This Friday, Istanbul's Hagia Sophia will become a venue for Muslim prayers for the first time in almost a century. I do not intend to pray there. As a Muslim, it is against my religious beliefs to forcibly convert another religion's holy place for my own use. This might not bother the political Islamists who support the move, but it is a principle that Islam has been committed to for 1,400 years.
Constructed as a church in the year 360 AD during the reign of Roman Emperor Constantine II, it was converted to a museum in 1934, as a way to make it an inclusive space that can serve, like Istanbul itself, as a bridge between continents and civilizations.
Read Full Article »