Why did the Ottomans leave the various mosaics of Christ and the Virgin alone after converting the Hagia Sophia into a mosque?

by ThunderCrab

I was always under the impression that the Muslims were iconoclastic.

Doe22

They didn't leave them alone, many of the mosaics within the Hagia Sophia were covered over with plaster, though not destroyed. Restorations in the 1800s and 1900s uncovered some of them.