Reference :- The great church of Hagia Sophia , in Istanbul , is about to become a Mosque ..again .

Reference :-   Andy Bolt praised the wonders of western civilization , and mourned the fate of the great church of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul . He did overlook a wafer thin sliver of history , by mistake.

Andy , this was a great topic for you to bring up.   I know Istanbul very well.   Back in the halcyon days of my youth ( before you were born )  I lived there .   In those days I would buy Turkish rugs in the Grand Bazaar  , and sell them for a profit at the Khan-el-Khalili in Cairo .   While in Egypt I would search the Souks for Egyptian rugs to take back to Turkey , which I sold to merchants in the Grand Bazaar who couldn't get enough of them .   Ah , I lived well , with one pocket stuffed full of Turkish Lira  , while  the other overflowed with Egyptian Pounds .

So Andy , you made quite an error when you sneered at the evil Muslims who had  invaded Constantinople in 1453 , under the leadership of the very young Sultan , Mehmed the Conqueror .
What the young Mehmed found  as he rode through the legendary city shocked him .  This had been  the greatest city in the world in it's time , ten times the size of any other .  But it was now a tragic shadow of it's former glory . Mehmed was a highly cultured man . He was so moved that he recited lines from a poem to reflect the sadness he felt upon viewing  the ruins of the great city, which  had been pillaged 250 years previously by the Christian soldiers of the Fourth Crusade .

The Crusaders had defiled the great church of Hagia Sophia , looting it's treasures .  Appalled by this , Mehmet ordered that his soldiers treat it with respect  . As you point out Andy , he had the beautiful mosaics , many of which were already damaged ,  plastered over to convert it to a Mosque ..
He did not have them destroyed . It was fellow Christians (  often a violent bunch ) who ruined Hagia Sophia during the Fourth Crusade in 1204 , not the Ottoman Turks .

Anyway Andy , getting back to those nostalgic thoughts about rug selling , I would often walk Istanbul's  ancient Hippodrome in the evenings to watch the swallows fly overhead and enjoy the smell of food and the sound of music wafting from the busy restaurants .  Sadly ,  the Hippodrome was also trashed  by the Crusaders  , which is why the magnificent Four Horses of St Mark are gone , and now reside in Venice. But one could imagine it's past splendour , and recall those lines of  Persian poetry  Mehmed the Conquerer once spoke . 

          "   The spider weaves the curtains , in the palace of the Caesars ,
               The owl calls the watches, in the tower of Afrasiab "

A sad lament indeed .    

    Your comrade , Ken .