Iranian President Tours Africa’s Largest Mosque during Algeria Visit

IQNA – Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi paid a visit to Africa’s largest mosque, which was officially inaugurated in Algeria last week.

 

The president, who has traveled to Algiers at the head of a high-ranking political and economic delegation to attend the 7th summit of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF), was accompanied by Algeria’s education ministry during the tour of the mosque on Saturday.

He was briefed on the features of the large place of worship and the process of its construction.

The Great Mosque of Algiers features the world’s tallest minaret, measuring at 869 feet (265 meters). The third largest mosque in the world after the Grand Mosque in Mecca and the Prophet’s Mosque in Medina, its prayer room accommodates 120,000 people.

Its modernist design contains Arab and North African flourishes to honor Algerian tradition and culture as well as a helicopter landing pad and a library that can house up to 1 million books.

Raeisi also performed the Maghrib prayers in congregation at the mosque.

Speaking with the prayer leader of the mosque before leaving, the Iranian president referred to the promotion of the teachings of the Quran, the Holy Prophet (PBUH) and Ahl-ul-Bayt (AS) and raising awareness about the conditions of Muslims all over the world as some of the main functions of mosques.

Today, raising awareness about what the oppressed people of Palestine in the Gaza Strip are going through is the main issue in the Muslim world and for humanity as a whole and should be part of mosques’ activities in Muslim countries, he stressed.

He hailed the shared view that Iran and Algeria hold on the issue of Palestine and said if that was the case in all Muslim countries, the Zionists would not dare commit so many atrocities against the oppressed people of Palestine.  

 

Raeisi also described unity as a major necessity in the Muslim world today and stressed the important role that mosques can play in enhancing Islamic unity.

Elsewhere in his remarks, the Iranian president highlighted the role of mosques in Algeria in mobilizing popular forces during the era of colonialism.

The prayer leader of the Great Mosque of Algiers, for his part, praised the Islamic Republic of Iran’s courageous and historic stances on the issue of Palestine and hoped other Muslim countries would follow the same path.

4203202