{"id":64387,"date":"2014-01-08T17:50:52","date_gmt":"2014-01-08T22:50:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=64387"},"modified":"2014-01-08T17:50:52","modified_gmt":"2014-01-08T22:50:52","slug":"divine-wisdom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/01\/08\/divine-wisdom\/","title":{"rendered":"Divine Wisdom"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Hagia<\/a>

Photo: Schezar, via Flickr<\/p><\/div>\n

On May 28, 1453, the Byzantine emperor Constantine XI entered Hagia Sophia, \u201cthe church of the divine wisdom,\u201d to pray. Constantinople was under siege, and the fate of the great basilica was unclear. The emperor prayed there before returning to the city walls, where he coordinated the defense effort against the army of Mehmed II, who would be christened conqueror by day\u2019s end.<\/p>\n

As the two armies struggled to outmaneuver each other, those caught inside Hagia Sophia waited anxiously, fearful of what might happen if the capital of Greek Orthodoxy fell into Muslim hands. Emperor Justinian had commissioned the church in 532 A<\/small>.D<\/small>.; planned by the mathematician Anthemius of Tralles and the physicist Isidore of Miletus, and built by more than ten thousand laborers, it was intended to symbolize the magnificence of Christianity and become the seat of the Orthodox patriarch. Twenty years after its completion, two major earthquakes shook Hagia Sophia and destroyed its eastern arch. After extensive renovation, it reopened in 562 A<\/small>.D<\/small>. to the delight of Justinian, who, three years before his death, saw his great church survive one of nature\u2019s worst calamities.<\/p>\n

On May 29, 1453, Mehmed II and his army entered the city, immediately marching on Hagia Sophia. In their book Strolling Through Istanbul<\/em>, John Freely and Hilary Sumner-Boyd describe how Mehmed \u201cdismounted at the door of the church and bent down to take a handful of earth, which he then sprinkled over his turban as an act of humility before God.\u201d <\/p>\n

In the five centuries following that symbolic act, the greatest religious building of the Ottoman Empire continued to shine\u2014but this time, the glory belonged to Islam. Hagia Sophia became an imperial mosque; it came to boast four minarets (these also serve an architectural purpose, protecting the building against collapsing onto itself) and additional t\u00fcrbes<\/em> (Islamic mausoleums).<\/p>\n

Centuries later, in 1935, its role changed again. Twelve years after the foundation of the Turkish republic, President Mustafa Kemal Atat\u00fcrk signed a decision that turned Hagia Sophia into a secular museum. According to the Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire<\/em>, Atat\u00fcrk\u2019s decision not only turned Hagia Sophia into \u201can artifact of the past\u201d but rendered it \u201ca site of memory instead of \u2026 a symbol of lived religious experience.\u201d In the decades to come, the secularized building would serve as Istanbul\u2019s main tourist attraction; in 2012 alone it attracted around three and a half million visitors.<\/p>\n

Today, the building is on the brink of another transformation; 2014 may be remembered as the year that decided Hagia Sophia\u2019s fate. Last month, Yusuf Hala\u00e7o\u011flu, a parliamentarian from the nationalist MHP party, filed a proposal founded on a curious historical argument that brings to mind the books of Dan Brown and Umberto Eco. According to Hala\u00e7o\u011flu, the 1935 decree that transformed Hagia Sophia into a museum was forged. Atat\u00fcrk, he argued, had never wanted the building to be a museum, and thanks to a legal loophole, the current parliament could easily transform the museum back into a mosque.<\/p>\n

Was it conceivable that a forgery could be at the heart of arguably the most significant decision in Turkey\u2019s early republican history? Hala\u00e7o\u011flu\u2019s argument hinged on Atat\u00fcrk\u2019s name. Before the parliament had christened him\u00a0Atat\u00fcrk (\u201cthe father of Turks\u201d) on November 27, 1934, he\u2019d been known simply as Mustafa Kemal. Only after the Turkish parliament retitled him did he start to sign documents under the new name. But the motion that desanctified Hagia Sophia was passed on November 24, and it was signed \u201cK. Atat\u00fcrk\u201d\u2014three days too soon, to Hala\u00e7o\u011flu\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n

Further complicating matters, the decree\u2019s issue number was 1589, while another decree issued two days earlier was numbered 1606. Hala\u00e7o\u011flu also pointed out that the decree was never published in the Official Gazette (Resmi Gazete<\/i>) of the Republic, which may signal that the decree had been added to the presidential archive at a later date.<\/p>\n

To prove his theory, Hala\u00e7o\u011flu brought the decree document and Mustafa Kemal Atat\u00fcrk\u2019s signature to the Police Headquarters of Turkey and asked experts to compare the two; there does indeed seem to be a difference between them. The experts said as much, but not everyone was convinced\u2014intellectuals and historians began to weigh in. In Yeni Akit<\/i>, Turkey\u2019s most conservative newspaper, well known for its opposition to republican reforms, Faruk K\u00f6se argued that the forgery theory was an absurd attempt to distance Atat\u00fcrk from the cultural revolutions of early twentieth century. A forgery was impossible, K\u00f6se said. The mosque was turned into a museum in 1935 and opened its doors on February 1 of that year; since Atat\u00fcrk died on November 10, 1938, how on earth could he not have known about the transformation of the greatest mosque of Islam into a museum? As for the experts\u2019 verdict about the difference in signatures, K\u00f6se argued that it was natural for a person using a new signature for the first time to make slight alterations to it later. He also claimed that Atat\u00fcrk would\u2019ve executed anyone who attempted to forge his signature\u2014so absolute was his authority.<\/p>\n

* * *<\/center><\/p>\n

One morning not long ago, I took a tram to Hagia Sophia with my girlfriend. I wanted to get at the heart of the controversy. The entrance fee is twenty-five liras, which visitors are allowed to pay only after standing in a very long queue where guides of varying degrees of competence vie for attention.<\/p>\n

We entered the museum through the impressive Imperial Door, which only the emperors could use in the Byzantine era. Once inside, the first thing that struck us was the coldness of the place\u2014the chill almost overshadowed the beauty of the grand dome, which is 108 feet in diameter, rising to 180 feet above the floor. Having watched a National Geographic<\/i> documentary about its construction the night before, we had our doubts about the building\u2019s safety.<\/p>\n

More than anything else, the interior of the museum resembles an endless construction site. The library in the south aisle, commissioned by Sultan Mahmud in the eighteenth century, is currently being renovated, and a huge scaffold stands at the center with warning signs placed on columns around it. My girlfriend remembered having visited in 2010\u2014she said the scaffolding had been removed then. I found that difficult to believe, but she said she could prove it with pictures.<\/p>\n

Before climbing upstairs, we looked at the circular calligraphy panels that hang from the piers. Painted by Kazasker Mustafa Izzet Efendi, they contain the names of Allah, the prophet Muhammad, his four caliphs (Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, and Ali), and Muhammad\u2019s grandchildren Hussein and Hassan. They stand in striking contrast with the Christian imagery of the mosaics: the cohabitation of Islamic words and Christian images is a beautiful thing to behold.<\/p>\n

There are more than a hundred columns in the building, but none is more interesting than the so-called sweating column on the northern corner. Brought from the Temple of Artemis, the column has a huge hole in its center where visitors can insert their thumbs and rotate their hands, thus transmitting their dreams to the ancient structure\u2019s wish-fulfillment center. Because water can be seen coming out of it, people believe the column sweats, or cries, and that this is a miracle\u2014it may also be a sign of poor care.<\/p>\n

We walked among crowds of tourists, tour guides, and security guards, seeking perhaps the most curious object in the museum\u2014not an inanimate piece of ancient history but a living animal. Gri, the famous Hagia Sophia cat, has a Tumblr devoted to him<\/a>; the cross-eyed creature was named after the color of his coat. When Barack Obama visited Hagia Sophia in 2009, he was photographed fondling Gri\u2019s head. We, too, fondled it; I asked Gri about his take on the mosque-versus-museum controversy. He raised his tail, purred, and turned away.<\/p>\n

Not everyone\u2019s reactions are so docile. \u201cWe are looking at a sad Hagia Sophia, but hopefully we will see it smiling again soon,\u201d said the Turkish deputy prime minister last year, implying that it should be opened to Islamic service. According to the Greek Foreign Ministry, his suggestion had been \u201can insult to the religious sensibilities of millions of Christians and actions that are anachronistic and incomprehensible from a state that declares it wants to participate as a full member in the EU.\u201d Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew was quoted as saying, \u201cIf it is to reopen as a house of worship, then it should open as a Christian church.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although most people take an either\/or stance, some have proposed opening Hagia Sophia to both Islamic and Christian services. This is a welcome prospect to Christians, who have made a number of attempts to organize religious rituals. On one such occasion, in 2010, Turkey\u2019s director of religious affairs said, \u201cTurkey would not be a Christian country just because Christians performed their religious duties in a few churches.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s precedent for such a hybrid, too. I came across numerous\u00a0articles about the so-called church-mosques of Anatolia. Pazaryeri Camii, in the coastal city of Izmir, is one example: built for Christian service in 1874, it was repurposed as a mosque once Turkey became a republic. During the building\u2019s renovation, the experts found Christian icons and decided to install a curtain system to cover them during Islamic prayers. Another church-mosque, in the \u00c7ardak village of G\u00f6reme, has been used by both Orthodox Christians and Muslims. Indeed, a Turkish columnist recommended a similar solution for Hagia Sophia: \u201cWe should allow Aya Sofya to become all three things at the same time!\u201d she wrote. \u201cLet\u2019s keep it as a museum from Monday to Thursday, turn it into a mosque on Friday, close it for holiday on Saturday and use it as a church on Sunday. We can cover the floor with a carpet on Thursday nights and place chairs on Saturday nights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whichever outcome arrives, it would be great if someone installed proper heating equipment there. And whoever manages the building shouldn\u2019t forget about feeding Gri and managing his Tumblr feed. Above all, respect for the building\u2019s immense heritage is a must. Otherwise the ghosts of Justinian and Constantine will surely haunt us\u2014and so will the ghost of Mehmed the Conqueror, whose first action in front of Hagia Sophia was one of humility.<\/p>\n

Kaya Gen\u00e7 is a novelist and essayist from Istanbul.<\/i><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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