In Albania, new Turkish-funded mosque stirs old resentments
The Great Mosque of Tirana is being built in “neo-Ottoman” style—in a country that rebelled against Ottoman rule.
The Great Mosque of Tirana, due to be completed next year, in the Albanian capital's city center. Photo by Michael Colborne, The Christian Science Monitor.
(The Christian Science Monitor) With its four minarets towering over the Albanian parliament next door, no visitor can miss the Great Mosque of Tirana.
When completed in 2019, the hulking new central mosque will be the biggest in the Balkans, with enough room for 5,000 worshipers. And it more closely resembles the great old mosques of Istanbul than any here in Albania, a country ruled by the Ottoman Empire for over four centuries.
That’s because Turkey is funding this mosque’s construction and overseeing its design, at an estimated cost of €30 million ($34 million), as it has done with dozens across the Balkans and beyond.
