Can You Pray in Hagia Sophia? (2026)

Hagia Sophia is the most recognizable landmark in Istanbul, and I dare say all of Turkey. Dating from the 6th century, it’s almost as old as the city it’s in.

Its status has changed multiple times:

• 537 AD – Church (the largest cathedral in the world until 1520!)
• 1453 – Transformed into a Mosque.
• 1931 – Closed
• 1934 – Reopened as a Museum by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
• 2020 – Mosque status restored. Free entrance for all.
• 2024 – Mosque on the ground floor, a museum on the upper-floor galleries. Free for Muslims, paid for tourists.

Rules changed significantly after January 2024. There are now two entrances to Hagia Sophia: one for Muslims intending to pray and one for non-muslims that leads to the upper gallery.

Entrance is free for Muslims, and the five daily prayers are done in the Prayer Area (called İbadethane) on the ground floor of Hagia Sophia. Entry is through Sultanahmet Square, where it’s been since 2020.

For tourists, the entrance fee is 25 euros (~1300 TRY, but may increase with inflation). Entry is from the Visiting Area entrance at the northeast corner of Hagia Sophia. Buy a ticket from the ticket booth in front of the Fountain of Sultan Ahmet III.

You can also book a skip-the-line ticket online, which will save you time in the queue.

Can you pray in Hagia Sophia if you’re Muslim?

Yes, you can pray in Hagia Sophia as a Muslim. Your nationality is unimportant – just queue at the front entrance about 20-30 minutes before prayer times and enter with the other worshippers.

This also means that you can enter even if you aren’t actually a Muslim. In practice, Security may ask if you are, but they will not ask you to prove it – an Islamic hadith prohibits that.

The 5 daily prayers are performed according to the official times, which depend on the sun’s position in Istanbul.

Check the Muslim Prayer Times here.

Muslim Prayer Times

Muslims pray 5 times a day at variable times depending on their location on Earth and the time of year. These are:

• Fajr (dawn, 2 Rak’ah)
• Dhuhr (midday, 4 Rak’ah)
• Asr (afternoon, 4 Rak’ah)
• Maghrib (sunset, 3 Rak’ah)
• Isha (night, 4 Rak’ah)

The Muslim prayer is called salah. Every salah is performed with several Rak’ahs – a single iteration of movements and prayer chants.

Depending on which salah it is, the number of Rak’ahs varies for each prayer, as shown above.

During Islamic prayers, a rope separates the front prayer portion of Hagia Sophia. Attendants urge all visitors who won’t partake in the prayer to go behind the rope.

Can Muslim women pray in Hagia Sophia?

Yes, Muslim women are welcome to pray in a separate portion of Hagia Sophia.

Women are NOT allowed to pray together with men on the ground floor right in front of the mihrab.

Can you pray in Hagia Sophia if you’re Christian?

There are no organized Christian prayers in Hagia Sophia.

Moreover, since 15 January 2024, all non-Muslims must buy an entrance ticket and enter from a different entrance that only allows access to the gallery floor of Hagia Sophia.

This means it’s no longer possible to pray as a Christian in Hagia Sophia.

Before that, it was possible to individually and quietly pray as a Christian on the ground floor. There are Christian mosaics and icons on the walls after all.

These mosaics are supposed to be covered during the Muslim prayers (depictions of living things are not allowed in Islam because only Allah can create life), but when I was there (August 2022), nothing was covered during the Maghrib.

Can you visit Hagia Sophia if you don’t want to pray?

Yes, you can visit Hagia Sophia even if you don’t want to pray.

Hagia Sophia is open to non-Muslim visitors every day from 09:00 am to 7:30 pm. On Friday, the mosque is closed to non-Muslim visitors between 12:30 and 14:30 due to the Friday Prayer (Salatul-Jumu’ah).

Tourists can only visit the second floor of the Mosque, where the gallery is. You will be able to see the ground floor from above but will, unfortunately, miss out on most of the amazing artwork and mosaics on the walls.

Note that professional tour guides are no longer allowed to tour visitors.

If you want to be cheeky and are not afraid of Allah’s judgement, you can enter Hagia Sophia for free during prayer times, pretending to be Muslim. This is the only way to visit the ground floor of the mosque and also avoid the excessive entrance fee.

My experience praying at Hagia Sophia

I went to visit Hagia Sophia about 15 minutes before Maghrib, the sunset prayer. There was no queue of people trying to enter, and thus no waiting in the scorching summer sun that many endure when they go during the day.

Five minutes after I entered Hagia Sophia, the attendants stretched a rope and urged all visitors to go behind it. That was when I made the split-second decision to go past the rope and join the crowd of Muslims.

So there I am, having overstepped the limits of my piety, both literally and figuratively. I am not a Muslim, and although I know a lot about Islam, I don’t follow its rules and have never prayed.

It was another 5 minutes of people gathering, some already doing their prayers, others chatting, and the occasional lost tourist who’s still snapping pics like he’s a paparazzi at the Oscars – I swear, that wasn’t me.

Out of the sudden, everyone starts walking forward, and I am already too deep in to go back, so I just join the crowd.

Standing shoulder to shoulder, facing the mihrab (the niche in the wall that points towards Mecca), listening to the Imam (Muslims can pray without him; he just knows the Quran pretty well and leads the prayers).

Everyone says Amin, and so do I. Everyone kneels, and so do I. We bow, my neighbors mumble prayers, and we stand up again. Repeat that 3 times. Did I just pray?

There’s nobody between man and God in Islam. Everyone can pray, and you aren’t judged on your piety by others.

However, one must pray in Arabic, so no matter how earnest you are in your submission to Allah, you won’t be performing the Quranic Salah if it’s in your native tongue.

Is it worth paying the entrance fee for Hagia Sophia?

The entrance fee to Hagia Sophia as a non-Muslim is a whopping 25 EUR (or however much it is in Turkish Lira at the time).

For a quick comparison, the Louvre in Paris is 22 EUR, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is 25 EUR, the Prado Museum in Madrid is 15 EUR, Tower Bridge in London is around 18 euros, and the British Museum is entirely free. Given how rich these museums are in comparison to Hagia Sophia, it’s an absolute joke that the latter costs so much to enter.

I don’t think for a second that the excessively high entrance fee for Hagia Sophia is deserved. Moreover, it’s still under renovation with ugly construction machinery sticking out of it. Charging 25 EUR for this is a crime.

It’s deliberate. It’s a way to control how many people enter. 3.7 million entered in 2019 when it was paid, which increased to 13.6 million in 2022 when it was free (and mind you, Pandemic times were not fully over yet).

Is Hagia Sophia worth the high entrance fee? Absolutely not.

It’s a marvelous landmark with deep historical and religious significance and a storied history of emperors, patriarchs, and sultans.

But you can visit the just-as-marvelous Sultanahmed Mosque nearby (the Blue Mosque) and the Suleymaniye Mosque within walking distance away FOR FREE.

Moreover, you aren’t even allowed to walk on the ground floor of Hagia Sophia if you enter as a ticketed tourist.

Save your money and have some delicious Turkish food, or go to a hammam instead.