Biggest Mosque in Europe

Light falls on light, in symbolic Mosque of Rome

Emma Van Dam ,  The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Wed, 08/19/2009 8:52 AM  |  Features

Courtesy of the Italian Institute of Culture

“Building a mosque in an Islamic country is easy,” says architect Avio Mattiozzi. “But building one in a Western, predominantly Christian country like Italy, is not.”

The name Rome generally conjures up images of the Vatican, the hundreds of churches and cathedrals, the Pope. One does not think of mosques. With the dominating presences of The Basilica of Saint Paul above Roman soil, and the ancient catacombs of Rome below, it may seem surprising to some that this city is now also home to Europe’s biggest mosque. Spreading over 30,000 square meters, the mosque is capable of holding 40 000 people, numbers that allow the place of worship to be considered what Mattiozzi refers to as those “larger mosques that cater to nations”.

When the Mosque of Rome, photographs of which are now being showcased in an exhibition at the Italian Cultural Centre, was built in 1995, there were not many Muslims in Italy. Before its completion, when King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, the custodian of the two most significant mosques in the world, namely those in Mecca and Medina, visited Rome and asked for a place to pray, his adviser even had to inform him that Rome had no mosques, upon which King Faisal reportedly uttered “This is impossible!”.

In 1969, 24 Islamic nations collaborated with the Italian government to set up the Islamic Cultural Centre, which was to both finance the building of the Mosque of Rome, and establish stronger relations between the Islamic and Catholic “worlds”. Indonesia was one of these 24.