MADRID, July 9: Six centuries after the Moors were expelled from Granada, the capital of the last Arab kingdom in Spain now has a mosque again.

Built on the Albaicin hill facing the Moorish Alhambra palace, the new mosque is the result of 20 years of effort by the southern city’s Muslim community, which acquired the site thanks to a donation from Libya.

The mosque complex, which is due to be opened on Thursday, includes an Islamic centre, gardens and a terrace looking out over the Sierra Nevada mountains and the Alhambra. Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492 took control of the Alhambra when its last Muslim sultan, Boabdil, handed over the keys to the citadel in tears.

After Libya provided the initial funds, the project was taken up by Sheikh Ben Mohamed al Kassimi, the Emir of Sharjah in the United Arab Emirates, who put up most of the four million euros ($4.5 million) needed to construct the mosque. Other Muslim states, notably Morocco, Brunei and Malaysia, also contributed money.

The mosque project ran into difficulties with the death of Morocco’s King Hassan II, who was very attached to the scheme.

Five years after the first stone was laid, the white mosque now graces the hill that once dominated the Arab quarter of medieval Granada.

The president of the mosque foundation, Malek Ruiz, told the press he hoped the religious complex would “become a place of reference for everyone who wants to discover the purest tradition of Islam”.—AFP