Tag: Mosques

  • Mosque conversion raises alarm

    Mosque conversion raises alarm

    Christian art in Byzantine church-turned-museum is at risk after controversial court ruling

    By Andrew Finkel. Museums, Issue 245, April 2013

    Published online: 11 April 2013

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    A unique ensemble of 13th-century Christian paintings, sculpture and architecture

    One of the most important monuments of late Byzantium, the 13th-century Church of Hagia Sophia in the Black Sea city of Trabzon, which is now a museum, will be converted into a mosque, after a legal battle that has dramatic implications for other major historical sites in Turkey. Many in Turkey believe that the Church of Hagia Sophia is a stalking horse for the possible re-conversion of its more famous namesake in Istanbul, the Hagia Sophia Museum (Ayasofya Müzesi).

    For around 50 years, responsibility for the Church of Hagia Sophia in Trabzon has rested with Turkey’s Ministry of Culture and Tourism. The courts now accept the claim made by the General Directorate of Pious Foundations, the government body responsible for most of the country’s historical mosques, that this has been an “illegal occupation”. The court has ruled that Hagia Sophia is an inalienable part of the foundation of Sultan Mehmed II who first turned the church into a mosque after his conquest of the Empire of Trebizond in 1462.

    “A building covenanted as a mosque cannot be used for any other purpose,” says Mazhar Yildirimhan, the head of the directorate’s office in Trabzon. He declined to speculate on whether this would mean covering up nearly half the wall space taken up with figurative Christian art, including the dome depicting a dynamic Christ Pantocrator. “There are modern techniques for masking the walls,” he says.

    The church was rescued from dereliction (it had been used variously as an arsenal and a cholera hospital) between 1958 and 1962 by the University of Edinburgh under the direction of David Talbot Rice and David Winfield. This included restoring the original ground plan and removing a prayer niche constructed into an exterior porch. The church also has an exterior frieze depicting “the Fall of Man”.

    “It is the whole ensemble—architecture, sculpture and painting—that makes Hagia Sophia unique,” says Antony Eastmond of London’s Courtauld Institute of Art, who is an authority on the building. “This is the most complete surviving Byzantine structure; there is no 13th-century monument like it.”

    Concern for the building is prompted by the fate of Istanbul’s Arab Mosque—originally a 14th-century Dominican church—also administered by the directorate. An earthquake in 1999 shook loose plaster from the vaults revealing frescoes and mosaics. The conservation of these paintings was finished last year but they were immediately re-covered.

    Like its namesake in Trabzon, Hagia Sophia in Istanbul was also turned into a mosque, after Mehmed II’s conquest of the city in 1453. It was famously made into a museum in 1935 by cabinet decree—unlike the informal arrangement in Trabzon. The re-conversion of Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia into a mosque has long been the “golden apple” sought by Turkey’s religious right.

    For such a thing to happen would have major implications for the country’s standing as a custodian of world heritage, according to one senior Western diplomat based in Istanbul.

    Yet already the current government has been working on a list of historical properties administered by the Hagia Sophia Museum. In January, Istanbul’s oldest surviving church, the fifth-century St John Stoudios, which became the Imrahor Mosque in the 15th century before fire and earthquake left it in ruins, was transferred from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism to the General Directorate, which plans to rebuild it as a mosque.

    Shrouded in secrecy

    Turkish scholars are also up in arms at the directorate’s decision to transform another ruin, the Kesik Minare in Antalya, into a mosque. The local chamber of architects has gone to court to prevent this happening. Originally a Roman temple, the Kesik Minare has a Byzantine, Seljuk and Crusader past. A plan had already been drawn up to turn the site into an open-air museum.

    Recent experience suggests that the directorate reconstructs mosques without regard for the millennia of history they contain. The restoration of the sixth-century Church of Sts Sergius and Bacchus (now the Small Ayasofya Mosque) was shrouded in secrecy and completed in 2006 without the academic community being allowed to conduct a proper survey.

    Similar complaints have been levelled against the repurposing of yet another Hagia Sophia—the fifth-century basilica in Iznik where the Second Council of Nicaea was held in AD787. It was a museum, but now it is a mosque. Contrary to accepted archaeological practice, the walls were capped with an attached rather than freestanding roof. “It has lost most of its original character,” says Engin Akyurek, an archaeology professor at Istanbul University. “There is a great difference between conserving a historical building and reconstructing it so it can be used as a mosque,” he says.

    via Mosque conversion raises alarm – The Art Newspaper.

  • The Adventures of Travel Cat: At an Istanbul Mosque || Jaunted

    The Adventures of Travel Cat: At an Istanbul Mosque || Jaunted

    Kitty cats. They rule the internet and, whether we realize it or not, pretty much the world too. Ever noticed how cats sometimes stake out the coolest spots in a city? This new feature—Travel Cat—focuses on exactly that. Submit a photo to be featured by tweeting or Instagramming it to us (details below).

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    Travel Cat spotted in: Istanbul, Turkey.

    This week’s Travel Cat is from Instagrammer @aksakosha, who shares a very different perspective of a local cat in what we’re coming to realize is like cat-city, Istanbul. His comment, “Доброе утро, сказал рыжий турецкий котик,” translates to the very cute little message of, “‘Good Morning,’ said Turkish red cat.”

    How to submit your own Travel Cat photo to be featured:

    · Have a pic of a cute cat in an interesting world location.

    · Tweet it to us @Jaunted with a few words on where you took the snap.

    · OR Instagram it to us by posting the pic and including us (@Jaunted) and #TravelCat in the description

    · Or you can always just email us the old-fashioned way.

    If your kitty makes the cut, we’ll feature it on Travel Cat (every Wednesday!) and link to your Twitter/Instagram/Facebook—whatever social network you get down with the most.

    [Photo: @aksakosha]

    via The Adventures of Travel Cat: At an Istanbul Mosque || Jaunted.

  • Istanbul home to most mosques in Turkey

    Istanbul home to most mosques in Turkey

    Turkey has 82,693 mosques, the most of which are in the country’s largest city, Istanbul, according to Religious Affairs Directorate data.

    Istanbul, as the capital of the Ottoman Empire since 1453 and the largest city in the Middle East, contains a great number of mosques.

    Istanbul has 3,113 mosques, including the historical Sultanahmet Mosque and the Süleymaniye Mosque.

    The eastern province of Tunceli, which has the highest proportion of Alevi citizens of any province, has the fewest mosques at 117, although it is also the second smallest province by total population.

    There has been an increase in the number of mosques in Turkey in the past decade, data shows. In the past 10 years, the number of mosques in Turkey increased from 75,369 to 82,693, said the data.

    Turkey’s population was 75,627,384 as of Dec. 31, 2012, according to the Turkish Statistics Institute’s (TÜİK) data.

    The Central Anatolian province of Konya, long seen as a bastion of conservatism, followed Istanbul with 3,046 mosques, despite being just the seventh-most populous province in Turkey with close to 1.1 million people. Ankara has 2,817 mosques, while the Black Sea province of Samsun has 2,621 mosques.

    Moving down the list, Kastamonu has 2,547 Muslim houses of worship, Antalya has 2,097, Trabzon 1,917, İzmir 1,782, Diyarbakır 1,766, Bursa 1,646, Şanlıurfa 1,614, Mersin 1,447, Giresun 1,425, Sivas 1,317, Van 1,294 and Kayseri 1,217.

    via Istanbul home to most mosques in Turkey.

  • 17,000 New Mosques Built In Turkey Since Obama’s BFF Erdogan Took Power, Zero New Schools built.

    17,000 New Mosques Built In Turkey Since Obama’s BFF Erdogan Took Power, Zero New Schools built.

    17,000 New Mosques Built In Turkey Since Obama’s BFF Erdogan Took Power, Zero New Schools built.

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    17,000 New Mosques Built In Turkey Since Obama’s BFF Erdogan Took Power, Zero New Schools built.HT: Infidel Bloggers.(AM).

    Remember, Erdogan is one of Obama’s five best friends among world leaders. He even went so far as to seek Erdogan’s advice on raising Sasha and Malia.

    Ankara – Some 17,000 new mosques have been built during Turkish Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s 10 years of leadership, Milliyet reports.

    In the same period the amount of public schools has remained at 32,000 while the number of mosques has jumped from 76,000 to 93,000. Turkey’s secular opposition has accused Erdogan of having a ”secret plan” to re-Islamisize the nation.

    Erdogan recently announced the construction of a new mega-mosque in Istanbul which will ”be seen from every corner of the Bosphorus” and will have the tallest minarets in the world.Hmmm……..Erdogan: “Minarets are our bayonets, the domes our helmets, the mosques our barracks, and the believers our army.”

    via MFS – The Other News: 17,000 New Mosques Built In Turkey Since Obama’s BFF Erdogan Took Power, Zero New Schools built..

  • Greece says no deal with Turkey over planned Athens mosque

    Greece says no deal with Turkey over planned Athens mosque

    Greek Deputy Foreign Minister Konstantinos Tsiaras said two countries had not signed any agreements during a bilateral meeting in Doha, Qatar, late last month on the construction of a mosque.

    World Bulletin/News Desk

    Eid al-Fitr celebrations in Greece

    A senior Greek diplomat has said his country had no concluded deal with Turkey over the construction of a mosque in Athens, the only European Union capital without an Islamic prayer house, adding that the Greek government would use its own financial resources to build one.

    Greek Deputy Foreign Minister Konstantinos Tsiaras said Friday Prime Minister Antonis Samaras and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan had not signed any agreements during a bilateral meeting in Doha, Qatar, late last month on the construction of a mosque.

    In the January 20 meeting in Doha, Erdogan told his the Greek counterpart that the Turkish government might cover costs of a mosque in Athens – if the Greek government sanctioned it.

    “The two prime minister did not sign any agreement on any issue in the Doha meeting,” Tsiaras said in response to a parliamentary question submitted by far-right Golden Dawn lawmakers.

    “There is no such topic on the agenda of the Turkish-Greek relations. And Athens has no intention of engaging in a debate with Turkey over this specific issue or any similar ones.”

    An estimated 500,000 Muslims live in Greece, with about 40 percent of them in the capital. Athens has around 100 makeshift mosques and the Greek government has long delayed plans to build an official one.

    The country has not allowed construction of a mosque since 1883, the year when the Ottomans evacuated the city.

    via Greece says no deal with Turkey over planned Athens mosque | Diplomacy | World Bulletin.

  • Ortakoy Mosque, Istanbul — Travel 365 — National Geographic

    Ortakoy Mosque, Istanbul

    Photograph by Frank Heuer, laif/Redux

    A vast suspension bridge crosses the Bosporus strait, connecting Asia and Europe in Istanbul, the cosmopolitan heart of Turkey—and the only city to span two continents. Aglow in the evening, a mosque in the Orkatoy neighborhood appears to anchor the European section of the city.

    Share your favorite #bridge photos with us by tagging your pictures with @NatGeoTraveler on Twitter and Instagram.

    Wander the Streets of Modern Istanbul >>

    Travel 365. Explore the world, one incredible image at a time.

    via Ortakoy Mosque, Istanbul — Travel 365 — National Geographic.