Aksa Mosque (The Hague)
The Aksa Mosque ( Dutch Mescidi Aksamoskee ), named after the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem , is a mosque in the Dutch city of The Hague . The mosque can accommodate about 1500 people, including the women empore . The classicist building was built in 1844 and served as a synagogue until 1975 .
history
The construction of the building was commissioned in 1842 by the board of directors of the Ashkenazi Jewish community in The Hague and designed by the architect Roodenburg. The synagogue was inaugurated in 1844. It was located on Wagenstraat 101, in the middle of what was then the Jewish quarter . After the deportation of the Dutch Jews in 1942 and 1943, the synagogue stood empty, but was restored together with two other synagogues in The Hague after the Second World War . Since only 2,000 of the 17,000 Jews in The Hague remained after the Shoah , it was not possible to keep three synagogues in operation. The synagogue on Wagenstraat was closed in 1975.
At the same time the number of Muslims in the Netherlands was growing . In 1955 the Mobarak Mosque was opened in The Hague as the first Dutch mosque . After initial talks between Muslims and authorities in the 1970s were unsuccessful, several dozen Muslim residents occupied the vacant building in 1978 . The first Islamic prayer took place here on July 27, 1979 . After three years of negotiations, the building was sold and in 1981 came into the possession of the Turkish-Islamic Association founded in 1978 (now "Islamitische Stichting Nederland", which belongs to the Turkish Diyanet ). In 1987 two blue and white, 26 meter high minarets were erected.
The mosque is now a house of prayer and a meeting place for the Muslim Turkish community in The Hague. It's located in Chinatown , the city's Chinese quarter.
Web links
Coordinates: 52 ° 4 ′ 29.3 " N , 4 ° 18 ′ 48.6" E