Hagia Sophia is the former Greek Orthodox Christian patriarchal cathedral, later an Ottoman imperial mosque.
It is now a museum located in Istanbul, Turkey.
In 1453, when Constantinople (capital city of the Roman Empire) fell to Sultan Mehmet II’s Ottoman forces, the Hagia Sophia was turned into a mosque.
In 1934, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of the Republic of Turkey, converted the mosque into a museum in an attempt to make the country more secular.
The 1,500-year-old structure has been listed as a UNESCO'S World Heritage site as of special cultural or physical significance.
Recently, the government of Turkey has decided to convert Istanbul’s iconic Hagia Sophia Museum into a mosque.
