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Bekijk Volledige Versie : Tendency towards Islam in Moscow



Wizdom
29-03-12, 20:20
Moscow’s Muslim worshipers are forced to pray outside in the snow, as the city’s few mosques can no longer cope with the more than two million Muslims living in the Russian capital.

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"We are asking the authorities to let us build new mosques, but they are ignoring our demands," Imam of Moscow’s Historical Mosque, Hasan Fakhritdinov said, Government funded BBC reported.

Moscow has become one of the biggest cities for Muslims in Europe and its four mosques can no longer cope with tens of thousands of Muslims, who gather for Friday prayers every week.

Racist attacks against Muslim migrants in Russia have fallen dramatically in recent years. The Russian human rights group, Sova Centre, reported seven deaths and 28 injuries from racist and xenophobic attacks in 2011.

Muslims living in Moscow have changed the city’s way of life, as they live alongside the Orthodox Christian Russians with mutual respect and harmony.

Zarif, a devout Muslim from Tajikistan, is married to Yelena, who comes from an Orthodox Christian family.

"I sometimes buy Christian icons for my Orthodox in-laws and they buy me Muslim books or calendars… when I fast they don't eat in front of me," he says.

Halal shops and cafes have opened across the city. Halal samosa has become one of Moscow's most popular take-away foods.

Meanwhile, a growing number of Russians are converting to Islam. Ayesha Larisa, who works at a Muslim support center in Moscow, says more than 10,000 newly converted Muslim women have registered at the center.

There are some 23 million Muslims in the Russian Federation concentrated in the north of the Caucasus, representing roughly 15 percent of its 145 million peoples. Islam is the country's second-largest religion, behind Christian Orthodoxy.

PG/JR