Conversion of non-Islamic places of worship into mosques
The conversion of non-Islamic places of worship into mosques occurred during the life of
Several such mosques in the areas of former Muslim rule have since been reconverted or have become museums, including the Parthenon in Greece and numerous mosques in Spain, such as Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba. Conversion of non-Islamic buildings into mosques influenced distinctive regional styles of Islamic architecture.
Qur'anic holy sites
Mecca
Before Muhammad, the
Jerusalem
Upon the capture of
Conversion of church buildings
Europe
Albania
- The Catholic church of Saint Nicholas (Shën Nikollë)was turned into a mosque. After being destroyed in the Communist 1967 anti-religious campaign, the site was turned into an open air mausoleum.
- The church of St Stephen in Shkodër was converted into a mosque in 1479 after the city was conquered by the Ottomans.
Bosnia and Herzegovina
The Fethija Mosque (since 1592) of Bihać was a Catholic church devoted to Saint Anthony of Padua (1266).[6]
Cyprus
Following the Ottoman conquest of Cyprus, a number of churches (especially the
Greece
Numerous orthodox churches were converted to mosques during the Ottoman period in Greece. After the Greek War of Independence, many of them were later reconverted into churches. Among them:
- The Church of the Acheiropoietos (Eski Mosque), the Church of Hosios David (Suluca or Murad Mosque), the Church of Prophet Elijah (Saraylı Mosque), the Church of Saint Catherine (Yakup Pasha Mosque), the Church of Saint Panteleimon (Ishakiye Mosque), the Church of Holy Apostles (Soğuksu Mosque), the Church of Hagios Demetrios (Kasımiye Mosque), the Church of Hagia Sophia (Ayasofya Mosque), the Church of Panagia Chalkeon (Kazancilar Mosque), the church of Taxiarches (İki Şerefiye Mosque), the Rotonda of Galerius (Mosque of Suleyman Hortaji Effendi) in Thessaloniki.
- The Cathedral church of Veria (Hünkar Mosque) and the Church of Saint Paul in Veria (Medrese Mosque).
- The Church of Saint John in Ioannina, destroyed by the Ottomans and the Aslan Pasha Mosque was built in its place.
- The Theotokos Kosmosoteira monastery in Feres was converted into a mosque in the mid-14th century.
- The original Pantocrator (Kursum Mosque) church building in Patras.
- The gothic-style Holy Trinity church in Knights Avenue (Khan Zade Mosque) in Rhodes.
- The Brontochion Monastery, the Hagia Sophia (Ayasofya Mosque), and Panagia Hodegetria (Fethiye Mosque) churches in Laconia.
- The Hagia Sophia (Bey Mosque) in Drama.
- Greek Orthodoxchurch.
- The Byzantine basilica. It is currently an exhibition centre.
- The church of Saint Nicholas (Hünkar Mosque) was originally a Roman Catholic church before it was converted into a mosque.
Hungary
Following the Ottoman conquest of the Kingdom of Hungary, a number of churches were converted into mosques. Those that survived the era of Ottoman rule, were later reconverted into churches after the Great Turkish War.
- Church of Our Lady of Buda, converted into Eski Djami immediately after the capture of Buda in 1541, reconverted in 1686.
- Church of Mary Magdalene, Buda, converted into Fethiye Djami c. 1602, reconverted in 1686.[citation needed]
- The Franciscan Church of St John the Baptist in Buda, converted into Pasha Djami, destroyed in 1686.[citation needed]
Spain
A Catholic church dedicated to
Ukraine
After the Ottomans conquered
Middle East and North Africa
Iraq
The Islamic State converted a number of churches into mosques after they
- Chaldean Church of St. Joseph in Mosul, Iraq
Israel and Palestinian territories
- Cave of the Patriarchs [citation needed]
- Tombs of Nathan and Gad in
The Herodian shrine of the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, the second most holy site in Judaism,[15] was converted into a church during the Crusades before being turned into a mosque in 1266 and henceforth banned to Jews and Christians.[16] Part of it was restored as a synagogue by Israel after 1967.[17] Other sites in Hebron have undergone Islamification. The Tomb of Jesse and Ruth became the Church of the Forty Martyrs,[18] which then became the Tomb of Isai and later Deir Al Arba'een.[19]
Lebanon
- Beirut, Lebanon; built as the Church of St. John the Baptist by the Knights Hospitaller; converted to mosque in 1291.[citation needed]
Morocco
- Grand Mosque of Tangier; built on a formerly Roman pagan, and then Roman Christian, site.[20][21]
Syria
- The Umayyad Mosque in Damascus; built on the site of a Christian basilica dedicated to John the Baptist (Yahya), which was earlier, a Roman Pagan temple of Jupiter.
- Saint John the Baptist [citation needed]
- Byzantine era[citation needed]
- Saint Helena[citation needed]
- The mosque of Job in Al-Shaykh Saad, Syria, was previously a church of Job.[22]
Turkey
Istanbul
Hagia Sophia
Following the Ottoman conquest of Anatolia, virtually all of the churches of Istanbul were converted into mosques except the Church of Saint Mary of the Mongols.[23]
- Latin Patriarch of Constantinople of the Western Crusader-established Latin Empire. In 1453, Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman Turks under Sultan Mehmed II, who subsequently ordered the building converted into a mosque.[24] The bells, altar, iconostasis, ambo and sacrificial vessels were removed and many of the mosaics were plastered over. Islamic features – such as the mihrab, minbar, and four minarets – were added while in the possession of the Ottomans. The building was a mosque from 29 May 1453 until 1931, when it was secularised. It was opened as a museum on 1 February 1935.[25] On 10 July 2020, the decision of the Council of Ministers to transform it into a museum was canceled by Council of State and the Turkish President Erdoğan signed a decree annulling the Hagia Sophia's museum status, reverting it to a mosque.[26][27][28]
Other churches
- The Jama masjid. The Justinianic church was already in disrepair and in 1461 it was demolished and the Fatih Mosquewas erected in its place.
- The Church of the Pantocrator, a church favoured for imperial burials in the latter Byzantine Empire, became the Zeyrek Mosque.
- The Church of SS Sergius and Bacchus, a church built by Justinian I, became a mosque dubbed the Little Hagia Sophia.
- The Church of Saint Andrew in Krisei, became the Koca Mustafa Pasha Mosque.
- The Church of Saint Thekla of the Palace of Blachernae, became the Atik Mustafa Pasha Mosque.
- The nunnery of Saint Theodosia, became the Gül Mosque.
- The Chora Churchbecame the Kariye Mosque.
- The Monastery of Stoudios became the İmrahor Mosque.
- The Church of Saint John the Forerunner by-the-Dome became the Hirami Ahmet Pasha Mosque.
- The Church of Myrelaion became the Bodrum Mosque.
- The Catholic Church of Saint Paul became the Arap Mosque.
- The Lips Monastery became the Fenari Isa Mosque.
- The Monastery of Christ Pantepoptes became the Eski Imaret Mosque.
- The Church of Theotokos Kyriotissa became the Kalenderhane Mosque.
- The Church of Hagios Theodoros at Vefa became the Church-Mosque of Vefa.
- The Monastery of Manuel became the Kefeli Mosque.
- The Monastery of Gastria became the Sancaktar Hayrettin Mosque.
- The Church of Saint Mary of Constantinople became the Odalar Mosque.
- The Pammakaristos Church became the Fethiye Mosque.
- The Toklu Dede Mosque was an Eastern Orthodox church of unknown dedication.
- The monastery of the Holy Martyrs Menodora, Metrodora, and Nymphodora became the Manastır Mosque.
- Chora Church in Istanbul (2019)[29]
Rest of Turkey
Elsewhere in Turkey numerous churches were converted into mosques, including:
Orthodox
- Hagia Sophia Church in Nicaea (İznik)[30]
- Hagia Sophia Church in Trebizond (Trabzon)
- Panagia Chrysokephalos Church, became the Fatih Mosque in Trabzon (Trabzon)
- Nakip Mosque was a Byzantine church. (Trabzon)
- Hagios Eugenios Church, became the New Friday Mosque (Trabzon)
- Saint Paul Cathedral, became the Tarsus Old Mosque (Tarsus)
- Church of Virgin Mary, became the Kesik Minare (Antalya)
- Church of Christ and Saint Stephen, became the Fatih Mosque in Tirilye (Tirilye)
- Hagia Sophia church in Enez[31]
Armenian Apostolic
Hundreds of Armenian Churches were converted into Mosques in Turkey and Azerbaijan[citation needed].
- Cathedral of Kars
- Cathedral of Ani
- Liberation Mosque, ex St Mary's Church Cathedral, Gaziantep
Conversion of Hindu temples
Temple Name | Mosque Name | Images | City | Country | Ruler | Notes | Current Status |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Kashi Vishwanath Temple | Gyanvapi Mosque | Varanasi, UP | India | Aurangzeb | The temple was demolished under the orders of Aurangzeb, who then constructed the Gyanvapi Mosque atop the original Hindu temple. The demolition was motivated by the rebellion of local zamindars (landowners) associated with the temple.[32] The demolition was intended as a warning to the anti-Mughal factions and Hindu religious leaders in the city.[33] | Mosque; temple reconstructed adjacent to Mosque | |
Keshavdeva Temple | Shahi Edgah | Mathura, UP | India | Aurangzeb attacked Mathura, destroyed the Keshavdeva Temple in 1670 and built the Shahi Eidgah in its place.[34][35] | Mosque; temple reconstructed adjacent to Mosque | ||
Bindu Madhav Temple | Alamgir Mosque | Varanasi, U.P. | India | The Alamgir Mosque in Varanasi was constructed by Mughal Emperor Aurnagzeb built atop the ancient 100 ft high Bindu Madhav (Nand Madho) Temple after its destruction in 1682.[36] | Mosque | ||
Somnath Temple | Veraval, Gujarat | India | Mahmud of Ghazni, Alauddin Khalji, Muzaffar Shah I, Mahmud Begada, Aurangzeb | The temple was attacked, destroyed and rebuilt multiple times and was converted into an Islamic Mosque in the 19th century.[37] | Temple rebuilt | ||
Jain and Saraswati Temple | Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra | Ajmer, Rajasthan | India | Qutb ud-Din Aibak | The original building was partially destroyed and converted into a mosque by Qutb ud-Din Aibak of Delhi in the late 12th century.[38] Iltutmish further built the mosque in AD 1213.[39] | Mosque | |
Rudra Mahalaya Temple | Jami Mosque | Siddhpur, Gujarat | India | Ahmad Shah I | The temple was dismantled during the siege of the city by Ahmed Shah I (1410–1444) of Muzaffarid dynasty; parts of it were reused in setting up a new congregational mosque.[40]
|
Ruined, partly converted into Mosque |
Conversion of synagogues
North Africa
Algeria
- Great Synagogue of Algiers, now Ben Farès Mosque
- Great Synagogue of Oran, now Abdellah Ben Salem Mosque
Europe
France
- Or Thora Synagogue of Marseille, built in the 1960s by Jews from Algeria, was turned into a mosque in 2016 after being bought by a conservative Muslim organization, the al-Badr organization.[42][43]
The Netherlands
- The Ashkenazi synagogue on Wagenstraat street of The Hague, built in 1844, became the Aqsa Mosque in 1981. The synagogue had been sold to the city by the Jewish community in 1976, on the grounds that it would not be converted into a church. In 1979 Turkish Muslim residents occupied the abandoned building and demanded it be turned into a mosque, citing alleged construction safety concerns with their usual mosque.[44] The synagogue was conceded to the Muslim community three years later.[45][46]
Conversion of Zoroastrian fire temples
Iran
After the
Influence on Islamic architecture
The conversion of non-Islamic religious buildings into mosques during the first centuries of Islam played a major role in the development of Islamic architectural styles. Distinct regional styles of mosque design, which have come to be known by such names as Arab, Persian, Andalusian, and others, commonly reflected the external and internal stylistic elements of churches and other temples characteristic for that region.[47]
See also
References
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It seems probable, also, that this latter Khalif, when he began to rebuild the Aksa, made use of the materials which lay to hand in the ruins of the great St. Mary Church of Justinian, which must originally have stood on the site, approximately, on which the Aksa Mosque was afterwards raised.
- ^ https://www.inyourpocket.com/bihac/Fethija-Mosque_53865v
- ^ a b Christys, Ann (2017). "The meaning of topography in Umayyad Cordoba". In Lester, Anne E. (ed.). Cities, Texts and Social Networks, 400–1500. Routledge.
It is a commonplace of the history of Córdoba that in their early years in the city, the Muslims shared with the Christians the church of S. Vicente, until ʿAbd al-Raḥmān I bought the Christians out and used the site to build the Great Mosque. It was a pivotal moment in the history of Córdoba, which later historians may have emphasised by drawing a parallel between Córdoba and another Umayyad capital, Damascus. The first reference to the Muslims' sharing the church was by Ibn Idhārī in the fourteenth century, citing the tenth-century historian al-Rāzī. It could be a version of a similar story referring to the Great Mosque in Damascus, which may itself have been written long after the Mosque was built. It is a story that meant something in the tenth-century context, a clear statement of the Muslim appropriation of Visigothic Córdoba.
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It was originally a small temple of Christian Visigoth origin. Under Umayyad reign in Spain (711–1031 CE), it was expanded and made into a mosque, which it would remain for eight centuries. During the Christian reconquest of Al-Andalus, Christians captured the mosque and consecrated it as a Catholic church.
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On this site originally stood the Visigoths' church of San Vicente, but when the Moors came to town in 758 CE they knocked it down and constructed a mosque in its place. When Córdoba fell once again to the Christians, King Ferdinand II and his successors set about Christianizing the structure, most dramatically adding the bright pearly white Renaissance nave where mass is held every morning.
- ^ Vasiliev, Alexander A. (1936). The Goths in the Crimea. Cambridge, MA: The Mediaeval Academy of America. p. 259.
- ^ "Iraq: Daesh have robbed and demolished every church". Independent Catholic News. 6 March 2018. Archived from the original on 20 March 2018. Retrieved 20 March 2018.
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The design is unique and patriarchal in its magnificent simplicity. One can scarcely tolerate the theory of some architectural writers, that this enclosure is of a period later than the Jewish. It would have been strange if any of the Herodian princes should here alone have raised, at enormous cost, a building utterly differing from the countless products of their architectural passion and Roman taste with which the land is strewn.
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"From there we reached Halhul, a place mentioned by Joshua. Here there are a certain number of Jews. They take travelers to see an ancient sepulchral monument attributed to Gad the Seer." — Isaac ben Joseph ibn Cehlo, 1334
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- ^ Tristram, Henry Baker (1865). The land of Israel: a journal of travels in Palestine, undertaken with special reference to its physical character. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. pp. 390–396.
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- ISBN 9004250972.
- Dorling KindersleyEyewitness Travel Guides. 2006. p. 133.
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- ^ "Ayasofya'yı camiden müzeye dönüştüren Bakanlar Kurulu kararı iptal edildi".
- ^ "Hagia Sophia: Turkey turns iconic Istanbul museum into mosque". BBC. 10 July 2020. Retrieved 10 July 2020.
- ^ Calian, Florin George (25 March 2021). "Opinion | The Hagia Sophia and Turkey's Neo-Ottomanism". The Armenian Weekly. Retrieved 7 January 2024.
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- JSTOR 23259581.
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External links
- Quotations related to Conversion of non-Islamic places of worship into mosques at Wikiquote