Istanbul’s iconic Hagia Sophia will be converted from a world-famous museum back into a mosque, a Turkish court ruled Friday, in a big victory for the Islamic conservatism of Turkey's President Erdogan.
Many in Turkey will welcome the decision, and see Friday's ruling as an emphatic victory for Erdogan’s plans for the secular but predominantly Muslim country.
“With Erdogan, Turkey will be a more powerful country in the near future,” she said by telephone. “There is no need to be secular anymore.'' “As [a] museum, Hagia Sophia can function as place and symbol of encounter, dialogue and peaceful coexistence of peoples and cultures, mutual understanding and solidarity between Christianity and Islam,” he said in a statementTuma Celik, 56, a Syriac Christian and a member of Parliament with the Turkish pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party, or the HDP, said he was against turning the Hagia Sophia into a mosque.
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