Erdogan joins hundreds of worshippers for first Muslim prayers at Hagia Sophia

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, accompanied by a cabinet minister and other top officials, joined hundreds of worshippers to recite the first Muslim prayers inside Hagia Sophia on Friday, Al Jazeera reported.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, accomped by a cabinet minister and other top officials, joined hundreds of worshippers to recite the first Muslim prayers inside Hagia Sophia on Friday, Al Jazeera reported.

Muslim prayers were held in the iconic Hagia Sophia for the first time in 86 years today after the reconversion of the Istanbul landmark into a mosque earlier this month.

The Friday prayers took place two weeks after Erdogan controversially declared the nearly 1,500-year-old monument open to Muslim worship after a top court ruled the building's conversion to a museum by modern Turkey's founding statesman in the mid-1930s was illegal.

The UNESCO World Heritage Site was built as a cathedral during the reign of Byzantine emperor Justinian I in 537 but converted into a mosque after the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople in 1453.

It was designated a museum in a key reform of the post-Ottoman authorities under the modern republic's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Erdogan said last year it had been a "very big mistake" to convert it into a museum.

In the sprawling square outside Hagia Sophia, authorities set up separate areas for men and women to worship on Friday, while more than 700 health personnel, 101 ambulances and a helicopter ambulance were available.

Istanbul Governor Ali Yerlikaya asked people to bring four items - "masks, prayer mats, patience and understanding".

Entry inside the historical monument will now be free for visitors, while intricate mosaics of the Virgin Mary, baby Jesus and other Christian symbols will be veiled by curtains at prayer time.

Recitation of the Holy Quran will go on for the next 24 hours and the revered landmark will stay open overnight, according to state media reports.

Critics, however, accuse Erdogan, who has been in power for 17 years, of playing to his nationalistic base, with support eroding amid a global economic downtown caused by the coronavirus pandemic.

( With inputs from ANI )