Hagia Sophia

About Hagia Sophia

Mosque, museum, and former church in Istanbul, Turkey

Hagia Sophia, officially the Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque, is one of the greatest buildings in the world and the most famous landmark of Istanbul, standing on the European shore in the heart of the historic peninsula. It was built as the cathedral of Constantinople by the Byzantine emperor Justinian I between 532 and 537, designed by the geometers Isidore of Miletus and Anthemius of Tralles, and for almost a thousand years its 30-metre dome covered the largest enclosed space in the world. Its weight rests on four huge piers through pendentives, a solution that changed the history of architecture and inspired Eastern churches and Ottoman mosques alike. After the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 Sultan Mehmed II prayed the first Friday prayer here and it became a mosque, gaining its minarets, mihrab and minbar, and remained one for nearly five centuries. It served as a museum from 1935 and was redesignated a mosque in 2020; the five daily prayers and Friday prayer are held here again. Inside, the great calligraphic roundels bearing the names of Allah, the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) and the rightly guided caliphs hang beneath the dome alongside Byzantine mosaics in the upper galleries, a unique blend that tells the story of the city. The Blue Mosque faces it across Sultanahmet Square.

Where:

Istanbul, Türkiye