Hagia Sophia

                                 HAGİA SOPHİA

  The prophet of God in Muslim religion, Muhammad, had prophesied that the first Muslim to pray in Hagia Sophia would go to paradise. Since then, it was a great ambition for Muslim leaders to get Hagia Sophia.

   On 29 May 1453, The Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Mehmet II, conquered Constantinople after a 54 day siege. He directly went to the ancient Byzantine cathedral of Hagia Sophia. When he saw a man hacking the stones of the church and saying that this was a temple for infidels, Mehmet II ordered the looting to be stopped and the church to be converted into a mosque.

   With the following years, Sultans added something to the building. Sultan Bayezid ordered a new minaret changing the previous one of his fathers’. In the 16th century, Suleiman the Magnificent brought two colossal candles from Hungary to be placed on both sides of the mihrab. To the end of the 16th century during the reign of Selim II, famous architect Sinan strengthened the building by adding structural supports to its exterior. He also built two minarets on the western end of the building and the mausoleum of Selim II to the southeast of the building. In 1600s, two mausoleums were added next to Selim II’s: Murad III and Mehmed III.

   Two restorations were done in Hagia Sophia at the following years. In 1739, during the reign of Mahmud I, a medrese, a kitchen to distribute poor, and a library, and in 1740 a fountain for ritual ablutions were built. 

 The second and the major restoration was carried out during the reign of Abdulmecid. Swiss-Italian architect brothers Gaspere and Giuseppe Fossati started in 1847 and completed the restoration in two years with more than eight hundred workers. They repaired the cracks in the domes, and placed an iron chain around its base to support and strengthen. The mosaics that had been covered during the reign of Mehmed II were uncovered and repaired by the order of sultan, as he was deeply impressed by their beauty. He preferred hiding them instead of destroying. The Fossati brothers removed the Sultan’s lodge from the apse, and they built a new one against the pier to the north apse, with a gilded grille to cover the Sultan so he could be unseen, and to protect him against assassins. The sultan’s lodge was designed by Gaspare Fossati. He made the carved marble grille as Turkish rococo style, and the columns Byzantine. The brothers also renewed the mihrab and the minber.

   Calligraphy, the art of writing, was one of the most important arts of Islam, and calligraphists were more popular than architects and miniature painters. The Fossati brothers take that into consideration, and ordered Kazasker Mustafa Izzet Efendi -the most famous calligraphist of its age- gigantic circular wooden frames to hang in columns in Hagia Sophia. Kazasker Mustafa Izzet Efendi painted and finished eight huge frames. As in many mosques, the frames inscribed the names of Allah, the prophet Muhammad, the first four caliphs Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman and Ali, and the two grandchildren of      Mohammed: Hassan and Hussain.
Fossati brothers’ restoration were finalized by a new Suntan’s gallery in Neo-Byzantine style connected to a royal pavilion behind the mosque, a medrese and a time-keepers building were built and the minarets were altered so that they became equal in height. The mosque was inaugurated on 13 July 1849.