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After 500 years, mosque opens in Granada
The first mosque built in Granada since Arabs left over five centuries ago from the capital of the former Royal Muslim dynasty in Spain was opened yesterday with an appeal for co-existence in a modern age of confrontation.
- PUBLISHED: Fri 11 Jul 2003, 8:31 PM UPDATED: Thu 17 Nov 2022, 3:15 PM
- By:
- AFP
Built on the Albaicin hill facing the Alhamra Palace, the mosque is the result of 20 years of effort by the southern Spanish city's Muslim community, which acquired the site with a donation from Libya.
His Highness Dr Shaikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Member of the Supreme Council and Ruler of Sharjah, said in an inaugural address that the mosque could serve as an example to all, so that when the muezzin made the call to prayer his chant would "resound like a call to brotherhood."
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In a speech read in Spanish by his son Shaikh Khaled bin Sultan Al Qasimi, Dr Shaikh Sultan noted the lasting visible traces of Arab culture in Granada, the seat of the Muslim kingdom in Andalusia for eight centuries.
He eulogised the richness of its culture, customs, monuments and language, and added: "In the character and blood of the Andalusians there is a part of ourselves." The inauguration ceremony took place in the gardens of the mosque opposite the Alhamra Palace, in the presence of Dr Shaikh Sultan, who made a major contribution to the construction costs estimated at $4.5 million. Morocco, Brunei and Malaysia also contributed.
The mosque complex includes an Islamic centre, gardens and a terrace looking out over the Sierra Nevada mountains and the Alhamra.
The mosque project ran into difficulties with the death of Morocco's King Hassan, who was very attached to the scheme, and the discovery of archaeological remains that halted the building work for some time. Five years after the first stone was laid, the white mosque now graces the hill that once dominated the Arab quarter of medieval Granada.
The president of the mosque foundation, Malek Ruiz, said he hoped the religious complex would "become a place of reference for everyone who wants to discover the purest tradition of Islam."