ISTANBUL: “Tarawih” prayers which Muslims carry out each night time right through the holy month of Ramadan, are returning to Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia mosque for the primary time in 88 years, the rustic’s best non secular frame introduced on Thursday. “Thank you be to God. For the primary time in 88 years, the mosque… will welcome believers for tarawih prayers this Ramadan,” mentioned Ali Erbas head of the Diyanet, the general public frame answerable for overseeing non secular worship.
“I will be able to witness, God prepared, this pretty second through main the primary tarawih prayer,” he added. The prayers will happen at Hagia Sophia on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays right through the holy month of Ramadan, starting this week, mentioned Diyanet.
Even supposing the enduring development, prior to now used as a museum, used to be was a mosque in 2020, the coronavirus pandemic averted the prayers happening there till now. It’s no longer the primary time the development has modified its use. The edifice used to be first constructed as a Christian cathedral between 532 and 537 AD underneath emperor Justinian I and is thought of as an important Byzantine construction.
After the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople (now Istanbul) in 1453, it used to be transformed right into a mosque sooner than being opened as a museum in 1935 after the secular trendy Turkish republic used to be established in 1923. It used to be added to the listing of UNESCO global heritage websites in 1985.
In June 2020, Turkish government transformed Hagia Sophia again right into a mosque, a transfer that prompted a world wave of grievance. Remaining yr the International Heritage Committee of the UN’s cultural company UNESCO requested Turkey to post a record concerning the state of conservation of the Hagia Sophia, expressing “grave worry” over the results of its conversion right into a mosque. Turkey rapidly rejected the company’s grievance of the conversion of a respected Istanbul cathedral-turned-museum right into a mosque as “biased and political”. – AFP