Question:UNESCO World Heritage site Hagia Sophia allowed for the conversion from a museum into a mosque is located in which country?
(a) Iraq
(b) Iran
(c ) Armenia
(d ) Turkey
Answer:(d)
Context:
- Turkey’s highest court allowed for the conversion of the nearly 1,500 year-old Hagia Sophia from a museum into a mosque.
About:
- The centuries-old structure, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site, was originally a cathedral in the Byzantine empire before it was turned into a mosque in 1453, when Constantinople fell to Sultan Mehmet II’s Ottoman forces.
- In the 1930s, however, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey, shut down the mosque and turned it into a museum in an attempt to make the country more secular.
- Turkey’s Council of State had declared in its ruling that the conversion of the Hagia Sophia from a mosque into the museum by the country’s founder was illegal.
- The decision was in line with the Turkish president’s calls to turn the hugely symbolic world heritage site into a mosque despite widespread international criticism, including from UNESCO, the United States and Orthodox Christian leaders.
Link:
https://en.unesco.org/news/unesco-statement-hagia-sophia-istanbul