How Did Hagia Sophia Change Over Time

The Hagia Sophia was uniquely the home of two major religions at the time: Christianity and Islam. Much like how the church endured changes in its structure, its function changed multiple times. Within its lifetime, the great Hagia Sophia transitioned from a basilica of Christianity into a grand mosque, giving the building a great and unique history. From the beginning, the Hagia Sophia’s purpose was to be dedicated to God in the Christian faith. The Hagia Sophia remained a house of Christianity for more than nine hundred years. When Constantinople was captured during the Fourth Crusade, the Hagia Sophia was ransacked and desecrated by invaders. During the Fourth Crusade’s Latin Occupation, the previously Orthodox church was converted into a …show more content…
In the year 1453, the Ottomans conquered Constantinople and renamed the city Istanbul. This marked the beginning of the conversion of the Christian church into a mosque. After soldiers plundered the basilica, Sultan Mehmed II immediately started reconstruction and rededicated the magnificent building to Allah, “proclaiming that it would be the new imperial mosque” (Wall). Many changes came with the conversion to Islam. Over the next century, four towering minarets were built, representing the Islamic era of the Hagia Sophia. They couldn’t change the direction the mosque was facing, so instead, they relocated the focal point of prayer, called the mihrab, facing the city of Mecca. Christian symbols, such as mosaics of Jesus Christ and saints, were covered in plaster, decorative candleholders were brought in and placed within the building, and intricate calligraphy discs were suspended from the ceiling, honoring the first four caliphs following Muhammad (Wall). This was the start of an extensive campaign in remodeling the old Christian Church into a mosque that lasted almost five