In the UK a new multi-million pound eco-mosque has opened in the centuries-old university city of Cambridge.
Billed as Europe's first such green mosque, it's an inclusive place of prayer, debate and learning.
The mosque has come into existence 11 years after the land for this site was bought. It has the capacity to host around 1,000 worshippers.
The structure adopts eco-friendly technologies like:
- Zero Carbon Footprint
- Solar Panels
- Rainwater Harvesting
- Air-Source Heat Pump
“We have something called an air-source heat pump which extracts warmth from the surrounding air which also helps us with our electricity bills. We have a photovoltaic array (solar panels) so that we generate our own electricity from the light that – sometimes the sun does shine in Cambridge – falls on the roof here.”Tim Winter, Chair of the Board of Trustees at the New Cambridge Mosque
The magnificent architecture is an amalgamation of various traditions across the world. Winter says, “...what the mosque is trying to do symbolically is to bring together East and West.”
Architects Marks Barfield designed the site on the theme of a calm oasis. Its Islamic garden has a water feature and 20 cypress trees. Not just this, the mosque has no minarets.
Apart from the unique architecture, what makes this non-sectarian mosque unusual is that it will reportedly not make any call for prayers outside the building.
(With inputs from AP)
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