How the Greatest Church Became a Mosque

Salam aleikum, everyone I am in Turkey. Right now I'm in the city of Istanbul that was called Once Upon a Time Constantinople.

And this city was taken in 1453 by Sultan Muhammad Al Fatah. So right now I stand in front of one of the most historic sites in the city, and that is the famous higher Sofia. Okay, this was the largest church in the world. Once upon a time, it was the largest standing structure, indoor dining structure for more than 1000 years. And you can see how giant a structure is just behind me. The minarets were added later on by the Ottomans, once the ticket and after Sultan Muhammad party took the city. It was made into a masjid. Okay, this church was taken by treaty. The Sultan actually bought the space from the Christians and give another church to the Christians to function from. So

this great church became a great mosque. Okay, so this particular building was completed in the 537 CEE by the Roman Emperor Justinian. And this was his masterpiece. So huge achievement. This was that when he walked into the structure, upon its completion for the first time, having looked at what he had created, or its architects had created, he said, Solomon, I have surpassed the, in other words, Solomon, I have basically outdone you in architecture in construction, he was referring to the Temple of Solomon, even though he hadn't seen it. But he had heard about it from earlier sources that the structure of the First Temple of Solomon was a huge, magnificent structure. And he could

not imagine that it would be something more magnificent than this behind me. So this very building, everyone, you must pay attention is older than

the Prophet Muhammad Sallallahu sallam, the Prophet was born in the year 570. This was completed in 537, almost 40 years before the Prophet was born, salallahu Salam, and this structure is still standing to this day later on what you see, like these blocks in front of the building, they were put here by the famous Ottoman architect, architect Mimar. Sinan. He put the structure there are these bricks are these blocks, not bricks, actually blocks, big stone blocks there to support the building. Because Turkey is on a hotline, you may have heard about this recent big gigantic earthquake that killed more than 50,000 people turkeys on a hotline many earthquakes happening. So

to protect the building from earthquakes, he put this mechanism is defense or this protecting mechanism that you can see these big pillars or big support blocks here, and then mineral mineral mineral

method. But if you go inside the building, it still has that old touch the pillars. The pillar heads are still from the Roman period. And the building is still very much in its original state. It's a masterpiece, one has to come and see it and so much of now, it is a machine. Okay, once upon a time, a giant, magnificent tribute to the Christian civilization is now a tribute to the Muslim civilization. Right. So this is a very important place for everyone to visit. And on my left, as you can see, that's where we have the Topkapi Palace where the Ottomans will towns live for nearly 400 years until the move to another palace in the mid 19th century called the doorman butcher Palace,

right. So this palace is wasteful.

And sub sequential barns live with the wives and the you know the children and the families. So full pounce on a man so can sleep Salim. And before Sultan's before the Sultan Vaizey, the second son of Sultan, Muhammad, the Prophet, all of them lived here, even the famous forum Sultan or Rukhsana she was here. And this is where all the decisions would be made in this palace inside. This is where the public hall of audience was. And this is where the Sultan's would issue the decrees and appoint governors and declare wars on Crusaders and, and even fight against the Holy

Roman Empire. The Hapsburgs at that time, so there's a lot of history I can discuss and talk about, but for now, just a glimpse into the history of this region. We will be doing these tours in the future. I strongly advise you to go on Halal getaways.com Halal getaways, actually Google Halal getaways. It is an organization that organizes these trips and the skier tours also check out the skier tours. You will see a lot of these tours coming up and check out my social media accounts. I will be announcing dates very soon on these history

Heading towards to Spain to Al Andalus to Turkey and a lot more until then Samadhi come on fella