Algeria unveils Africa’s largest mosque
After seven years of construction, and five years of selective entry, Africa’s largest mosque is finally open to the public, according to The Associated Press.
Algerian president, Abdelmajid Tebboune inaugurated the Great Mosque of Algiers on 25th February, honouring his promise to open the mosque to Algeria’s citizens in time for Ramadan, with gumption and flare – despite the event’s purely ceremonial purpose. The enormous place of worship has been open to international tourists and state visitors for the last five years.
The mosque – that was meant to be a symbol solidarity and religiosity – represents Algeria’s political instability through debts and delays in its construction, ultimately resulting in a ‘who’s mosque is bigger?’ competition with Morocco.
The Great Mosque is officially Africa’s largest, boasting the world’s tallest minaret at 869 feet (or 265 metres), as well as a prayer room with the capacity of 120,000 people.
However, many Algerian’s do not favour the $898 million Chinese-built white elephant that sits upon Algeria’s Mediterranean coastline, and instead would rather have seen four new hospitals constructed throughout the country.
AFP reported that the mosque’s location was extremely controversial as it stands between a “future tourist hotspot” and multiple working-class districts that used to be a stronghold for Islamist extremists.
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The mosque’s modernist design – featuring a helipad and a 1 million book library – was at the request of former Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Bouteflika sought to bestow his own name upon the place of worship – imitating Casablanca’s Hassan II Mosque that was named after the former Moroccan king.
However, due to prominent protests in 2019, Bouteflika concluded his 20-year reign as Algeria’s President which consequently meant that his plans to name the mosque and inaugurate it in February 2019 could not be finalised. Speculations of corruption and suspicions of state officials receiving payments through contractor kickbacks have tainted the “goodness and moderation” the mosque allegedly symbolises.
Tensions between Algeria and Morocco have existed for decades as the neighbouring rivals routinely fail to uphold their previous normalisation contracts and have continually used each other as scape goats in social, political, economic, and military conflicts.
READ: Algeria: Tebboune on Irreversible Morocco Dispute
Morocco’s Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca – like Algeria’s Great Mosque – was under construction for seven years and is now Africa’s second largest mosque. It was opened to Morocco’s citizens in August 1993.
In 2015, it was reported that The Hassan II Mosque stampede that left over 80 worshippers (mainly women) with dislocated shoulders and broken bones was caused by a mouse. Panic struck when the mouse jumped onto a woman’s foot as she was praying and as she rushed out of the mosque others hurriedly followed in fright.
AP/AFP/MWN
