Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan inaugurated the mosque in Constantinople’s Taksim Square today.
“The Taksim Mosque is coming to Constantinople after a century-and-a-half-long struggle,” he told a crowd gathered for the ceremony after Friday prayers.
“I see it as a salute to Hagia Sophia mosque, which we opened a while ago, as a gift to the 568th anniversary of the conquest of Constantinople.”
The mosque, 30 meters high, can accommodate 4,000 people.
With this mosque, Erdogan puts his stamp on the famous Taksim Square in the center of Constantinople, realizing a dream of thirty years.
Ever since he became mayor of the Turkish capital, Erdogan has insisted that a mosque is absent from Taksim Square, where the only visible religious building there is an Orthodox Christian church (probably the Holy Trinity Church).
The construction of the mosque, which began in 2017, has drawn sharp criticism as some have accused Erdogan of seeking to Islamize the country and undermine Turkish Republic founder Mustafa Kemal.
Now, Erdogan’s imposing mosque overshadows the Republic Monument in Taksim Square with statues of key figures in the Turkish independence war led by Mustafa Kemal.
After announcing that the mosque would be inaugurated during Ramadan, Erdogan, obsessed with symbolic dates, finally decided to inaugurate the day of the start of the massive 2013 anti-government demonstrations, dubbed the Gezi Movement, focused on Taksim Square and drowned in blood.
The inauguration also took place on the eve of the anniversary of the Fall of Constantinople by the Ottomans in 1453.
The construction of the mosque is also part of a long line of moves by Erdogan to satisfy his conservative and religious electoral base, in an environment of discontent over the state of the Turkish economy.
According to analysts, this was the reason behind the conversion of Hagia Sophia into a mosque.
#TaksimCamii Açılış Programı https://t.co/kZzsxWIlJA
— Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (@RTErdogan) May 28, 2021
