Dear PW'ers. I want to introduce you to the biggest mosque in the Southern hemisphere nearing completion in Johannesburg.
The mosque is being built by a famous Turkish businessman Ali Katircioglu, also known as "Uncle Ali". Initially he wanted to build the mosque in USA but reports stated that he was running into some red tape and the authorities there were not too keen to grant him the permission for building so a friend of his suggested building it in SA and the rest they say is history. Lucky for us here and unlucky for the USA residents
The mosque is named as the Nizamiye complex and is being built on 52 hectares of land and is a smaller replica of the world famous Selimiye Mosque in Turkey. The complex includes a school for primary and secondary classes, a dormitory, a clinic for poor people, a shopping complex, and a restaurant. There are also plans to build a university in the complex. The famous SA president Nelson Mandela played an active part in the planning of the mosque complex
The mosque is nearly ready and already offers full prayer services and the school has also been operational for a while though the official opening of the mosque is planned for 18th Sept 2012 where the current SA president is due to open it.
By the time the entire project including the university would have been completed it would have cost an estimated $13 million. All the tiles are hand painted and most of the skilled workers are from Turkey. The mosque can accommodate over 6000 worshippers and is also fast becoming a major tourist site for the city.
This was my second visit to the mosque, it is some distance from where I stay at present though in a few months I will be moving very close to it hence the reason to visit my future mosque
The pictures I took dont really do it much justice but are there to give you a bit of an idea of what it looks like. I had gone at the wrong time (noon) to take proper exterior pictures but anyways hope you like the pictures