Muslims who live in Greece, wear protective face masks as they pray at a mosque in Athens on July 31, 2020. — AFPAfter Turkey turned Istanbul’s Hagia Sophia museum back to a mosque, Muslims in Athens fear their own official place of worship, delayed for over a decade, will be held back again.
“I think after this incident, it might be even more difficult to open the official mosque that we have awaited for ten years,“ says Imam Atta-ul Naseer, who runs a makeshift mosque in a central Athens apartment. “I think a mosque should remain a mosque. It should not become a church or whatever. Just as Christians expect Hagia Sophia to remain a church, Muslims expect the same,“ says Imam Naseer.
Naseer believes that historic Ottoman mosques in Athens, like the one on the central Monastiraki square which has been transformed into a museum, could have served as a place of worship for Muslims.But the subject is delicate in a country which was occupied by the Ottoman Empire for centuries, before regaining its independence in the 19th century.
“The procedures are complicated and take time. Few mosques have obtained permits from the ministry,“ Naseer says.
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