Hawzah News Agency (Cambridge, UK) - The new Mill Road mosque is welcome to all - including, thanks to its hyper-modern design, the birds.
It's big, it's stunning and its doors are open - to everyone. Opened in April this year after a decade in development, the Cambridge Central Mosque on Mill Road has a clear mission: "to develop the idea of a British mosque for the 21st century." Anyone from the local area is welcome.
Eager to find out more, I went on one of the free guided tours the mosque offers on weekends for Cambridgeshire live to explore this beautiful new community hub.
Shahida Rahman, one of two female trustees, was our tour guide. She led us in and our necks immediately craned to admire the 30 trees holding up the space. Constructed in Switzerland, they act as pillars with an elegant bare wood design trunking upwards from the ground into branches in the rafters. Light floods the grand room, spilling from skylights in the ceiling.
Designed by David Marks - the architect behind the London Eye and the treetop walkway at Kew Gardens - the project was made possible after in 2009 Marks Barfield Architects won their bid to design the building with their concept of the mosque as "a calm oasis within a grove of trees."
There are baby changing facilities in the female ablutions area.
The mosque was also built with the first facilities in Cambridge for Islamic burial, where the body can be washed, shrouded and taken into the mosque for prayer.
As well as locals, a Jewish delegation and a Hindu group have visited the mosque since its opening, with a view to breaking down barriers and developing connections
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