Akhmad Kadyrov Mosque


The Akhmad Kadyrov Mosque is located in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya. It is one of the largest mosques in Russia and is officially known as "The Heart of Chechnya".
The mosque is named after Akhmad Kadyrov, the mufti of the self-proclaimed Chechen Republic of Ichkeria and the first president of the Republic of Chechnya, who commissioned its construction from the mayor of Konya. The mosque design with a set of -tall minarets is based on the Sultan Ahmed Mosque in Istanbul.
On October 16, 2008, the mosque was officially opened in a ceremony in which Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov appeared and spoke with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.
The mosque is located on the picturesque bank of the Sunzha River in the middle of a huge park and is part of an Islamic architectural complex, which in addition to the mosque, consists of the Russian Islamic University, Kunta-Haji, and the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the Republic of Chechnya.
The mosque was built based on the classical Ottoman style. The central hall of the mosque is covered with a huge dome. The height of the four minarets is 62 meters making them some of the highest minarets in southern Russia. The Exterior and interior walls of the mosque are made of marble, travertine, while the interior is decorated in white marble.
The area of the mosque is 5000 square meters and has a capacity of more than ten thousand people. The same number of the faithful can pray in the mosque adjacent to the gallery and the area of summer.

Features

As a basis of architecture used in the Blue Mosque in Istanbul.
During the construction of the mosque, the latest technologies have been used. The exterior and interior walls are of marble-travertine, and the temple interior is richly decorated with white marble, mined in the Marmara Adasi island in the Sea of Marmara.
For patterned painting, synthetic and natural colors with special additives were used to increase the longevity of the colors. Gold of the highest quality were deposited to produce the writing patterns displaying verses from the Quran.
There are in total 36 chandeliers. Theirs forms remind of the three holiest sites of Islam - 27 of them imitating the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem's Temple Mount compound, 8 are made in the appearance of the Green Dome in Medina's Masjid al-Nabawi and the biggest one measuring 8 meters in length and width, mimicking the Kaaba in Mecca. It took several tons of bronze and 2.5 kg of the highest quality of gold to create the chandeliers containing more than a million pieces and made of selectively designed Chechen ornaments and Swarovski crystals from Turkey.
The prayer niche in the qiblah wall of the mosque is 8 meters high and 4.6 meters wide and made of white marble. The very niche creates the illusion of an infinite recess intersecting spaces. Calligraphy displaying verses from the Quran are skillfully woven into the overall pattern of the architectural decoration of the mosque. The main dome is inscribed with Surah 112 "al-Ikhlâs": "Say: He is God, the Single, Indivisible - God, the Eternal, Absolute. He begets not nor is He begotten - And there happens to be not a single one equal to Him."
The area of the mosque is 5000 m², height of minarets - 63 meters. The total area of the Islamic Center - 14 acres.
The temple has a high seismic resistance. The adjacent area has multiple fountains, broken destinations, alley.

Visual symbol of Russia

In 2013, Russia held a competition "Russia 10", designed by popular vote to select the ten visual symbols of Russia. Once at the end of the second round the mosque took the second place, the head of Chechnya, Ramzan Kadyrov declared that removes the mosque "Heart of Chechnya" to participate in the competition. Take such a step head of Chechnya forced the election results, which in his opinion did not correspond to the actual number of votes cast. "We have every reason to be confident that the votes cast for the mosque" Heart of Chechnya "millions, not taken into account, despite the fact that the money came to the accounts of the operators of" MegaFon "and" Beeline "," - said Kadyrov. Almost throughout the voting Mosque "Heart of Chechnya" in the lead among the participants, but on the last day gave way to the first place of the Kolomna Kremlin. For "Heart of Chechnya" has been given more than 36.8 million votes, Kolomna Kremlin - almost 37.5 million.
Head of the republic Ramzan Kadyrov, offended by the results of voting on the Internet, announced a boycott of the federal mobile operators "Beeline" and "Megaphone". After that, unknown in Grozny threw offices of these companies in Grozny eggs.
the official site of the mosque Launched in 2012 and it is a unique opportunity to listen to and watch the sermons of imams of the mosque. Also, twice a day, being a live broadcast from the mosque (On the resources available for both PCs and mobile devices, given the opportunity to get information about Islam.

Trivia

In this mosque, ten thousand Muslims can pray at a time. This means that the statement of mosque being the largest in Russia is not true, as e.g. Makhachkala Grand Mosque in Dagestan has space for 15,000 to 17,000 worshipers.
In 2015, Gabon issued a commemorative coin with the image of CHF 1,000 mosques and Akhmat Kadyrov.