Monday 25 June 2007

Another Mega Mosque

A while back, I wrote about the continuing shenanigans surrounding the Mega Mosque which the highly dubious Islamist organisation Tablighi Jamaat plans to build in East London. That mosque, it will be recalled, was to have a capacity of 12,000, making it four times the size of Britain's largest Anglican cathedral.

Now I read in the Telegraph of a planned new mega mosque in the German city of Cologne. This will not be on quite the same scale as the London mega mosque. However, with space for 2,000 worshippers, it will hardly be minute. In a particularly provocative move, the Cologne mosque will be built within two miles of Cologne's historic Catholic cathedral. I am not sure of the exact capacity of the cathedral, but certainly a mosque of the size proposed will at least come close to rivalling it in scale.

And that, really, is the point. The building of these mega mosques (a failed attempt was made to build one in Amsterdam, as well) constitutes a permanent physical reminder of the Islamic religion, and, by building them bigger than the largest Christian cathedrals, they symbolise, not only that the Islamic religion is here, but that it is here to dominate.

Work will start on the German mega mosque in the autumn, and it is expected to be completed by 2009. A broad coalition of German groups is opposing its construction, and I for one hope that they succeed.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"We live in a land of religious freedom," said Prelate Johannes Bastgen, the cathedral's dean. "I would be very glad if the same principle existed in Muslim countries."

That's the crux of the matter...plus Islam is not a free religion...once you're in you can't get out....alive!