[A miniature model of a model mosque (Syed Zakir Hossain/Dhaka Tribune)]
Dhaka: Prime Minister of Bangladesh Sheikh Hasina on Thursday inaugurated 50 mosques cum cultural centres in a virtual event.
The mosques, spread across Bangladesh, are inaugurated today that coincided with the begining of “Mujib Year”, named after the country’s founder and Father of the Nation.
Aimed to “counter radicals” and to spread the “true teaching of Islam” Bangladesh is planning to build some 560 mosques as part of the campaign.
50 of them were inaugurated by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina through videoconferencing from her official residence Ganabhaban in the capital Thursday.
The government plans to inaugurate 100 more model mosques by the end of this year marking the birth centenary of Father of the Nation Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, local media said.
Some 50 mosques are being constructed under the landmark 560 model mosques cum cultural centres considered to be the world’s largest mosque project for inauguration in September under the second phase and another 50 will be opened in December under the third phase, Shafique said.
The project was launched in April 2018 and is expected to cost the country over a billion dollar.
“The newly constructed mosques would be open to women, unlike most of the country’s 300,000 mosques, and would be equipped with libraries and cultural centres”, Shahmim Afzal, who heads the government Islamic affairs department, told AFP.
Saudi Arabia had initially agreed to partly fund the construction of these mosques. It however later backed out of the project for unknown reasons and the project is now being completed by the Bangladesh government’s own fund.
According to the project document, the model mosques are being built in three categories – A, B and C, according to Dhaka Tribune.
Under category A, some 69 four-storey mosques with elevator facilities are being constructed in 64 districts and city corporation areas. Each floor of a mosque will have space of 2,360.09 square metres.
Under category B, 475 mosques are being built with a floor space of 1680.14 square metres each, while 16 mosques under C category in coastal areas will have floor space of 2,052.12 square metres each.
Each district and city corporation mosque will accommodate 1,200 people for prayers at a time while 900 people can offer prayers at a time in each upazila and coastal area mosque.
In the 560 mosques, some 494,000 men and 31,400 women will be able to offer prayers together. Construction work of these mosques would be completed by December 2023.
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