Heaven or Earth: The Hagia Sophia Re-Conversion, Turkish and International Law, and Universal Religious Sites

Abstract

The Hagia Sophia has stood as one of the greatest religious buildings in the world for nearly 1,500 years. During this time, the structure was a church and then a mosque, before finally becoming a museum in 1934. But in July 2020, the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, re-converted the Hagia Sophia to a mosque following a ruling by the Turkish Council of State. The re-conversion was received with outrage across much of the world, but whether the decision was legal poses a much more difficult question. This article analyzes Turkish domestic law and international law to conclude that there are grounds for questioning the legality of the Hagia Sophia re-conversion but also the need to better protect sites like the Hagia Sophia in the future. The Council of State relied on principles of the Islamic waqf endowment structure to declare the museum status of the Hagia Sophia illegal, but in reality waqfs have not remained static throughout history. More convincingly, the Turkish Constitution holds secularism as one of its greatest principles, which the re-conversion of the Hagia Sophia, cloaked with religious importance and symbolism, would seem to violate. On the other hand, international law on cultural heritage, freedom of religion, and conquest provide much weaker constraints on the changed status of the Hagia Sophia. But the Hagia Sophia is not the only universal religious site, a place of shared religious importance for two or more religions. As shown by the example of the Hagia Sophia, universal religious sites need greater protection given their unique histories, and a future treaty on universal religious sites or the expansion of freedom of religion under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights would provide potential vehicles for such protection.