I had a working weekend but planned it so I could take some time off. This afternoon we went to the Chora museum, formerly the Chora church, then the Chora mosque, and soon to be the Chora mosque again. Nothing can quite replicate the astonishing luminescence and life of Byzantine mosaics, certainly not photos. The chapel was shut, but they had not covered over the mosaics thank heavens. In the Hagia Sofia they have put up cheap blinds, the rolling white sort you find AirBnbs; one feels it must be a gesture, a signal, given how much fuss the press releases made about the rather bilious green carpets with every strand pointing towards Mecca.
Turkey has a very sad history. The more I learn about it, the sadder it gets. If there is a country more ravaged and crippled by modernity, I’d be surprised.
As we walked around, the GF and debated turning the Chora Museum into a mosque. A complicated business. On one hand, it is obviously a disrespectful gesture, as much as the Grand Mosque of Cordoba which is now a cathedral, and the intent and symbolism of the gesture can’t be ignored. There is also the sadness that those ordering the conversion feel that art and beauty and history somehow threatens their devotion and must be veiled. The Prophet himself, in the conquest of Mecca, removed the idols from the Kaaba, but he would not let the icons of Mary be destroyed. On the other hand, as the GF pointed out, a sacred place which is a museum feels dead, and people stomp around, pointing at notable sights and holding forth, showing dominion in a way that they rarely do in a mosque or a church.