Central Asia’s largest mosque opens in Kazakhstan

KABUL (Pajhwok): The Noor Sultan Mosque, the largest Muslim worship place in Central Asia, has been inaugurated in the capital of Kazakhstan, a media report said on Saturday.

Kazakhstan’s first president Nursultan Nazarbayev attended Friday’s opening of the mosque, an event that coincided with the 24th anniversary of the city’s founding.

Online news agency Central Asia Media, citing Nazarbayev’s spokesman Aidos Ukibay, said representatives of scholars, diplomatic corps, public and media attended the opening ceremony.

AKIPress, meanwhile, reported the mosque was located on Mangilik El Avenue near the EXPO and Mega Silk Way malls.

The mosque spread on an area of almost 10 hectares, and is topped by a 90-metre central dome and eight smaller domes.

The mosque surrounded by four minarets with 130 meters in height each.

The white structure took three years to build and is large enough to accommodate up to 235,000 worshipers.

Around 70 percent of Kazakhstan's more than 19.247 million people are Muslim.  Most are followers of the Hanafi school of Sunni Islam.

This mosque has dwarfed Dushanbe’s Central Cathedral Mosque, which can hoyse more than 130,000 worshipers

Before that, Dushanbe’s Central Cathedral Mosque was considered the largest mosque in Central Asia.

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