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Islamic cultural center to be launched in Spain's Gran Canaria

By Hanadi Watfa

MADRID, Nov 14 (KUNA) -- After two decades in limbo, the Muslim community in Gran Canaria - the second most populous island in the Spanish archipelago of Canary Islands, will have their first Islamic cultural center.
The Muslim community in Spain, in general, grew steadily in the recent years due to the large numbers of Muslim immigrants, residing in Spain, and the new converts to Islam.
The number of Muslims in Spain went up by 126,200 or 7.2 percent in 2014 compared with the previous year, hitting 1.85 million; this rise corresponded to a normal rise in the number of places of worship and cultural centers.
The number of Muslim expatriates naturalized in Spain and Spanish converts rose by 26 percent from 568,400 in 2013 to 718,300 last year.
The cultural centers provide Muslims frequenters with not only a place of worship but a venue for cultural, religious and social counselling as well; they help Muslim children of various age categories learn Arabic and know more about their religion.
These needs are main concerns for all Muslim expatriates, including the Muslim community in Gran Canaria who have been after an Islamic cultural center. Luckily, the Spanish judiciary has recently ruled for breaking the stalemate of 20 years thanks to the perseverance of the representatives in Spain of the Muslim World League (MWL) - a pan-Islamic NGO based in Makkah, Saudi Arabia.
Out of the 2.2 million people in the Atlantic archipelago of Canary Islands some 71,000 are Muslims, including over 40,000 Muslims in the Island of Gran Canaria which has a total population of 855,000.
There are two small mosques officially registered in the Island; one of these is King Khaled Mosque which was founded in 1980 but was relocated by the municipal authorities later on.
The Muslims' growing demands of cultural services have largely been met recently when MWL Representative in Spain Dr. Saud Abdullah Al-Ghadyan and Javier Doreste, in charge of the planning affairs dept. of the Municipality of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria Province, signed an agreement on launching the cultural center.
In statements to KUNA, Dr. Al-Ghadyan, also director of the Islamic cultural center in Madrid, welcomed the long-awaited agreement, saying it stipulates that the local authority allocates an area of 3,200 sq. meters for the MWL to build the center.
"The agreement is the fruit of strenuous efforts that have been made over the last two decades since the municipality of Las Palmas confiscated the original land of King Khaled Mosque to expand the roads in the vicinity and promised to allocate an alternative plot of land," he revealed.
"Muslim worshipers had to use a nearby apartment building as a temporary mosque pending the allocation of an alternative venue, but the process hit the snag of political complications that forced the MWL to take the issue to court which ruled in favor of us.
"Therefore, 3,200 sq. meters, located near a commercial area in Gran Canaria, have been designated for launching the Islamic Cultural Center in the Canary Islands," Dr. Al-Ghadyan said.
"The MWL will register the land at the land registry as early as possible and table the already-set designs of the center to the municipal authorities for final approval," he pointed out, expecting the construction process to start early next year and the inauguration in late 2017 or early 2018.
The planned center will consist of a mosque, an Arabic teaching school, a sports hall for children, a library, a restaurant and a park, he went on.
The MWL will finance and oversee the construction process and provide the center with the necessary staffers, imams and directors, Dr. Al-Ghadyan pointed out, adding that the center will serve Muslims from various nationalities.
The new center will be the fourth such centers being run by the Islamic cultural center in Madrid after Fuengirola center, the Andalusian center and King Abdulaziz center in Spain's southern province of Malaga, he added. (end) hnd.gb