UAE President initiates Dh250m mosque in RAK

ABU DHABI // A mosque for 28,000 worshippers is to be built in Ras Al Khaimah city.

The Dh250 million project will be 18,000 square metres - the size of two-and-a-half football pitches or 14 Olympic swimming pools.

The mosque will include an Islamic museum, a library, a Quran memorisation centre and elaborate gardens, the state news agency Wam reported.

The mosque is an initiative of the President, Sheikh Khalifa, and it will be named after him. The proposed site is the growing urban area of Al Dhait, south of RAK city, where thousands of housing plots have been given to Emiratis.

"This is going to be most probably in Al Dhait area because this area has the most dense population," said Mohammed Al Asam, the general manager of RAK Municipality. "This is going to be a landmark."

The RAK Government recently awarded 1,028 of 2,322 residential housing plots in the desert neighbourhood, which has several Friday mosques but no major building for special functions.

A committee for Sheikh Khalifa approved the mosque's construction at the headquarters of the Ministry of Presidential Affairs.

The mosque is a "translation" of the President's vision to "strengthen the vital function of mosques as a centre of cultural, intellectual and social life of the citizens", Wam reported. No timeline was given for construction.

During the meeting, the committee also approved Dh35 million for the construction of interior roads in Ajman.

The first phase of the 22,000-square-metre Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Fujairah is scheduled for completion in November.

More than 500 men are working on the Fujairah mosque, which will hold 28,000 worshippers once completed in two-and-a-half years.

The Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi is the largest in the country at 22,412 square metres.

azacharias@thenational.ae