Cambodia’s largest and only Ottoman-style mosque was officially opened by Prime Minister Hun Sen in a ceremony attended by more than 1,000 people in the capital Friday.

Al-Serkal Grand Mosque in Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighbourhood was funded by Eisa Bin Nasser Bin Abdullatif Alserkal, an Emirati businessman, and replaces a mosque that once sat on the same site before it was torn down in 2012.
Ahmad Yahya, president of the Cambodian Muslim Community Development Organization, described the mosque as “the biggest and most beautiful” of its kind, telling The Anadolu Agency that its construction has been an important bookmark in the story of the Muslim community in Cambodia.

“For the whole country, when they travel to Phnom Penh and from overseas, they come to this mosque to pray, and for tourists who come to Cambodia, they would like to come and pray,” he said.
The gleaming $2 million structure was a big draw Friday as hundreds of people milled around outside. The separate men’s and women’s prayer halls were packed.

Yahya said Hun Sen told the crowd he is proud of Cambodia’s Muslims, who are referred to as Cham and who were targeted by the ultra-Maoist Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s.    »»» Sailan Muslim (Sri Lanka)

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