THE LAST CRUSADE: Proof that history repeats itself comes with the news that Muslims have initiated their re-conquest of Spain.
The number of Muslims in Spain has climbed from 100,000 in 1990 to over 1.5 million in 2010.
Mosques are being constructed on a grand scale throughout the country.
The city of Barcelona, widely known as a European Mecca of anti-clerical postmodernism, has agreed to shell out nearly $30 million in public funds for the construction of an official mega-mosque with a capacity for thousands of Muslim worshipers.
The new structure in Barcelona will rival the massive Islamic Cultural Center in Madrid, currently the biggest mosque in Spain. An official in the office of the Mayor of Barcelona says the objective is to increase the visibility of Muslims in Spain, as well as to promote the “common values between Islam and Europe.”
In the past decade, more than 1,000 mosques and Islamic prayer centers have sprouted up throughout the once devoutly Catholic country.
Twelve new masjids are scheduled to open in northeastern Spain within the next three months.
The construction of new mosques comes at a time when municipalities linked to the Socialist Party have closed dozens of Christian churches across Spain by the enactment of new zoning laws.
The Barcelona mosque project was announced during a weeklong seminar titled “Muslims and European Values,” sponsored by the European Council of Moroccan Ulemas and the Union of Islamic Cultural Centers in Catalonia.
A representative of the Barcelona mayor’s office who attended the conference told the Madrid-based El País newspaper that the municipality would get involved in the mosque project because “although religion pertains to the private realm, this does not mean it does not have a public role.”
The idea to build a mega-mosque funded by Spanish taxpayers comes after Noureddine Ziani, a Barcelona-based Moroccan imam, said the construction of big mosques would be the best way to fight Islamic fundamentalism in Spain. “It is easier to disseminate fundamentalist ideas in small mosques set up in garages where only the members of the congregation attend, than in large mosques that are open to everyone, with prayer rooms, cafes and meeting areas,” Ziani told the Spanish news agency EFE. Read on and comment >>> TheLastCrusade.org
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