Humanities assignment

Discussion Board one – The Hagia Sophia

For this post you will need to read the information provided about the Byzantine church of Hagia Sophia and watch the short videos. Since this building goes from being a Byzantine Christian church to an Islamic mosque to a museum and back to a mosque, some of the information goes beyond the Byzantine Empire into next week’s topic of Islamic cultures and beyond.

In this post discuss your thoughts about the Hagia Sophia as a Byzantine work of architecture or discuss the impact of its controversial return to being a mosque. Your post needs to be a minimum of 250 words. You do not need to reply to any of the posts – but if you do, please be respectful.

Information about the Hagia Sophia

The Hagia Sophia, the Church of Holy Wisdom, was the center of the Byzantine empire. This building glorified the Byzantine emperors as much as it glorified God. To quote historian John Romer, “It was here, on the last day of Byzantium, that the emperor and his troops prayed before going out on the city walls to die.”

We know the names of the architects of the Hagia Sophia – Anthemius of Tralles and Isidorus of Miletus. Their design and engineering innovations were marvels of their time and would greatly influence Islamic and, later, Western European architecture.

The Hagia Sophia became a mosque when the Byzantine empire fell to the Islamic empire in 1454CE.;the same time the city of Constantinople was renamed Istanbul. In the early 20th century the Turkish government made it a museum – so it was neither Christian church nor Islamic mosque. In the summer of 2020, the Turkish government decreed it to be a mosque once more. In past semesters, I have fielded a few questions about a church becoming a mosque. This not the first time this has happened, and it has happened the other way. The Cathedral of Cordoba in Spain was originally the Great Mosque of Cordoba from when that part of Spain was part of the Islamic Empire.

The Videos:

1. It’s a church. It’s a mosque. It’s Hagia Sophia. TED-Ed (2014) (Links to an external site.)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRPp3jzv1Tw&list=RDLV2i0i4xIngFo&index=4

This animated video provides a good overview of the Hagia Sophia. It is from 2014 – several years before it changed from museum to mosque

2. Turkey turns iconic museum Hagia Sophia into mosque (July 2020) (Links to an external site.)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnULO83UHBU

Videos 2, 3, and 4 were all made the year the Hagia Sophia became a mosque once more.

3. HAGIA SOPHIA | FIRST VISIT AS A MOSQUE (Aug.14, 2020) (Links to an external site.)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU_RizrWnrU

4. Turkey’s Culture War Widens After Iconic Hagia Sophia Reopens As A Mosque | NBC News (Aug. 3, 2020) (Links to an external site.)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAPoCX0JTkw&list=RDLVKRPp3jzv1Tw&index=7