Religious leaders urge government to help in building the Tirana Grand Mosque as soon as possible so people don’t have to pray in the streets.
TIRANA, July 28 – Monday was a national holiday in Albania to mark the Muslim holiday of Great Bayram, as Eid al-Fitr is known locally. The holiday marks the end of Ramadan, a holy month of fasting and prayer for Muslims worldwide.
In Albania, the day is usually marked with big family dinners and visits to relatives and friends, regardless of religious affiliation.
Practicing Muslims also gathered for prayer in the early morning in Tirana’s main boulevard, the largest annual prayer service of its kind.
The devout have had to pray in the streets for years because of the lack of a suitable object of worship – a Grand Mosque – construction on which has dragged on from year to year due to problems obtaining construction permits and suitable land downtown.
After the prayers, in a speech, the leader of the Tirana Muslim Community focused on addressing this issue, a solution to which according to the mufti would put in place the dignity of Albanian Muslims who have waited patiently for years for the matter to be solved.
During the day, the top state officials and Albanian political leaders visited the headquarters of the Muslim Community as well as the Bektashi World Headquarters, a Sufi sect that is based in Albania.
The country’s religious leaders urged the faithful to keep up the tradition of living in harmony and tolerance, one of Albania’s most cherished features.
Often referred to for expediency as a Muslim country, Albania is largely a secular society and one of the world’s least religious countries, enjoying religious harmony among this five religious communities – Sunni Muslims, Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholics, Bektashi Muslims and Protestants, largely recent converts since the fall of Communism.
According to the last census, 57 percent of the residents of Albania self-identified as Muslim, with only 10 percent of that group saying that religion plays an important role in their lives.
