From the Magazine | Europe

After years of worshipping in squalid makeshift mosques, Muslims in Athens await an official house of prayer

By ANTHEE CARASSAVA, ATHENS
http://www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/article/0,13005,901060501-1186536,00.html

Sunday, Apr. 23, 2006

The stench is sickening; the staircase is gloomy and grimy. Yet every Friday at 2 p.m., hordes of Muslims walk up to the squalid second-floor tenement of 14 Geraniou Street in downtown Athens to answer an imam's call to prayer. "The conditions are terrible," says Mahmout Wahba, an Egyptian immigrant. "But we have no other choice." Unlike other European Union capitals, Athens has yet to establish a mosque for its population of Muslims, now estimated at nearly 200,000 and growing. No mosques have operated in Athens since Greece gained independence from the Ottomans in 1832. Instead, Muslims seek a religious haven in 22 temporary mosques: little more than prayer rooms in stuffy basements, windowless warehouses and fetid flats.

The problem was supposed to have been solved six years ago, when the then socialist government, scrambling to prepare for the Athens 2004 Olympics, signed off on a Saudi-funded plan calling for the creation of a mosque-cum-cultural center on the northeastern outskirts of Athens. Three-and-a-half hectares of land were appropriated for the project and Paiania, a district on the fringe of Athens' international airport, was chosen as its venue. Yet long before any ground could be broken, the project ran into serious trouble. A hotheaded mayor, arguing that a minaret on the Athens skyline would give foreigners flying into the country a distorted vision of Christian Greece, set off a storm of protests. Crowds erected a colossal cross on the Paiania plot and vowed to drive off any Muslims. The powerful Greek Orthodox Church joined the fray and, claiming the allegiance of 97% of the population, suggested the state pull the plug on the project, which was left in limbo.

The church's stance has softened today. As a senior Christian Orthodox official concedes in private, "We, too, have no other choice. We must adjust to the new demands of our society." Most of Greece's growing Muslim population lives in the capital, and fewer than 100 are Greek nationals. "The problem," says Ikram Thiotaki, 41, a successful midwife who embraced Islam five years ago, "is hardly a religious one. It's the knee-jerk reaction and resentment of Greeks who link Islam to 400 years of domination by the Ottoman Empire." Put bluntly, she says, while adjusting her polyester head scarf, "Islam here is synonymous to Turkey, the historic Greek enemy." A recent report by the Council of Europe recommended that the Athens government commit to opening at least one Muslim prayer site in the Greek capital.

Last month, Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyannis pledged to follow that recommendation. But her proposal to shelve the Paianian project because of "technical problems," and reinstate an Ottoman-era mosque at the foot of the Acropolis that's currently used as a folk-art museum, set off a fresh debate. "Here we go again," huffed Vassilis Dimitriou, a fruit vendor parked near the 18th century Tzisdaraki mosque. "Can't they [Muslims] find somewhere else to go?" Realistically, the answer is no, they can't. The only sanctioned prayer sites in the entire country are in Thrace, northeastern Greece, where 100,000 Turkish-speaking Muslims reside and where most Athenian Muslims have to travel for weddings, funerals and ceremonies. "The hassle is enormous and expensive," says Esma Gazi, an Iraqi immigrant. "We paid €2,500 to have my brother's body taken to Thrace for burial last year."

In recent weeks, local media speculated that the latest mosque proposal was precipitated by the government's bid to curry favor with its Arab trade partners. Bakoyannis, who was mayor of Athens until last February, argues differently. The need for a mosque, she told the Athens daily Ta Nea, is a matter of national security. "So long as Muslims in Athens do not have a formal place of worship, Muslims will get together in makeshift mosques that are uncontrolled and could very easily fall victim to fundamentalists and terrorists."

Practicing Muslims in Athens don't necessarily agree. After a sermon on the healing powers of honey and the Koran, Monir Abdeltrassou, a Sudanese imam, says: "Such scaremongering can only serve to marginalize the Muslims here even further." Greeks, he says, "have nothing to fear from Islam. We proved it with the Olympics. There were no attacks." Scores of other Muslims in the room nod in agreement. They pick up their shoes and file out of a prayer house in the district of Goudi. But one of the faithful stays behind. "Don't forget what happened in France recently," he warns. "Pent up anger, frustration and discrimination can prove dangerous."

source : http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,901060501-1186536,00.html