Ottoman
Hagia Sophia, Mid-Conversion to a Mosque
Constantinople in the first months after the Ottoman conquest
857 AH / 1453 CE
Educational historical reconstructionWhere
Hagia Sophia, Constantinople (Istanbul)
41.0086, 28.9802 · View on OpenStreetMap
Background
Hagia Sophia was built as the cathedral of Constantinople under the Byzantine emperor Justinian I, completed in 537 CE, and stood for nearly a thousand years as the principal church of Eastern Christianity. On 29 May 1453, Sultan Mehmed II conquered the city and the building was immediately converted into a congregational mosque. In the first months that followed, the conversion was practical and incremental rather than monumental: a wooden mihrab and minbar were installed at the angle required for the qibla toward Makkah; figural Christian mosaics were gradually covered with whitewashed plaster while non-figural ornament was left in place; the first minaret was added in timber or rough brick on the exterior. The grand stone minarets, marble mihrab, and famous calligraphic medallions that the building is now known for were added by later sultans over the following centuries. This scene depicts that brief, transitional moment when the building was already a mosque but still looked overwhelmingly Byzantine.
What you see
A vast Byzantine interior: a massive central dome on pendentives, an enormous semi-domed apse, columns of green Thessalian marble and red porphyry, and broad upper galleries on three sides.
Marble revetment panels and gold-ground non-figural mosaic still cover the walls and pendentives, late antique Byzantine workmanship, not Ottoman tilework.
Wooden scaffolding stands against the apse and pendentives, where masons are covering Christian figural mosaics with a thin layer of fresh whitewashed plaster. Some figures are already half-obscured; buckets of lime wash and trowels rest on the planks.
A newly installed wooden mihrab niche stands against the qibla-facing wall, set at a noticeable angle relative to the Christian apse axis, because Makkah lies south-southeast of Constantinople, not due east.
A simple wooden minbar of modest height stands beside the mihrab, plain new timber, not the later carved marble of established Ottoman mosques.
Rolled reed mats and undyed wool rugs are laid across part of the marble floor, aligned with the new qibla direction at a clear angle to the original Byzantine floor pattern.
Through a high window, the silhouette of a single freshly built minaret is visible against the sky outside, a slender first minaret, not the four stone minarets of later centuries.
The Byzantine altar, iconostasis screen, and large Christian liturgical furniture have been removed; the apse floor shows the bare outlines where they once stood.
Further reading & cross-references
Tursun Beg, Tarih-i Ebü'l-Feth: Contemporary Ottoman account of the conquest and the immediate aftermath, including Mehmed II's order to convert Hagia Sophia and the initial works carried out. Supports the dating of the earliest interventions. Does not give a detailed visual description of the interior.
Kritovoulos of Imbros, History of Mehmed the Conqueror: Contemporary Byzantine-Greek account, generally favourable to Mehmed II, describing the entry into the building and the conversion. Supports the timing and broad sequence of events.
Doukas, Historia Turco-Byzantina: Mid-15th-century Byzantine account of the conquest; gives context for the state of the building immediately before and after. Polemical tone in places.
The standing building of Ayasofya / Hagia Sophia (extant): Primary material evidence for the late-antique Byzantine architecture, the marble revetment, surviving non-figural mosaics, and the locations where the early Ottoman mihrab and minbar were set. The current mihrab, minbar, calligraphic medallions, sultan's loge, and four stone minarets are LATER additions and must be removed for this period view.
Gülru Necipoğlu, 'The Life of an Imperial Monument: Hagia Sophia after Byzantium', in Hagia Sophia from the Age of Justinian to the Present (R. Mark and A. Ş. Çakmak, eds., 1992): Authoritative modern synthesis of the Ottoman-period history of the building. Supports the chronology of conversion phases and clarifies which features belong to which sultan.
Robert Mark and Ahmet Ş. Çakmak (eds.), Hagia Sophia from the Age of Justinian to the Present (1992): Multi-author technical and historical volume on the building.
Çiğdem Kafescioğlu, Constantinopolis/Istanbul: Cultural Encounter, Imperial Vision, and the Construction of the Ottoman Capital (2009): Detailed account of the urban and architectural transformation of the city in the decades after 1453, including the early treatment of Byzantine monuments.
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