Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika on Monday laid the cornerstone for the Grand Mosque of Algiers, a $1.3-billion project that should become the world’s third largest mosque.
China State Construction Engineering Corporation (CSCEC) was last month awarded the contract to build the huge monument, facing the sea in the east of Algiers, over four years.
The mosque will sit on 20 hectares in the Mohammadia area of the capital. Its minaret soaring 270 meters (886 feet) into the sky, it will hold 120,000 worshippers and feature a library of 1 million works and seating for 2,000.
It will also house a museum and a research center and become the world’s third largest mosque after those in Mecca and Saudi Arabia in Medina.
Algiers currently has three grand mosques: Djamaa el-Kebir, built in the 11th century; Djamaa el-Djedid, built in 1660; and the Ketchaoua, at the foot of the Casbah, also built during the Ottoman rule in the 17th century.
i can see it now, may Allah forbid, but if you get the chinese involved and their vitriolic enmity for Islam and its adherents, there might be a problem with the construction. other than the fact that the money could be better used in the form of charity to appease the bedraggled people of bouteflika. still they can go to the mosque, oh no hang on, how?, the mukhabarat will be following them. so it is just an insult to the people, a mere slap in the face. as bouteflika knows about the hadith about building a mosque, as if! still time will tel, this firawn will fall like the rest inshallah. may he (swt) grant us the nussrah where ever it may manifest itself from ameen.