Friday Prayer at Aksa Mosque

Today we went for prayer at a Turkish Mosque in The Hague. The Al Aksa was until 1975 a synagogue! The minarets were added in 1985.

There are now over a million Muslims in Holland, 1 in 20 of the population. Most Muslims live in the four major cities - Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht. There are about 400 mosques in all of which Amsterdam got about 44 in the city.
http://www.indiawijzer.nl/religion_and_spirituality/islam/mosques_in_netherlands.htm

How did these Muslims turned up here? During the 1960s and 70s, as every where in Europe, large number of labourers were required to work during the economic boom and the source came from non communist countries near to Europe such as Turkey, Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria. They were allowed to remain and became assimilated in the community.

Later these people brought their families and friends and the number swell over the years. Obviously these brought contentions to the natives as the number grows. Opposition to immigration in Europe is intense and has became a core political issue. The anti-immigration standpoint is mainly to do with distortion of the national and cultural identity, rather than economic. The issue is complicated by the fact that so many of these immigrants are Muslims.