Alwaght- Russian President Vladimir Putin has officiated on the opening of one of the biggest European mosques in the capital, Moscow.
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey attended the Wednesday opening of Moscow’s Central Mosque following reconstruction.
The new mosque – built on the site of a smaller one built in 1904 which was demolished in 2011, have capacity for 10,000 worshipers. It is still one of the only six mosques in the city.
The Moscow Central Mosque, which is Europe’s largest Muslim place of worship, has reopened in the Moscow after a ten-year restoration.
Speaking during the event President Putin said, “This new mosque is worthy of Russia, in which, I want to stress, Islam, under our country’s law, is one of Russia’s traditional religions, with millions of our citizens count themselves among its followers.”
“It will be a source for education, spreading humanist ideas and the true values of Islam,” Putin underscored.
He went on to say that the mosque is a central part of Moscow’s efforts to counter recruitment by extremists.
“I’m confident that the Central Mosque will help unite the efforts of not solely the Muslims, but also the adherents of other faiths, in the name of good deeds,” Putin stated. “The Koran says: ‘Endeavor to outdo each other in good deeds.”
The Russia President noted that, “traditions of enlightened Islam developed over many centuries in Russia. The fact that different peoples and religions live peacefully together in Russia is in large part thanks to the Muslim community, which has made a worthy contribution to preserving harmony in our society and has always strived to build relations within and between religions based on tolerance for each other’s faiths.”
President Putin pointed out that today, traditional Islam is an integral part of Russia’s spiritual life. “Islam’s humanist values, like the values of our other traditional religions, teach people compassion, justice and care for our loved ones. We place great value on these things,” he added.
