RI mosque to be built in Sarajevo

RI mosque to be built in Sarajevo

JAKARTA (JP): The Indonesian Council of Ulemas (MUI) has
formed a committee to oversee construction of a grand mosque, to
be named after President Soeharto, in the war-torn Bosnian
capital of Sarajevo.

Lukman Harun, the head of the council's foreign affairs
section, said the committee comprises of people from both
Indonesia and Bosnia Herzegovina.

Indonesia is represented by Lukman and Hasan Abdul Djalil, the
ambassador to Hungary who also represents Indonesia in Bosnian
affairs. Bosnia is represented by Bosnian Ambassador to Indonesia
Mustafa Ceric Mufti, Bekir Izetbegovic from Sarajevo's City
Development Institute and Ahmed Kapidzic of Sarajevo's Spatial
Plans Institute.

The agreement to form the committee was reached last month in
a meeting between Hasan Djalil and Bosnian President Alija
Izetbegovic.

A ten-hectare site for the project has been reserved in the
west of Sarajevo, which has seen 1,000 of its mosques destroyed
during the recent war. Lukman said it will be named the "Haji
Mohamad Soeharto Grand Mosque."

The name was proposed by the Bosnian leaders who remember
President Soeharto traveling to Sarajevo last year to offer his
good offices in bringing about peace in the region.

It has been reported that upon learning about the plan to
build the mosque, Soeharto said Bismillah (in the name of Allah).

A team of experts, including noted architect Achmad Noe'man
from the Bandung Institute of Technology, will start work on the
project before the end of the year.

The mosque, to cost about US$2 million, will combine both
countries' architectures. The committee has raised US$1 million
from the donations of various Moslem groups in Indonesia.

"We are calling for more people to participate," Lukman said.
Donations can be sent to the MUI office at Jakarta's Istiqlal
Grand Mosque, he said. (ste)