First Muslim prayer center opens in Athens

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First Muslim prayer center in 170 years opens in Athens




The Associated Press
Friday, June 22, 2007


ATHENS, Greece: Immigrant organizations on Friday opened the first official Islamic prayer site to operate in Athens since the end of Ottoman rule more than 170 years ago.

Government plans to build a mosque that would serve tens of thousands of Muslim immigrants living in the capital have stalled, and the downtown cultural center was funded by businessmen from Arab countries.

"This is the first time in all the 35 years I've lived in Greece that we have a proper place to pray," said Naim El-Gandour, the Egyptian-born head of the Muslim Association of Greece. "It's hard for be to describe what's happening — I am overcome with emotion."

Most Muslims in Athens currently use makeshift mosques for prayer, including sites prayer set up in basements, apartments, and converted coffee shops.

For weddings, funerals and other religious ceremonies, they often travel more than 700 kilometers (435 miles) to the northeastern region of Thrace, which is home to a 120,000-strong Muslim minority which is mostly Turkish speaking.

More than 1,000 mostly Arab immigrants gathered at the center for its official opening.

El-Gandour said the 1,800 sq. meter (19,500 sq. foot) site had been converted from an old textile factory to become a cultural center that would also be used as a prayer site.

He said he was not aware of the cost of the new facility, which included large refurbished prayer rooms, with flat-screen televisions and uniformed volunteer stewards.

Men in traditional Islamic dress squatted beside immigrants in overalls to attend prayers.

Representatives of Muslim organizations in Europe traveled to Athens to attend the ceremony. Also present were representatives of the Iranian and Saudi Arabian embassies in Athens, senior imams from Muslim countries, and a representative of Greece's Orthodox Church.

"This is a very big day for us. This is a clean place where we can pray properly," said one teenager who identified himself only as Ibrahim. "We've been waiting for this for a very long time — since before I was born."

Previous plans to create a mosque had been unpopular, through their association with centuries of rule by the Ottoman Empire. Some 97 percent of Greece's native-born population of 11 million is baptized Orthodox Christian.

A proposal to build a mosque outside Athens before the 2004 Olympics was blocked because of objections by residents, and opposition from Greece's powerful Orthodox Church, which disagreed with the location and plans for funding to come from Saudi Arabia.

But last year, the government promised to spend €15 million (US$20 million) for a new mosque in Athens by 2009.

The Education and Religious Affairs Ministry will set up a committee to chose the head imam of that mosque, but has said individual communities will be allowed bring their own imams to the site.

International human rights reports, including a 2005 report on religious freedom issued by the U.S. State Department, had previously criticized Greece's government for failing to create an official site for Muslims to pray in Athens.





http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/06/22/...ece-Muslims.php

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How does the community regard the fact mentioned in the article ?

[PEGASUS]

OKAY sounds nice im glad ....

NOW ISTANBULS TURN AGIA SOPHIA!!!!!!!

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What could be possible consequences ?

[KOKORO]

istanbul has 300 churches still nearly 60 70 operational !! <_<

ayasophia is museum so lets keep it like that !!
other wise we have a hugeee people group ýn turkey want ýt to be a mosque!

they say we are all turkish and ayasophia was mosque for 500 years why now museum why cant we pray !!!
you torcher muslims in muslim land !! and secularist management says ! museum go wisit as a world heritage !! feel the air !! just visit. no praying !!

as i told before only some very fanatic christians in small groups some times make very fast praying like muslims bend over kiss the ground !! and japan tourists take 10 000 pictures.
(Posted Image)

i took this picture ;)
it was beatiful it is beatiful . and it will be beatiful

but in the future any of you would come here i would gladly take you around!!.

Kaan

[Landos]

Istanbul may have a lot of Churches, but they've managed to get rid of most of the Christians who used to attend. 1915 (Armenians), 1922, 1955 and 1964 (Greeks). Who's left today? A couple thousand Greeks and a handful of Armenians-minus Hans Dink, of course. The added him to the list of 1 million other Armenians who they murdered.

As a Hellene it troubles me to see a mosque open in Athens. Lets face it, our experience with Moslems has not been a happy one. 400 years under the Turkish yoke, followed by the genocides, Pogroms and expulsions under the late Ottomans and "New Turks" has shown us what we can expect from Islam-and it ain't good.

If all the Moslems left Greece tomorrow, it'd suit me just fine. I know that's a rash generalization and that there are good Moslems, but in total our experiences with them have ended in tragedy.

In my opinion I'd settle for the last Greeks to move out of Turkey as well as the Patriarchate, if in exchange we had all the Moslems move out of Greece. That's the way I feel, let each stay with his own.

[Lord]

WTF....
another question arising is...
Why should Greece pay 15 mil euros for the mosque...?
iam shure saudi arabia...will pay for it ...
second...
in a land which is the mujahedin of Christianity...of corse it would trouble us...
But...
as a europian i would say give to the people...places of worship...
and not only muslims...
we also have a lot of Hindus and Tais...in greece...how about that...?
also a majority of greeks turns back to polytheism...
How about building a new Parthenon...?


anyway...