Eid al-Fitr prayers were offered at the historic Aya Sofia Mosque in Turkey 87 years later

By Our Correspondent

ISTANBUL : Eid al-Fitr prayers were offered at the historic Aya Sofia Mosque in Turkey 87 years later.

Thousands of children of Islam attended the spiritual gathering with special care of SOPs. Hundreds of Muslims also offered Eid-ul-Fitr prayers on the grounds of Sofia.

On July 10 last year, a Turkish court ruled that Istanbul’s historic Aya Sofia Museum should be stripped of its status and converted into a mosque. When Turkey’s Supreme Administrative Court Council of State declared a previous government decision illegal.

The Aya Sofia, the symbol of Constantinople’s conquest, was turned into a museum in 1934. The historic building was turned into a museum by Kemal Atat دہrk, the founder of the Turkish secular state in 1934, a decade after his reign.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the conversion of historical heritage from a museum to a mosque, and the matter reached the country’s highest court. When the Turkish president was running for mayor of Istanbul in 1994, he promised to open the building for prayers, and in 2018 he recited the Koran here.

The building was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1985. Millions of tourists visit Aya Sofia every year.