Conversion of Hagia Sophia: Focus on The Model Initiated by The Prophet and Implemented by Caliph Umar
By
Mustafa Akyol
July 20,
2020
The recent
decision by the Turkish government to reconvert the majestic Hagia Sophia,
which was once the world’s greatest cathedral, from a museum back to a mosque
has been bad news for Christians around the world. They include Pope Francis,
who said he was “pained” by the move, and the spiritual leader of Eastern
Christianity, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, who said he was “saddened and
shaken.” When contrasted with the joy of Turkey’s conservative Muslims, all
this may seem like a new episode in an old story: Islam vs. Christianity.
A top Turkish court revoked the sixth-century Hagia Sophia's status as a
museum, clearing the way for it to be turned back into a mosque. (File photo,
AFP)
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But some
Muslims, including myself, are not fully comfortable with this historic step,
and for a good reason: forced conversion of shrines, which has occurred too many
times in human history in all directions, can be questioned even from a purely
Islamic point of view.
To see why,
look closely into early Islam, which was born in seventh century Arabia as a
monotheist campaign against polytheism. The Prophet Muhammad and his small
group of believers saw the earlier monotheists — Jews and Christians — as
allies. So when those first Muslims were persecuted in pagan Mecca, some found
asylum in the Christian kingdom in Ethiopia. Years later, when the Prophet
ruled Medina, he welcomed a group of Christians from the city of Najran to
worship in his own mosque. He also signed a treaty with them, which read:
“There shall be no interference with the practice of their faith. … No
bishop will be removed from his bishopric, no monk from his monastery, no
priest from his parish.”
This
religious pluralism was also reflected in the Quran, when it said God protects
“monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques in which the name of God is
much mentioned.” (22:40) It is the only verse in the Quran that mentions
churches — and only in a reverential tone.
People
gather outside Hagia Sophia in Istanbul to celebrate after a top Turkish court
revoked its status as a museum, clearing the way for it to be turned back into
a mosque. Photograph: Ozan Kose/AFP via Getty Images
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To be sure,
these theological affinities did not prevent political conflicts. Nor did they
prevent Muslims, right after the Prophet’s passing, from conquering Christian
lands, from Syria to Spain. Yet still, the early Muslim conquerors did
something uncommon at the time: They did not touch the shrines of the
subjugated peoples.
The
Prophet’s spirit was best exemplified by his second successor, or caliph, Umar
ibn Al-Khattab, soon after his conquest of Jerusalem in the year 637. The city,
which had been ruled by Roman Christians for centuries, had been taken by
Muslims after a long and bloody siege. Christians feared a massacre, but
instead found Aman, or safety. Caliph Umar, “the servant of God” and
“the commander of the faithful,” gave them security “for their possessions,
their churches and crosses.” He further assured:
“Their churches shall not be taken for residence and shall not be
demolished … nor shall their crosses be removed.”
The
Christian historian Eutychius even tells us that when Caliph Umar entered the
city, the patriarch of Jerusalem, Sophronius, invited him to pray at the
holiest of all Christian shrines: the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Umar
politely declined, saying that Muslims might later take this as a reason to
convert the church into a mosque. He instead prayed at an empty area that
Christians ignored but Jews honoured, then as now, as their holiest site, the
Temple Mount, where today the Western Wall, the last remnant of that ancient
Jewish temple, rises to the top of the Mount, on which the Mosque of Umar and
the Dome of the Rock were built.
A place of worship -- but for whom? BIGSTOCK
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In other
words, Islam entered Jerusalem without really converting it. Even “four
centuries after the Muslim conquest,” as the Israeli historian Oded Peri
observes, “the urban landscape of Jerusalem was still dominated by Christian
public and religious buildings.”
Yet Islam
was becoming the religion of an empire, which, like all empires, had to justify
its appetite for hegemony. Soon, some jurists found an excuse to overcome the
Jerusalem model: There, Christians were given full security, because they had
ultimately agreed on a peaceful surrender. The cities that resisted Muslim
conquerors, however, were fair game for plunder, enslavement, and conversion of
their churches.
In the
words of the Turkish scholar NecmeddinGuney, this legitimatization of
conversion of churches came from not the Quran nor the Prophetic example, but
rather “administrative regulation.” The jurists who made this case, he adds,
“were probably trying to create a society that makes manifest the supremacy of
Islam in an age of religion wars.”
Another
scholar, Fred Donner, an expert on early Islam, argues that this political
drive even distorted records of the earlier state of affairs. For example,
later versions of the Aman given to the Christians of Damascus allotted
Muslims “half of their homes and churches.” In the earlier version of the
document, there was no such clause.
Police officers walk in front of Hagia Sophia, or Ayasofya-iKebirCamii,
in Istanbul, Turkey, July 11, 2020. (Reuters)
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When the
Ottomans reached the gates of Constantinople in 1453, Islamic attitudes had
long been imperialized, and also toughened in the face of endless conflicts
with the Crusaders. Using a disputed license of the Hanafi school of
jurisprudence they followed, they converted Hagia Sophia and a few other major
churches. But they also did other things that represent the better values of
Islam: They gave full protection to not only Greek but also Armenian
Christians, rebuilt Istanbul as a cosmopolitan city, and soon also welcomed the
Spanish Jews who were fleeing the Catholic Inquisition.
Today,
centuries later, the question for Turkey is what aspect of this complex Ottoman
heritage is really more valuable.
For the
religious conservatives who have rallied behind President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
in the past two decades, the main answer seems to be imperial glory embodied in
an absolute ruler.
For other
Turks, however, the greatness of the Ottomans lies in their pluralism, rooted at
the very heart of Islam, and it would inspire different moves today — perhaps
opening Hagia Sophia to both Muslim and Christian worship, as I have advised
for years. Another would be reopening the Halki Seminary, a Christian school of
theology that opened in 1844 under Ottoman auspices, went victim to secular
nationalism in 1971, but is still closed despite all the calls from advocates
for religious freedom.
For the
broader Muslim world, Hagia Sophia is a reminder that our tradition includes
both our everlasting faith and values, as well as a legacy of imperialism. The
latter is a bitter fact of history, like Christian imperialism or nationalism,
which have targeted our mosques and even lives as well — from Cordoba to
Srebrenica. But today, we should try to heal such wounds of the past, not open
new ones.
So, if we
Muslims really want to revive something from the past, let’s focus on the model
initiated by the Prophet and implemented by Caliph Umar. That means no shrines
should be converted — or reconverted. All religious traditions should be
respected. And the magnanimity of tolerance should overcome the pettiness of
supremacism.
Original
Headline: Would the Prophet Muhammad Convert Hagia Sophia?
Source: The New York Times
URL: https://newageislam.com/interfaith-dialogue/conversion-hagia-sophia-focus-model/d/122427
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