Eid Prayers Held at Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia Mosque for 1st Time in Decades (+Video)
TEHRAN (IQNA) – Muslim worshippers attended Eid al-Adha prayers in Hagia Sophia in Turkey’s Istanbul on Friday for the first time after the historic building was reconverted into a mosque last week.
Hagia Sophia reopened for Friday prayers last week for the first time since a decision was made to turn it back into a mosque after more than 80 years as a museum.
The Hagia Sophia was the Roman Empire's first Christian cathedral and is among the best-known Byzantine structures in the world. It switched from a Greek Orthodox cathedral to a mosque after the Ottoman conquest in 1453.
The historic site then became a museum in 1935 as part of a decree by modern Turkey's secularist founding father Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
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