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Tuesday 21 Jul 2015 - 15:09 Makkah mean time-5-10-1436
Havana (IINA) – The Muslims in Cuba performed their prayers in a place allocated for the practice of religious rites for the first time, pending the completion of the construction works of a Turkish mosque, which will open its doors soon, according the French La Nouvelle Gazette.
The Cuban government allocated a historical site in the capital Havana for the construction of a grand mosque. It also granted, during Ramadan, the Muslim community in the country a piece of land covering an area of 200 square meters to be used as a mosque for the performance of Taraweeh prayers.
General Director of the Turkish Diyanet (Religious Affairs) Foundation Ismail Palakoglu said that the campaign, which was launched by the Diyanet to build the mosque, has raised 8 million Turkish liras (nearly $3 million). He added that Diyanet also contributed to the building of around 3,500 mosques and places of worship in Turkey, and more than 100 mosques in a number of countries.
"We also built a mosque in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, with a capacity of over 5,000 worshippers, and another one in the Russian capital Moscow,” Palakoglu said. He added that they have recently opened a mosque in Kazakhstan, and they will open another there in 2016.
In Albania, the Diyanet has laid the foundation stone for the construction of a mosque which will be similar to Mimar Sinan Mosque in Istanbul, Palakoglu said.
In addition to the new Islamic center which was opened in the U.S., the Diyanet has other projects for building mosques in Kosovo, the Crimea, Romania, Hungary and the UK, he continued.
Havana’s mosque will be the first of its kind in Cuba despite the fact that the number of Muslims in the country does not exceed 9,000, making up no more than one percent of the country’s total population, according to a study by the Washington-based Pew Research Center.
Cuba has a population of 11 million people, mostly Catholic, while Muslims started to appear for the first time in the country with the influx of 1,300-1,500 foreign students of Algerian and Pakistani origins.
The Cuban government had previously opposed to the mosque building project presented by the Diyanet in October 2014. However, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan presented another project to Cuban President Raul Castro during his tour to Latin American countries in February 2015. Erdogan's project for the construction of a grand mosque in Havana similar to the picturesque Ortakoy Mosque in Istanbul was approved. The project is funded by the Turkish government.
AB/IINA
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