مسجد، متحف، ثم مسجد

5.3 Hagia Sophia (2020): From Museum to Mosque

The transition of the Hagia Sophia from museum to mosque in July 2020 represents a profound legal and spiritual reclamation, anchored by the nearly six-century-old Waqfiyya (Endowment Charter) of Sultan Mehmed II. Many felt that the museum stage of 85 years was a period of “silence” and “lost identity” as a worship place. (86 years counting from the Cabinet decree).

In the eyes of the Turkish law, the Endowment Charter is not merely a historical artifact; it is an eternal deed that established the building of Hagia Sophia as a Mosque (a house of worship that calls to perform five prayers every day). That is a sacred purpose.

By annulling (terminating) the 1934 decree, the modern Turkish state did more than resolve a legal technicality; it restored Hagia Sophia, from a passive, silent relic of the past into a dynamic, vocal participant in the present.