantine Empire from places like Egypt and North Africa. The construction took only 5 to 10 months. With the short period of time, it took to complete it took ten thousand people to complete. The Hagia Sofia served as an Orthodox Church until 1204.
An interesting fact is five Catholic emperors were crowned in the Hagia Sophia which was converted into a Catholic Cathedral, but when the Orthodox recaptured the city in 1262 Hagia Sophia was converted back to Orthodox.
The Hagia Sophia would be converted to a Mosque on May 29, 1453, with the conquest of Istanbul by Mehmed the Conqueror. The mosque is a place of worship that brings people together without any discrimination. The mosque here in Turkey are the heart of the city in both social and religious terms. It was an architectural tradition in the Ottoman Empire to build mosques in the heart of cities and surround them with public structures.
The main mosque’s main dome stands 55.6 meters tall and has a diameter of 32 meters. The dome itself as original flat but over time it was raised and took on its own current shape. In the Turkish culture architecture, the dome represents the heavens and the oneness of Allah. There is a verse that can be found on dome itself: Allah is the Light of the heavens and the earth. The light is like s niche in which there is a lamp is in a crystal, crystal is like a shining star, lit from a blessed olive tree, neither to the east nor the west whose oil would almost glow, even without being touched by fire. This passage was written by Kazasker Musfafa Izzet Efendi one of the most important calligraphers during the reign of Sultan Adbulmedjid.
The Hagia Sophia has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1985 as a section called the Historic Areas of Istanbul, which includes Istanbul’s other major historic buildings and monuments. Today it is a landmark of Istanbul and one of the most visited sights in Türkiye.
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