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Turkey’s highest administrative court issued a ruling Friday that paves the way for the government to convert Istanbul’s iconic Hagia Sophia – a former cathedral-turned-mosque that now serves as a museum – back into a Muslim house of worship.

The Council of State threw its weight behind a petition brought by a religious group and annulled a 1934 cabinet decision that changed the 6th century building into a museum. The ruling allows the government to restore the Hagia Sophia’s previous status as a mosque.

“It was concluded that the settlement deed allocated it as a mosque and its use outside this character is not possible legally. The cabinet decision in 1934 that ended its use as a mosque and defined it as a museum did not comply with laws,” the top administrative court order noted.

Reportedly, a call to prayer was recited at Hagia Sophia and was televised on news channels. Meanwhile, the social media channels of the cultural site were taken down. The Turkish authorities have clarified that the mosaics of the Virgin Mary on the golden dome of the cathedral would not be removed. The historic side reportedly attracts 37 lac visitors every year.

Erdogan, hailing from a conservative Muslim background, had presided over the gradual dismantling of Turkey’s secular traditions in recent times. Many believe that Erdogan’s latest gambit to convert the historical site of Hagia Sophia into a Muslim worshipping site is in line with his broader goal of progressive Islamisation of the Turkish society and designed specifically to gain political mileage by catering to his followers’ fundamentalist views which entails that once a mosque is sanctified, it should never be unconsecrated.

The United States, Greece and church leaders were among those to express concern about changing the status of the huge 6th Century Hagia Sophia, converted into a museum in the early days of the modern secular Turkish state under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

Previously, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual head of some 300 million Orthodox Christians worldwide and based in Istanbul, said converting it into a mosque would disappoint Christians and would “fracture” East and West.

Relevance with Ram Mandir:

Ram Mandir, the holy site for Hindus also known as the birthplace of Lord Ram dated back to over 4000 years and the ancient temple was demolished in 1528 under the rule of the Mughal Emperor Babur, who wanted to establish an Islamic rule over the entire Indian sub-continent. This whole scenario is the same as what happened with the 1500-year-old Church in Turkey.

Although the Ram Mandir issue grew up to civil retaliation which further led to the demolition of Babri Masjid in 1992, the justice was brought by the Supreme Court of India by handing over the complete rights of the place to Hindus and a land was compensated to the Muslim party in a nearby locality. Unfortunately the same justice might not be given to the Christians as the Turkish President himself has taken stand to covert the site into a Mosque.