The world’s once greatest cathedral is now a mosque. On July 10, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan ordered the conversion of the nearly 1,500-year-old Hagia Sophia back into a mosque after a court annulled a 1934 presidential decree that made it a museum.

Erdoğan then joined thousands of Muslims for prayers inside the former Hagia Sophia Cathedral on July 24 for the first time after the historic building operated as a museum for more than eight decades. Turkey’s top religious authority, the Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet), appointed imams and muezzins to lead the prayers.

Two green Ottoman flags have been placed inside Hagia Sophia. The flag represents Ottoman military conquests and the three white crescents on it symbolize the Ottoman occupation of Europe, Asia, and Africa.

The head of the Diyanet, Professor Ali Erbaş, recited a sermon with a sword in his hand. Referring to Ottoman Sultan Mehmed Mohammed II, who invaded Constantinople in the fifteenth century, as the “conqueror”, Erbaş said: “Conqueror Sultan Mehmed Khan endowed this place [to the Hagia Sophia Foundation] so that it would remain a mosque until the Judgement Day. Those who violate what was endowed are cursed”.

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Holding a sword in his own hand at Hagia Sophia, historian Mustafa Armağan explained what it meant:

In Ottoman practice and in the Islamic practice, the greatest mosque [church] of a conquered city was turned into a mosque of conquest. Hagia Sophia’s name is not [officially] the Mosque of Conquest but it is recognized as such. When the greatest church here was converted into a mosque, it became the Mosque of the Conquest.

As this place was conquered with swords, the imam and khatib held swords in their hands as they went up to the pulpit. For [the sword] is the symbol of the conquest. It means, “We conquered this place via the sword and Islam dominates this place now as a right of the sword.” In the past, there was this practice in the great mosques of all conquered cities but it was forgotten in time. Some used a baton; others completely removed [the practice]. Hence, our Ottoman tradition is brought to life here today. In a city captured via the sword, the sermon is recited with a sword.

Armağan also referred to the green Ottoman flags placed in the Hagia Sophia and said: “The fact that these symbols are back means that the Ottoman Empire is back”.

Read more: The American Conservative