Audio GuideHagia Sophia Grand Mosque

Ayasofya-i Kebir Cami-i Şerifi, known internationally as Hagia Sophia, rises at the heart of Istanbul, where Europe and Asia seem to meet. Step inside, and your senses are overwhelmed—sunlight streams from high arched windows, shimmering off walls covered in marble and jewel-like mosaics. The building’s main dome, soaring over fifty meters above the floor, gives the impression of floating skyward, cradled by smaller half-domes and arched columns.

Muhittin Bayram

Dating back nearly fifteen centuries, Hagia Sophia was first built as a cathedral for the Christian Byzantine Empire under Emperor Justinian in the early sixth century. At the time, it was the world’s largest church, a space grand enough for imperial ceremonies and crowned by an engineering marvel—a vast dome supported by curved, triangular sections called pendentives, which spread the weight for exceptional stability. Its style became the blueprint for dozens of Orthodox churches and, centuries later, for many monumental mosques.

Himmet Öksüzoğlu

Over time, this great structure’s purpose shifted with history. After Constantinople fell to the Ottomans in the mid-fifteenth century, the cathedral became a mosque. Artifacts of Islamic worship were added: four slim minarets, a prayer niche called a mihrab, and grand chandeliers. Yet much of the Christian heritage remained hidden, with mosaics of saints and emperors covered but not destroyed. Some of these dazzling gold and colored-glass mosaics re-emerged when the building was converted into a museum in the twentieth century.

Syed Waqas Haider

As both church and mosque, Hagia Sophia symbolized the spirit and ambitions of empires. It was where emperors were crowned, where conquerors gave thanks, and where spiritual and artistic traditions blended. Its restoration campaigns over the ages have drawn on international talent and innovative engineering—Ottoman architects added buttresses and reinforcement, nineteenth-century European teams cleaned and revealed Byzantine art, and modern Turkish experts continue to preserve both Christian and Islamic elements.

Today, Hagia Sophia once again serves as a mosque, though its upper galleries also welcome visitors as a museum. These changes have sparked global debates over heritage and identity, reflecting the building’s enduring power to inspire and provoke. Through fires, earthquakes, and political storms, Hagia Sophia endures—more than stone and art, it is a living testament to Istanbul’s layered history, its mysteries inviting new generations to step inside and wonder.