Hawzah News Agency- One of the two host cities, Milan, is multicultural and cosmopolitan, and there are Islamic centers and mosques spread around the city to gather and worship. At least one is welcoming people of other faiths wishing to partake in iftar dinners, when Muslims break their daily fast.
Up in the mountains, around the village of Cortina d’Ampezzo, prayer spaces are harder to come by. Still, Muslim residents in the area over recent years have been carving out their communities.
Milan’s Al-Wahid mosque is opening its doors during Ramadan, inviting guests to share the breaking of the fast and evening prayers. Near Milan’s Navigli district, it has been officially recognized as a place of worship by the city since 2000.
Fridays — the weekly day of congregational prayer in Islam — draw larger crowds to mosques. On those days during Ramadan for the last few years, Al-Wahid welcomes guests from the municipality, local institutions, the Catholic Church and other religious communities. Interfaith iftars have become common in many parts of the world, including Muslim-majority countries such as Indonesia and Pakistan, and in Australia and the United States, where Muslims are a relatively small minority.
In the other Olympic host city, Cortina, at an elevation of about 1,220 meters (4,000 feet), eight Muslim people told the AP that finding a place to pray has proven challenging.
“There are many nationalities here, many Muslims from various countries: Algerians, Tunisians, other Africans, and many Qataris, because we are working with them during the Winter Olympic Games. They look everywhere to find a place to pray, but it’s almost impossible,” Boubegtiten, 52, who lives in Paris and is originally from Algeria, said. “For us, it’s really difficult. Sometimes, even if we want to come, we simply can’t''.
“In Italy, Ramadan is not an impossible thing. It is possible to practice Ramadan, it’s possible to pray,” said Kreem Wardi, whose father is Muslim from Morocco and mother is from Italy and Catholic. “It is not easy to find a mosque everywhere in Italy. But in this area, we are fine for now, inshallah''.
Source: THE BRANDON SUN
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