In Kazakhstan, former President Nursultan Nazarbayev yesterday opened the largest mosque in Central Asia. According to Kazakh state media, 35,000 people, including 5,000 women, can pray in the holy building with a nearly 90-meter-high dome in the capital Nur-Sultan.
Portal/Turar Kazangapov
In addition, the mosque offers space for another 200,000 believers in its outdoor area, he said. This makes it one of the ten largest mosques in the world.
70 percent profess Islam
The “Main Mosque of the Republic” was built on the initiative of Nazarbayev. He himself laid the foundation stone for the church in March 2019, the day before he resigned as head of state after 30 years at the helm of the former Soviet republic. In Kazakhstan, about 70% of the population professes Islam.
In the authoritarian country, religion is officially considered a private matter. For years, however, the leadership of the multi-ethnic state has been trying to form a national identity that also includes Islam.
Unknown costs and payers
No public money was spent on the construction. It is unknown how much it cost to build the 68,000-square-meter church and who paid for it. It was built on an area of ten hectares in the south of the capital.
The mosque’s dome has a diameter of 62 meters, the minarets are each 130 meters high, he said. The twelve-meter high entrance door made of Iroko African wood is one of the tallest wooden doors in the world.
Inside, in addition to the prayer rooms, there is a conference room, a Quran reading room, a television studio and a museum, among other things. In the basement there is a banquet hall, an entrance hall and an underground car park.