Romania Muslims Have Right to a Place of Worship
“Our plan is to build a mosque with a capacity to hold 1,000 people, a small park for kids, a fountain, a place for ablution and a small summer school for the study of the Quran. Nothing more,” Mufti Iusuf Murat, head of the Islamic community in Romania, said.
His defensive statement follows a sharp debate in recent days in Romania over Turkey’s plans to finance construction of a huge new mosque in Bucharest.
At the end of May, the government approved the allocation of 13,000 square metres in one of the central districts of Bucharest for the mosque, one of the largest in Eastern Europe. In exchange, Romania is to build a church in Istanbul.
Media reports said the mosque will be built with money from Turkey's Presidency of Religious Affairs, DIB, an organisation that has aided the construction of more than 100 mosques around the world, with construction ongoing in 38 different locations.
But the plan has drawn many adverse comments from public figures who say it will attract extremists.
Former president Traian Basescu said the mosque posed a risk to national security as it would lure thousands of Muslims to Romania.
Mufti Iusuf Murat on Tuesday denied these allegations and said Muslims had a right to a place of worship in the capital.
"It is our constitutional right to ask for a place of worship for our community. In Bucharest there is no purpose-built mosque but only several places of Muslim worship," he said.
"We wanted Turkey to finance the construction, but if Romanian people and officials are opposing that idea, we will ask for money from the Romanian state. It is our right,” the Mufti added.
The estimated costs for building the mosque is some 1 million euro.
Muslims are few in number in Romania. Official statistics say there are only 64,000 out of a population of 19.5 million. Most are ethnic Turks and Tatars living in the Dobrogea region of eastern Romania. About 10,000 to 20,000 are more recent immigrants.
Romania is a secular state but around 86 per cent of the population belong to the Romanian Orthodox Church and most of the rest are Catholics and members of other Christian groups.
A total of 15 other religious communities are officially recognised, including the Islamic community, which entitles them to government funding and limited tax exemption.
Romania’s largest mosque can hold 800 people but is nowhere near Bucharest. Located in the port of Constanta, it is in the east of the country, near the Black Sea.
This area was for centuries part of the Ottoman Empire and is still home to a significant Turkish community.
The building, known as the King’s Mosque, was built up with money from Carol I, the first King of Romania, as a sign of his respect for the Muslim community in the country.
Source: The Balkan Insight
