3 mins • 24 July 202624 July 2026
আয়া সোফিয়ায় কুরআন তিলাওয়াত করলেন এরদোয়ান
On Friday 24 July 2020, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, led worshippers in the first Islamic prayers held inside Istanbul’s iconic Hagia Sophia (Bengali: আয়া সোফিয়া) in 86 years. In a move that drew widespread international attention, Erdoğan personally kicked off the historic service by reciting verses from the Qur’an inside the Hagia Sophia, which has been turned back into a mosque.
The ceremony formally dismantled a 1934 cabinet decree signed by Turkey’s secular founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, which had designated the 1,500-year-old structure as a museum. While tens of thousands of Muslim worshippers gathered to pray outside in Sultanahmet Square, the event marked a highly symbolic shift in Turkey’s modern political and cultural landscape.
Watch the moment President Erdoğan recited passages from Surah Al-Fatihah and Surah Al-Baqarah to mark the official reopening of the Hagia Sophia mosque.