The city of Athens has opened its first state-sanctioned mosque, after being the only major capital in the European Union without an official place of worship for Muslims.
The new mosque opened earlier this week in the Votakinos area of the Greek capital and saw its first prayer service take place this week. It comes after a 14-year-long struggle with Greek bureaucracy to open the facility.
Zaki Mohammed, 49, has become its first imam, and is said to be a Greek citizen who originally migrated to the country from Morocco, newspaper Proto Thema reports.
Due to the Wuhan virus outbreak and the subsequent restrictions put in place to stop its spread, the mosque can only accommodate a small number of peoplme and an official opening is not expected until after restrictions are lifted.
Greek Landowner Discovers Makeshift Mosque Built by Illegal Migrants on Her Property https://t.co/QLYnO0LT4q
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) June 16, 2020
The mosque has a total capacity for around 350 people. While prayers will be recited in Arabic, the sermons will only be given in Greek or English. The mosque does not feature any minarets and will also not broadcast the call to prayer.
The opening of the mosque comes four years after local government officials warned that Athens was more likely to be hit by a radical Islamic terror attack due to the lack of a mosque in the city.
“Every day that we do not have an official mosque and Imam in Athens, we pay for in the increased risk of the radicalisation of Muslims,” an official at the Education and Religious Affairs Ministry said in 2016.
Greece has a sizable Muslim population, especially since the onset of the migrant crisis. While Athens now only has one mosque, other cities have as many as nine, such as Komotini.
Last year, a local Muslim resident complained that the Muslim community was “being used” by Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has claimed the Greek government has discriminated against the Muslim minority.
German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) findings indicate that the Turkish government purposely incited riots at the Greek border by planting members of its security services among crowds of migrants. https://t.co/Nu6CzyZU0Z
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) March 28, 2020
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