Several such mosques in the areas of former Muslim rule have since been reconverted or have become museums, including the Parthenon in Greece and numerous mosques in Spain, such as Mosque–Cathedral of Córdoba. Conversion of non-Islamic buildings into mosques influenced distinctive regional styles of Islamic architecture.
Qur'anic holy sites
Mecca
Before Muhammad, the Kaaba and Mecca (referred to as Bakkah in the Quran), were revered as a sacred sanctuary and were sites of pilgrimage.[1] During Muhammad's lifetime (AD 570–632), his tribe, the Quraysh, was in charge of the Kaʿaba, at that time a shrine containing hundreds of idols representing Arabian tribal gods and other religious figures. Muhammad earned the enmity of his tribe by preaching the new religion of Islam. Early Muslims practiced, or attempted to practice, their rituals by the Ka'aba alongside polytheists, until they eventually left Mecca, driven out by escalating persecution. The aborted first pilgrimage, which was prevented by the Quraysh, who promised to allow it the following year in the Hudaybiyah treaty, did not also entail the prevention of continuing practices by polytheists. However, before the second pilgrimage season, allies of the Quraysh violated the treaty, allowing the Muslims to return as conquerors rather than guests. Henceforth, the Kaʿaba was to be dedicated to the worship of the one God alone, and the idols were destroyed. The Black Stone (al-Hajar-ul-Aswad) at the Kaʿaba was a special object of veneration at the site. According to some traditions the text of seven or ten especially honoured poems were suspended around the Kaʿaba.[2]
Jerusalem
Dome of the Rock is a shrine in Jerusalem. Prophet Muhammad, founder of Islam, is traditionally believed to have ascended into heaven from this site. In Jewish tradition, it is here that Abraham, the progenitor and first patriarch of the Hebrew people, is said to have prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac. The Dome and Al-Aqsa Mosque are both located on the Temple Mount the site of Solomon's Temple and its successors.
Upon the capture of Jerusalem, it is commonly reported that Umar refused to pray in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in spite of a treaty.[3][better source needed] The architecturally similar Dome of the Rock was built on the Temple Mount, which was an abandoned and disused area since AD 70 in the 7th century but which had previously been the site of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, the most sacred site in Judaism.[4] Umar initially built there a small prayer house which laid the foundation for the later construction of the Al-Aqsa Mosque by the Umayyads.[5]
Conversion of church buildings
Europe
Albania
The Catholic church of Saint Nicholas (Shën Nikollë) was turned into a mosque. After being destroyed in the Communist 1967 anti-religious campaign, the site was turned into an open air mausoleum.
Following the Ottoman conquest of Cyprus, a number of Christian churches (especially the Catholic ones) were converted into mosques. A relatively significant surge in church-to-mosque conversion followed the 1974 Turkish Invasion of Cyprus. Many of the Orthodox churches in Northern Cyprus have been converted, and many are still in the process of becoming mosques[citation needed].
Greece
Painting of the ruins of the Parthenon and the Ottoman mosque built after 1715, in the early 1830s.
Numerous orthodox churches were converted to mosques during the Ottoman period in Greece. After the Greek War of Independence, many of them were later reconverted into churches. Among them:
Parthenon in Athens: Some time before the close of the fifteenth century, the Parthenon became a mosque. Before that the Parthenon had been a Greek Orthodox church.
The church of Saint Nicholas (Hünkar Mosque) was originally a Roman Catholic church before it was converted into a mosque.
The Rotunda of Galerius in Thessaloniki, initially a Mausoleum of Roman Emperor Galerius, a Christian church (326–1590), then a mosque and again a church after 1912.
Hungary
Following the Ottoman conquest of the Kingdom of Hungary, a number of Christian churches were converted into mosques. Those that survived the era of Ottoman rule, were later reconverted into churches after the Great Turkish War.
Church of Our Lady of Buda, converted into Eski Djami immediately after the capture of Buda in 1541, reconverted in 1686.
Church of Mary Magdalene, Buda, converted into Fethiye Djami c. 1602, reconverted in 1686.[citation needed]
The Franciscan Church of St John the Baptist in Buda, converted into Pasha Djami, destroyed in 1686.[citation needed]
After the Ottomans conquered Mangup, the capital of Principality of Theodoro, a prayer for the Sultan recited in one of the churches which converted into a mosque, and according to Turkish authors "the house of the infidel became the house of Islam."[10][better source needed]
Middle East and North Africa
Iraq
The Islamic State converted a number of Christian churches into mosques after they occupied Mosul in 2014. The churches were restored to their original function after Mosul was liberated in 2017.[11]
After the conquest of Hebron, this holy place was "taken over from the Jewish tradition" by the Muslim rulers. The cave and the surrounding Herodian enclosure was converted into a mosque.[12]
Tombs of Nathan and Gad in Halhoul, transformed into Mosque of Prophet Yunus.[13][14]
The Herodian shrine of the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron, the second most holy site in Judaism,[15] was converted into a church during the Crusades before being turned into a mosque in 1266 and henceforth banned to Jews and Christians.[16] Part of it was restored as a synagogue by Israel after 1967.[17] Other sites in Hebron have undergone Islamification. The Tomb of Jesse and Ruth became the Church of the Forty Martyrs,[18] which then became the Tomb of Isai and later Deir Al Arba'een.[19]
Following the Ottoman conquest of Anatolia, virtually all of the churches of Istanbul were converted into mosques except the Church of Saint Mary of the Mongols.[23]
Hagia Sophia (from the Greek: Ἁγία Σοφία, "Holy Wisdom"; Latin: Sancta Sophia or Sancta Sapientia; Turkish: Ayasofya) was the cathedral of Constantinople in the state church of the Roman Empire and the seat of the Eastern Orthodox Church's Patriarchate. After 1453 it became a mosque, and since 1931 it has been a museum in Istanbul, Turkey. From the date of its dedication in 360 until 1453, it served as the Orthodox cathedral of the imperial capital, except between 1204 and 1261, when it became the Roman Catholic cathedral under the Latin Patriarch of Constantinople of the Western Crusader-established Latin Empire. In 1453, Constantinople was conquered by the Ottoman Turks under Sultan Mehmed II, who subsequently ordered the building converted into a mosque.[24] The bells, altar, iconostasis, ambo and sacrificial vessels were removed and many of the mosaics were plastered over. Islamic features – such as the mihrab, minbar, and four minarets – were added while in the possession of the Ottomans. The building was a mosque from 29 May 1453 until 1931, when it was secularised. It was opened as a museum on 1 February 1935.[25] On July 10, 2020, the decision of the Council of Ministers to transform it into a museum was canceled by Council of State and the Turkish President Erdoğan signed a decree annulling the Hagia Sophia's museum status, reverting it to a mosque.[26][27][28]
Other churches
The Church of the Holy Apostles became the cathedral church and seat of the patriarchate for three years after the Fall of Constantinople, as Hagia Sophia became the city's Jama masjid. The Justinianic church was already in disrepair and in 1461 it was demolished and the Fatih Mosque was erected in its place.
The Church of the Pantocrator, a church favoured for imperial burials in the latter Byzantine Empire, became the Zeyrek Mosque.
The Selimiye Mosque was the largest and oldest surviving Gothic church in Cyprus, which was possibly constructed on the site of an earlier Byzantine church.
Elsewhere in Turkey numerous churches were converted into mosques, including:
The temple was demolished under the orders of Aurangzeb, who then constructed the Gyanvapi Mosque atop the original Hindu temple. The demolition was motivated by the rebellion of local zamindars (landowners) associated with the temple.[32] The demolition was intended as a warning to the anti-Mughal factions and Hindu religious leaders in the city.[33]
The original building was partially destroyed and converted into a mosque by Qutb ud-Din Aibak of Delhi in the late 12th century.[38]Iltutmish further built the mosque in 1213 CE.[39]
The temple was dismantled during the siege of the city by Ahmed Shah I (1410–44) of Muzaffarid dynasty; parts of it were reused in setting up a new congregational mosque.[40]
Ruined, partly converted into Mosque
Conversion of synagogues
The Great Synagogue of Oran was the largest synagogue in North Africa until it was converted into the Abdellah Ben Salem Mosque in 1975.[41]
Or Thora Synagogue of Marseille, built in the 1960s by Jews from Algeria, was turned into a mosque in 2016 after being bought by a conservative Muslim organization, the al-Badr organization.[42][43]
The Netherlands
The Ashkenazi synagogue on Wagenstraat street of The Hague, built in 1844, became the Aqsa Mosque in 1981. The synagogue had been sold to the city by the Jewish community in 1976, on the grounds that it would not be converted into a church. In 1979 Turkish Muslim residents occupied the abandoned building and demanded it be turned into a mosque, citing alleged construction safety concerns with their usual mosque.[44] The synagogue was conceded to the Muslim community three years later.[45][46]
The conversion of non-Islamic religious buildings into mosques during the first centuries of Islam played a major role in the development of Islamic architectural styles. Distinct regional styles of mosque design, which have come to be known by such names as Arab, Persian, Andalusian, and others, commonly reflected the external and internal stylistic elements of churches and other temples characteristic for that region.[47]
^Le Strange, Guy (1890). Palestine Under the Moslems. p. 10. It seems probable, also, that this latter Khalif, when he began to rebuild the Aksa, made use of the materials which lay to hand in the ruins of the great St. Mary Church of Justinian, which must originally have stood on the site, approximately, on which the Aksa Mosque was afterwards raised.
^ abChristys, Ann (2017). "The meaning of topography in Umayyad Cordoba". In Lester, Anne E. (ed.). Cities, Texts and Social Networks, 400–1500. Routledge. It is a commonplace of the history of Córdoba that in their early years in the city, the Muslims shared with the Christians the church of S. Vicente, until ʿAbd al-Raḥmān I bought the Christians out and used the site to build the Great Mosque. It was a pivotal moment in the history of Córdoba, which later historians may have emphasised by drawing a parallel between Córdoba and another Umayyad capital, Damascus. The first reference to the Muslims' sharing the church was by Ibn Idhārī in the fourteenth century, citing the tenth-century historian al-Rāzī. It could be a version of a similar story referring to the Great Mosque in Damascus, which may itself have been written long after the Mosque was built. It is a story that meant something in the tenth-century context, a clear statement of the Muslim appropriation of Visigothic Córdoba.
^ abGuia, Aitana (1 July 2014). The Muslim Struggle for Civil Rights in Spain, 1985–2010: Promoting Democracy Through Islamic Engagement. Sussex Academic Press. p. 137. ISBN978-1-84519581-6. It was originally a small temple of Christian Visigoth origin. Under Umayyad reign in Spain (711–1031 CE), it was expanded and made into a mosque, which it would remain for eight centuries. During the Christian reconquest of Al-Andalus, Christians captured the mosque and consecrated it as a Catholic church.
^ abArmstrong, Ian (2013). Spain and Portugal. Avalon Travel Publishing. ISBN978-1-61237031-6. On this site originally stood the Visigoths' Christian Church of San Vicente, but when the Moors came to town in 758 CE they knocked it down and constructed a mosque in its place. When Córdoba fell once again to the Christians, King Ferdinand II and his successors set about Christianizing the structure, most dramatically adding the bright pearly white Renaissance nave where mass is held every morning.
^Tristram, Henry Baker (1865). The land of Israel : a journal of travels in Palestine, undertaken with special reference to its physical character. London: London Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. p. 394. The design is unique and patriarchal in its magnificent simplicity. One can scarcely tolerate the theory of some architectural writers, that this enclosure is of a period later than the Jewish. It would have been strange if any of the Herodian princes should here alone have raised, at enormous cost, a building utterly differing from the countless products of their architectural passion and Roman taste with which the land is strewn.
^Adler, Elkan Nathan (4 April 2014). Jewish Travellers. Routledge. p. 135. ISBN978-1-134-28606-5. "From there we reached Halhul, a place mentioned by Joshua. Here there are a certain number of Jews. They take travelers to see an ancient sepulchral monument attributed to Gad the Seer." — Isaac ben Joseph ibn Cehlo, 1334
^Tristram, Henry Baker (1865). The land of Israel: a journal of travels in Palestine, undertaken with special reference to its physical character. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. pp. 390–396.
^Goren, Shlomo (2016). With Might and Strength: An Autobiography. Maggid. ISBN978-1592644094.
^ abHillenbrand, R. "Masdjid. I. In the central Islamic lands". In P.J. Bearman; Th. Bianquis; C.E. Bosworth; E. van Donzel; W.P. Heinrichs (eds.). Encyclopaedia of Islam Online. Brill Academic Publishers. ISSN1573-3912.
^Patel, Alka (2004). "Architectural Histories Entwined: The Rudra-Mahalaya/Congregational Mosque of Siddhpur, Gujarat". Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. 63 (2): 144–163. doi:10.2307/4127950. JSTOR4127950.
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