Algeria has inaugurated a giant mosque on its Mediterranean coast after years of political turmoil turned the project from a state-sponsored symbol of power and religiosity to one of delays and cost overruns
ALGIERS, Algeria — ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) — Algeria on Sunday inaugurated a giant mosque on its Mediterranean coastline after years of political turmoil turned the project from a state-sponsored symbol of power and religiosity to one of delays and cost overruns .
Built by a Chinese construction company in the 2010s, the “Grand Mosque of Algiers” features the tallest minaret in the world at 265 meters. The third largest mosque in the world and the largest outside Islam’s holiest cities, its prayer hall holds 120,000 people. Its modernist design contains Arabic and North African flourishes to celebrate Algerian tradition and culture, as well as a helipad and a library that can hold up to 1 million books.
The inauguration will guide Muslims “toward kindness and moderation,” said Ali Mohammed Salabi, Secretary General of the World Union of Muslim Ulema.
Spreading a moderate brand of Islam has been a key priority in Algeria since government forces subdued an Islamist-led insurgency during the 1990s, when a bloody civil war swept the country.
Algerian President Abdelmajid Tebboune inaugurated the mosque on Sunday in Algiers, making good on his promise to open it with great pomp and circumstance. The event, however, was mainly ceremonial. The mosque has been open to international tourists and state visitors to Algeria for about five years. A previous ceremony was delayed.
The timing allows the mosque to officially open to the public in time to host night prayers during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins next month.
Beyond its gargantuan dimensions, the mosque is best known for the delays and controversies that have marked its seven years under construction, including the selection of a site that experts warned was seismically dangerous. The state denied this in a press release published Sunday on APS, the state news agency’s website. Throughout the delays and cost overruns, the project has never stopped fueling the anger of Algerians, with many saying they would rather see four hospitals built across the country.
The official cost of the project was $898 million.
The mosque was originally the work of former president Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who planned it to be the largest in Africa. He wanted it to be his legacy and named it the “Abdelaziz Bouteflika Mosque” like the Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca, Morocco. Named after the former king of Morocco—Algeria’s neighbor and regional rival—this mosque was once touted as Africa’s largest.
But the protests that swept Algeria in 2019 and led to his resignation after 20 years in power have prevented Bouteflika from carrying out his plans, naming the mosque after him or inaugurating it in February 2019 as planned.
The mosque – along with a major highway and a million new homes – were each marred by allegations of corruption during the Bouteflika era, with suspected kickbacks to contractors then paid to state officials.