The district of Istanbul that was once Constantinople, Fatih is home to innumerable cultural treasures. The Hagia Sophia, however, is the only cultural treasure I still remember from AP Global. Though the current edifice was built in 532 CE, the Hagia Sophia was the religious epicenter of the Byzantine Empire since 360 (discounting a brief stint by the Romans from 1204-1261). The church remained under Christian control until Mehmet the Conqueror defeated the Byzantine Empire in 1453, when Constantinople became Istanbul and the Hagia Sophia became the Ayasofya Mosque, which remained a place of prayer until Atatürk secularized it in 1934.
To stand in a place where such reverence, such awe, such power has been felt, to tune out the clicks of selfie sticks and the drone of multilingual tourist babble, and to focus. To focus all your being on the act of empathy, on feeling what those worshippers might have felt when they stood here, where you stand now, in the neutered halls of what was once a church, once a mosque, once a place where people opened their hearts to divine inspiration. I believe religion is the axle on the wheel of human violence, and yet to see a place of devotion become a place of tourism—it saddens me.
Leave a Reply