Praying Towards Mecca From Havana

Seeing Cuban Muslims preparing to pray in the street is no longer a strange image for passers-by. (14ymedio)

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14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez, Havana, 3 November 2018 — Readings from the Koran, the Islamic hijab, and prayers while facing towards Mecca are increasingly seen in Cuba, where the Muslim community has been growing in recent years. The initial surprise has given way to curiosity, and passersby stop to ask questions when they see an image like the one in the photo above, where men profess their faith in the middle of a populated street in the Havana neighborhood of La Timba.

Last year, Imam Yahya who is of the Sunni branch and president of the Cuban Islamic League closest to officialdom, estimated that about 5,000 Cubans are converts to Islam. The current mosque in Havana, located on Oficios Street, has become a meeting point for many tourists passing through Havana, as well as African students and diplomats based in the island.

Prayer centers have also appeared throughout the country and in small cities such as Santa Clara, Santiago de Cuba and Camagüey there are small Muslim communities.

In the next few years one of the largest mosques in Latin America will be completed in the capital city, which will be financed by Saudi Arabia and is expected to accommodate some 10,000 Muslims.

However, “Cubans who have converted to Islam is one thing, and those who live tied to the teachings of Muhammad is quite another,” said Yasser, 52 and a resident in the Cerro municipality, speaking to this newspaper.

“As in other religions that are practiced in Cuba there are many who simulate or are two-faced in this,” laments this Havanan. “In my neighborhood we are one of at least three families of Lebanese origin,” he says, but he complains that many of the Cuban Muslims he knows “go to the mosque in the morning and at night they drink rum and dance reggaeton.”

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