Hagia Sophia in the Long Nineteenth Century

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Emily Neumeier (Assistant Professor of Islamic art and architecture, Temple University) Benjamin Anderson (Associate Professor of History of Art and Classics, Cornell University)

Hagia Sophia in the Long Nineteenth Century

Emily Neumeier (Assistant Professor of Islamic art and architecture, Temple University), Benjamin Anderson (Associate Professor of History of Art and Classics, Cornell University)

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English

Edinburgh University Press
31 December 2025

Religious buildings; Middle Eastern history

Series: Edinburgh Studies on the Ottoman Empire

Hagia Sophia

a building whose domes have defined Istanbul's skyline for over 1500 years

has led many lives. Initially a church, subsequently a mosque, then a museum, the structure is today a monument of world heritage, even as its official status remains contested. Hagia Sophia's global fame took shape during the long nineteenth century, when Europeans 'discovered' its architectural significance. But what role did local actors play in the creation of Hagia Sophia as a modern monument? This book seeks out the audiences of this building beyond its Western interpreters, from Ottoman officials to the diverse communities of Istanbul. Chronologically bracketed by the major renovation of the structure in the 1740s and its conversion into a museum in 1934, this volume traces the gradual transformation of Hagia Sophia within the Ottoman imaginary from imaret (mosque complex) to eser (monument); that is, from lived space to archaeological artifact.

Edited by: Emily Neumeier (Assistant Professor of Islamic art and architecture Temple University), Benjamin Anderson (Associate Professor of History of Art and Classics, Cornell University)
Imprint: Edinburgh University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9781474461016
ISBN 10: 1474461018
Series: Edinburgh Studies on the Ottoman Empire
Pages: 312
Publication Date: 31 December 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , Undergraduate , Further / Higher Education
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

List of FiguresNote on Contributors A Note on Translation and TransliterationAcknowledgments Introduction: Writing the Modern Biography of an Ancient MonumentEmily Neumeier and Benjamin Anderson 1. Hagia Sophia’s Second Conversion: The Building Campaign of Mahmud I and the Transformation from Mosque to Complex (1739-43)Ünver Rüstem 2. The Paradoxes of Hagia Sophia’s Ablution Fountain: The Qasida al-Burda in Cosmopolitan IstanbulTülay Artan 3. The Calligraphic Arts in the Age of Ottoman Architectural RenovationEmily Neumeier 4. From the Mouth of Angels: Folkloric Hagia SophiaBenjamin Anderson 5. The Other Ayasofya: The Restoration of Salonica’s Ayasofya Mosque, 1890-1911Sotirios Dimitriadis 6. 'That Domed Feeling': A Byzantine Synagogue in ClevelandRobert S. Nelson 7. The Monument of the Present: The Fossati Restoration of Hagia Sophia (1847-9)Asli Menevse 8. From Ceremony to Spectacle: Changing Perceptions of Hagia Sophia through the Night of Power (Laylat al-Qadr) Prayer CeremoniesAyşe Hilâl Uğurlu 9. Temple of the World’s Desire: Hagia Sophia in the American Press, c. 1910-1927Robert Ousterhout Index

Emily Neumeier is Assistant Professor of Islamic art and architecture at Temple University, Philadelphia. She studies the visual and spatial cultures of the eastern Mediterranean, with a focus on the Ottoman Empire, and her research has been published in venues such as the International Journal of Islamic Architecture, the Journal of the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association, and History and Anthropology. Benjamin Anderson is Associate Professor of History of Art and Classics at Cornell University. He is the author of Cosmos and Community in Early Medieval Art (Yale University Press, 2017) and co-editor of Is Byzantine Studies a Colonialist Discipline? Toward a Critical Historiography (Penn State University Press, 2023), and The Byzantine Neighbourhood: Urban Space and Political Action (Routledge, 2022)

Reviews for Hagia Sophia in the Long Nineteenth Century

A church for a millennium, a mosque for five centuries and a museum for ninety years, the Hagia Sophia has still much to reveal to those who wish to look beyond its current polemical context. This excellent collective volume offers such an opportunity, with a focus on a still understudied period of the monument's recent history --Edhem Eldem, Boğaziçi University