A prayer will be held in Hagia Sophia tomorrow on the occasion of the Fall of Constantinople, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said during an address on Thursday night.
In fact, he said that tomorrow, 567 years after the Fall of Constantinople (I Polis Ealo), the verse of the Fall from the Quran will be read inside Hagia Sophia.
Yarın İstanbul'un Fethi'nin 567. yıl dönümünde, milletimizle birlikte çok güzel programlara şahitlik edeceğiz. pic.twitter.com/Yw6z5rMMjk
— Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (@RTErdogan) May 28, 2020
Earlier, however, Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs head Ali Erbas said that he would not hold tomorrow’s Muslim prayers in Sultanahmet Square between Hagia Sophia and the Blue Mosque (Sultanahmet Mosque), but in the Fatih mosque in Constantinople.
Ali Erbas did not justify his decision, but added that “we may hold Friday prayers in the square and the courtyard of the Sultanahmet Mosque in the coming weeks or later.”
The Turkish government is also preparing a fiesta outside Hagia Sofia, setting up a wall model.