In Ancient Islam, what was the Hagia Sophia?
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First, what is ancient Islam?  Second, Hagia Sophia was built under the Eastern Roman empire in the 6th century under the reign of Justinian 1.  In Constantinople.  It was a cathedral of the Eastern Orthodox faith.  When the Ottomans successfully took the city in the 15th century, and the Turks have had it ever since.  It is now called Istanbul.  \n\nBut basically it is an interesting crossroads church.  It was the seat of the Metropolitan (kind of like a pope) of the Eastern Orthodox church unti 1200, when it became Roman Catholic for a short while, before returning to the eastern church.  Of course after the fall of Constantinople, it became Islamic.  After the secularization program of Attaturk, it was converted into a museum.  \n\nThere have been a lot of changes since the Turks took over...see the site below for reference.\n\nTo answer your question, Hagia Sophia was only called that after the 15th century...hardly ancient.
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This one is pretty easy-It's definitely Islam.\n\nThe Islamic religion, which originated in the western Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century, predominates in most Arab nations. Forms of both major divisions of Islam—the Sunni and the various Shia sects—can be found in the Arab countries. Almost everywhere, nationalism, which emerged in the late 19th century, is an important force. Nationalists sometimes use the Islamic religious tradition as an ideological tool to justify the power of the ruling class.
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Really, it means nothing. The largest Islamic empire there ever was was the Turkish Ottoman Empire. The Turkish Ottoman Empire used the star and cresent as their symbol. Because they were the largest Islamic empire, they have influenced Islamic architechture. That's why. The star and cresent can be seen on Turkey's flag today.
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Much smaller, for one.  And lower.  In fact it was much the same as it had been in the time of Jesus -- the walls that currently surround the Old City weren't built until Suleiman the Great in the early 1500s.  \n\nWell, except that the Temple had been destroyed by the Romans 700 years earlier, and the Al Aksa mosque was built on the site of the Temple in 700 AD.\n\nIn 800 AD Jerusalem was controlled by Muslims.  The Crusades didn't start until three hundred years later.  The guy before me ought to have done some basic research before answering.\n\nLook up Jerusalem History on Yahoo Search and you'll find dozens of websites, all giving different details.  Too many to cite here, other than the timeline below:
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it is istanbul the old capital of turkey one part in europe and the other in asia.ISTANBUL also had a pld name known as CONSTANTINOPLE
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It was Cyrus the Great\nKing of Kings\nKing of the Persian Empire, the capital of which is the magnificent Persepolis in Iran.\nSee the following links if interested.\n\nFor more info and a translation of Cyrus's Cylinder (first charter of human rights), see : http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/History/hakhamaneshian/Cyrus-the-great/cyrus_cylinder.htm\n\nFor a 40-minute film on Persepolis (very nice), take a look at : http://www.iraninfo.dk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=49&Itemid=2
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its muhammad(pbuh)\nits not only bcoz iam muslim\ni will give u the proofs:\nhe was sent from ALLAH with the holy koran\ni know u are know saying : & how can i be sure of that ??\n\nsimply, bcoz it talked abt something that`s happening nowadays\nfor example\n\nb4 we(the world) discover the moon\nthey thought it may have creatures like us\nor any creatures at least\nthey went to the moon in 1969 to discover it\nBUT \nin the holy koran its known that there is no life on the moon\n\n And the Moon, we have measured for her mansions (to traverse) till she returns like the old (and withered) lower part of a date stalk.(36:36)\n\ni think u may say : but it may be some expections\nok\n\ni wanna also tell u abt something\nthe roman empire \nits an old empire\ni think it`s famous enough to tell u abt it\nit was told in the holy koran abt its end\n& this was unexpected while it was in the holy koran\nok\nthe verses said :\n The Roman Empire has been defeated (30:2)\n In a land close by; but they, (even) after (This) defeat of theirs, will soon be victorious (30:3)\n\ni know u may say : also an expected thing to the roman empire to rise then to fall\nBUT \nhave u read the word (a land close by)\nits meaning in arabic\nin the lowest area in the earth\nits proved now by Geology\ni think geology wasnt found 14 centuries ago\n\ni think no one know this earth more than its creator (ALLAH)\n\ni think if i told u a lot abt these stories \nit will take me a long time\n\nso i can tell u \nin hadiths of muhammad(pbuh) \nit was told abt the wars in the world now\nalso abt a lot of such things \n\niam sorry i wrote all of this \nbut iam only trying to answer to u the answer honestly\n\ni think u can also study it urself to be able to know \nis it Muhammad(pbuh) or Jesus(pbuh) or ...................???\n\nthanx for u @ all\n\n\n-----------------\n\ncontact me @\naimooon87@yahoo.com\naymen87@hotmail.com
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More in-depth:\n\n1) Great Pyramid of Khufu (Egypt) \nthe largest of the three at 450 feet high (originally 482 when built); contains 2.3 million blocks each weighing 2.5 tons; completed 2680BC; was the highest building in the world until the 19th century; \n\n2) Hanging Gardens of Babylon (Iraq) \nbuilt around 600BC by Nebuchadnezzar to appease Queen Amuhia; Amuhia was married to Neb to form an alliance between the Babylonians and the Medians; she was homesick because Babylon was flat and dry and she was from a green mountainous region, had dimensions of 100 by 150 feet and were terraces that rose from 75 to 300 feet; had a mechanism to raise water to each of the terraces \n\n3) Statue of Zeus (Jupiter) at Olympia (Greece) \nbuilt by Phidias in 5th century BC; was placed in a temple built to honor Zeus who was the reason for the ancient olympic games (Zeus was the king of the Gods); statue was 22-feet wide and 40-feet high statue and made of ivory and gold; moved to Olympia until the olympic games were abolished by Emperor Theodosius I of Rome since he was Christian and did not believe in pagan games (since the olympics honored Zeus, a pagan God); moved to Constantinople (Turkey) after 255AD and was destroyed by fire in 462AD \n\n4) Temple of Artemis (Diana) at Ephesus (Turkey) \nbegun in 350BC and took about 60 to 120 years to complete; the temple had 36 60-foot high Ionic columns and was completely made of marble; destroyed during a raid by the Goths in 262 A.D; was not rebuilt afterwards since Christianity took hold and pagan temples were not in favor \n\n5) Mausoleum at Halicarnassus (Turkey) \nbegun in 353BC; built by Queen Artemisia over grief of the death of her husband who was also her brother (common practice for royalty to wed within the family at the time)Mausolus; his name led to modern day term mausoleum for all stately tombs throughout the world; destroyed by series of earthquakes and only the foundation was left by 1404AD \n\n6) Colossus at Rhodes (Greece) \nbegun in 304BC and took 12 years to complete; bronze statue of the God Helios, who was patron God of Rhodes; built to celebrate their victory and freedom against an invasion force larger than the population of Rhodes itself; was 110 feet tall (as tall as the Statue of Liberty without the pedestal) on a 50 foot pedestal; destroyed by earthquake just 57 years after completion; peices of fallen statue laid there until 7th century AD when Arab conquerers took it apart for scrap metal; it is said it took 900 camels to take away the statue \n\n7) Pharos Lighthouse of Alexandria (Egypt) \nbuilt in 290BC since the city needed a signal for its busy port; completed 20 years later; 2nd tallest building in the world at 450 feet (see wonder 1); was built on the island of Pharos; Pharos is the root word for "lighthouse" in Spanish, French, Italian, and Romanian; it was three stages with the first stage being 200 feet high, and it was possibly a tourist destination since it was one of the highest views possible on a man-made building in the ancient world and food was served at this observation level, possibly for tourists; stood for over 1,500 years, but was damaged by earthquakes in 365 and 1303AD and finally fell in 1326AD \n\nAll of these were built by 270BC and where in the Mediterranean Sea... The reason was that this list was compiled by ancient Greek historians so they all included objects/structures around the Mediterrean Sea since that was the "known" world at the time... That is why Stonehenge, Great Wall of China, and other ancient objects/structures were left off the list...
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an umbrella term for the ascetic and mystical movements within Islam. While Sufism is said to have incorporated elements of Christian monasticism, gnosticism, and Indian mysticism, its origins are traced to forms of devotion and groups of penitents (zuhhad) in the formative period of Islam. The early pious figures, later appropriated by Sufism, include Ali, Hasan al-Basri (d. 801), and Rabia al-Adawiyya, a woman from Basra (Iraq) who rejected worship motivated by the desire for heavenly reward or the fear of punishment and insisted on the love of God as the sole valid form of adoration. The word Sufi first appears in the 8th cent., probably in connection with the coarse wool that many ascetics wore.\n\nTwo central Sufi concepts are tawakkul, the total reliance on God, and dhikr, the perpetual remembrance of God. Al-Muhasibi (d. 857) and his disciple Junayd (d. 910) are representative early figures. The introduction of gnostic elements (marifa) into Sufism is often attributed to Dhu-n-Nun al-Misri (d. 859). Sufism nonetheless faced growing opposition from orthodox clerics. The scholastic and ecstatic paths further diverged with the concept of fana, the dissolution into the divine, advocated by al-Bistami (d. 874), and used by Hallaj in the declaration of his unity with God, which eventually led to his execution in 922. Islamic orthodoxy and Sufism were not irreconcilable, as attested by the attempt by al-Ghazali (d. 1111) to infuse conformist Muslim religious life with mysticism.\n\nThe evolution of Sufism in the post-Ghazali period was influenced by Ibn al-Arabi and Ibn al-Farid. Their theoretical contributions led to the development within Sufism of a complex system of initiation and progression toward the Divine and set the stage for the emergence of organized Sufi orders. This phase of literary Sufism was also characterized by the prominence of Persian works, notably those of Shihab ad-Din Suhrawardi (d. 1191), Farid ad-Din Attar, and Jalal ad-Din Rumi, and the subsequent development of Persian, Turkish, and Urdu mystic poetry. Important Sufi figures elsewhere in the Islamic world include Muin ad-Din Chishti in India and Baha ad-Din Naqshband (d. 1390) in central Asia.\n\nSufi orders, which assimilated aspects of native religious traditions more readily than more dogmatic versions of Islam, played a major role in the expansion of Islam into sub-Saharan Africa and central, S, and SE Asia. The oldest extant order with attested historicity is probably the Qadiriyya, founded by Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani (d. 1166) in Baghdad. Other important orders include the Ahmadiyya (notably in Egypt), Naqshbandiyya (Central Asia), Nimatullahiyya (Iran), Rifaiyya (Egypt, SW Asia), Shadhiliyya (N Africa, Arabia), Suhrawardiyya and Chishtiyya (S and central Asia), and Tijaniyya (N and W Africa).\n\nThe work of Idries Shah has been instrumental in introducing Sufism to the West; see his The Sufis (1964) and The Way of the Sufi (1968). Although Sufism has made significant contributions to the spread of Islam and the development of various aspects of Islamic civilization (e.g., literature and calligraphy), many conservative Muslims disagree with many popular Sufi practices, particularly saint worship, the visiting of tombs, and the incorporation of non-Islamic customs. Consequently, in recent centuries Sufism has been a target for Islamic reformist and modernist movements.
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From wikipedia:\n\n"The Al-Aqsa Mosque (Arabic: المسجد الاقصى, Al-Masjid Al-Aqsa (help·info), is part of the complex of religious buildings in Jerusalem known as either the Majed Mount or Al-Haram al-Sharif and the third holy site (the Noble Sanctuary) to Muslims and the Har ha-Bayit (Temple Mount) to Jews. It is located in East Jerusalem, a disputed territory governed as part of Israel but demanded by Palestinians as part of a future State of Palestine. The largest mosque in Jerusalem, it can accommodate about 5,000 people worshipping in and around it. Non-Muslims are forbidden to enter the mosque.\n\nOrigin of name\nThe name "Al-Aqsa Mosque" translates to "the farthest mosque", and is probably derived from the Isra and Mi'raj, a Muslim tradition about a miraculous journey around 621 by Mohammed (c. 570-632). According to a Koranic verse, Mohammed took a journey in a single night on a winged steed Buraq from "a sacred mosque" (probably in Mecca in southern Saudi Arabia) to "the farthest mosque" (al-Masjid al-Aqsa), and from a rock there, Mohammed again mounted the Buraq and briefly ascended to heaven, accompanied by the Archangel Gabriel, and spent some time touring heaven and receiving the Islamic prayers before returning to his home on Earth to communicate them to the faithful. The location of the "farthest mosque" was not explicitly stated, but came to be associated with Jerusalem, though the city is never specifically mentioned in the Koran.\n\nAbout 50 years after Mohammed's death, sometime between 687-691, Caliph Abd al-Malik built a shrine over what was believed to be the sacred rock, and its name, Qubbat As-Sakhrah, means "The Dome of the Rock." Some years after that, in 709-715, Umayyad caliph al-Walid, son of Abd al-Malik, built a new mosque near the Dome, at the location of a previous temporary wooden structure which had been built by Omar (c. 581-644), the Moslem caliph who conquered Jerusalem in 637, five years after Mohammed's death. al-Walid called his new mosque Al Aqsa, "distant place" or "farthest mosque\nConstruction of the Mosque began around 674 about 48 years after the traditional date given for Muhammad 's death. Little remains of the original structure, which, owing to the position of the mosque over Herod’s artificial addition to the Temple Mount, was in constant danger of collapse. In 747 it was badly damaged by earthquake, and then rebuilt on a much larger scale. In 1033, it was destroyed again during the Crusader attacks of Jerusalem, and then converted into a wing of the royal palace of the Crusader Kings.\n\nDamage from earthquakes in 1927 and 1936 necessitated an almost complete rebuilding of the mosque, in the process of which ancient sections of the original mosque were brought to light.\n\nAnalysis of wooden beams and panels removed from the building during renovations in the 1930s shows they are made from Cedar of Lebanon and Cyprus. Radiocarbon dating indicates a large range of ages, some as old as 9th century BC, showing that some of the wood had previously been used in older buildings.\n\nModern significance\nSince part of the mosque's extended surrounding wall is the Western Wall venerated by Jews, this relatively small spot in Jerusalem can become the source of friction. There have been times when Muslims worshipping at the mosque threw rocks downward at the Jews below at the Western Wall. A group of Jews known as the Temple Mount Faithful have expressed a desire to rebuild the ancient Jewish Temple in that area, turning into an attack on the mosque in 1990, resisted by Palestinians.\n\nThe Al-Aqsa Intifada is named after the mosque (supposedly due to Ariel Sharon's controversial visit to the Temple Mount in September 2000), as are the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades.\n\nSome Muslims have accused Israel of weakening the walls of the mosque during archaeological excavation
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holy place for muslims
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Muslims accept the Bible as their early history.
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Ask shi'at or Persians
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Muhammad (, also transliterated Mohammad, Mohammed, Muhammed, and formerly Mahomet, following the Latin) was an Arab religious and political leader and the final prophet of Islam. Islam is considered by Muslims to have existed prior to Muhammad, in the same tradition as Judaism and Christianity. Non-Muslims consider him the founder of Islam. According to traditional Muslim biographers, he was born c. 570 in Mecca (Makkah) and died June 8, 632 in Medina (Madinah); both Mecca and Medina are cities in the Arabian Peninsula. Because of his success in spreading the final word of Islam and being successful both politically and on many other levels, Muhammad is considered to be one of the most influential people of all time.____For more information go to the website below.
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I think it was from Greek mythology.  Asia was one of the Oceanids.  There was also an Anatolian (Turkish) king of that name.
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Islam today is Old Testament living.\n\nYou want to live in the middle east?\n\n\nEnough said.\n\n\n.
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Origin of Islam: According to Secular History\nThe origin of Islam can be traced back to 7th century Saudi Arabia. Islam is thus the youngest of the great world religions. The prophet Muhammad (circa 570-632 A.D.) introduced Islam in 610 A.D. after experiencing what he claimed to be an angelic visitation. Muhammad dictated the Qur'an, the holy book of Islam, which Muslims believe to be the preexistent, perfect words of Allah. \n\nOrigin of Islam: According to Islam\nThe origin of Islam is generally accredited to the prophet Muhammad but to the devout Muslim, Islam began long before Muhammad ever walked the earth. The Qur'an was dictated by Muhammad but, according to the Qur'an, it did not originate with Muhammad. The Qur'an testifies of itself that it was given by God through the angel Gabriel to the prophet Muhammad. "This is a revelation from the Lord of the universe. The Honest Spirit (Gabriel) came down with it, to reveal it into your heart that you may be one of the warners, in a perfect Arabic tongue" (Sura 26:192-195). "Say, 'Anyone who opposes Gabriel should know that he has brought down this (the Qur'an) into your heart, in accordance with God's will, confirming previous scriptures, and providing guidance and good news for the believers'" (Sura 2:97). \n\n_________\n\nAccording to an Islamic site:\n\nDuring the time of Othman, the third Caliph, Islam spread fast and many companions moved out of Arabia. Amongst the many countries and provinces that accepted Islam were Syria and Iraq, but their language was not Arabic. One of Prophet's companions, Hothaifah-ibn el-Yaman, during his visit to Syria and Iraq learnt that people were reciting the Qur'an in different modes or style. This disturbed him very much and upon his return, he requested Othman to reproduce and distribute copies of the Qur'an that would help Muslims read or recite the Qur'an in a single consistent manner to avoid any conflict. \n\nOthman appointed twelve members, headed by Zaid to write the Qur'an in the mode of the Quraish, the one used by the Prophet in his recitation. \n\nZaid along with the other companions, reproduced a number of copies based on the original volume produced during the time of Abu Bakr (refer to previous section). The handwriting was to agree with the Arabic dialect of the Quraish. These copies maintained the order of the Surah and the Ayat (verses) within the Surah as laid down by the Prophet and memorized by the Qur'an bearer. Of the completed official copies Othman ordered three to be sent to Syria, Iraq and Mecca respectively and one to be kept in Medina. The original manuscript was returned to Hafsah. \n\nOthman then ordered that all the other Qur'anic materials whether written in fragmentary manuscripts or whole copies be burnt. This was a precautionary measure taken to prevent any future conflict in the mode of recitation or otherwise. Thus preventing the Qur'an from fabrication or corruption \n\n\nRead more by clicking the Answers button @ http://web.express56.com/~bromar/