Pope Francis has taken part in a Muslim prayer alongside the Grand Mufti of Istanbul on the second leg of his three-day visit to Turkey.
Francis stood on Saturday morning with his head bowed and hands clasped in front of him for two minutes of silent prayer inside the 17th-century Sultan Ahmet mosque, aiming to show respect for Islam and encourage stronger ties between the two faiths.
“May God accept it,” Rahmi Yaran, the Grand Mufti of Istanbul told the pope at the end of the prayer.
Earlier, Yaran gave Francis a tour of the mosque which is famed for its elaborate blue tiles and cascading domes and is better known as the Blue Mosque.
Francis then visited the nearby Haghia Sofia, which was the main Byzantine church in Constantinople – present-day Istanbul – before being turned into a mosque following the Muslim conquest of the city in 1453. The Haghia Sophia
is now a museum, although some Islamic groups want it to be converted back into a mosque.
A few dozen well-wishers outside Haghia Sophia waved the Turkish flag and the flag of the Holy See.
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