> Mehmet conquered Constantinople.
> He wanted Ayasofya to be a mosque.
> It was owned by emperor Justinian.
> He purchased Ayasofya with his own wealth.
> Handed over Ayasofya to Muslim waqf.
> Ataturk converted it into museum.
> It's now reinstated as a mosque.

Those are the facts.

Now with that being said, we cannot ignore the very real threats that christians in Turkey face under Erdogan.

They're a minority population of ~300,000 who face a very real existential crisis.

The Ottoman empire under Mehmet had provided judicial autonomy to the Christian minorities in Constantinople.

But today, they're treated as conspirators to western enemies much like how Muslims are treated as conspirators to Pakistan in India.

Fake news and absurd theories are spread against the Christian minorities under the guise of nationalism.

Although reinstating the museum back to it's original form as a mosque may seem fairly justified, we must also keep in mind that rabid nationalism can twist anything.

This can serve as a dog-whistle to those people. They might take it as a sign of Islamic dominance over the Christian minorities.

If we are willing to discuss historical facts, we must also accept the current facts and not deny the reality of the Christian minority in Turkey.

They are also our brother in humanity and they mustn't be forgotten.

Also, please stop circlejerking over Ataturk like he was some kind of a perfect revolutionary.

He had brought turkey down to a single party state, killed dissenters, executed protesters.

He wanted to erase existing Turkish culture to replace it with western ones.

Even something like not wearing the Fez was grounds for execution.

He committed atrocities against the Armenians and the Greek.

All forms of religious liberties were crushed and anyone slightly rebelling against it was brought down with full force of the state machinery.

I understand how modernizing was a necessity at the time but don't paint Ataturk as some sort of a infallible savior.

You're doing injustice to the millions that were murdered under his governance.

He's not above criticism.

This reminds me of the vast majority of Indian youth at one point had this absurd opinion of Hitler that "he might've been a bad person but he had some good ideas and was a great orator."

And also don't fall for those overly romanticized war stories about the soul of Sofya leaving Constantinople when Mehmet took over. Most of it is imperial.

Ayasofya was a pagan temple before it became a church. I'm not sure when exactly the soul decided to become a tenant there.