MOSLEM MOSQUE

Hokitika Guardian, 5 April 1933, Page 2

MOSLEM MOSQUE

TAJ MAHAL PLANNED FOR LONDON.

NEW GIGANTIC ■ SCHEME

A Taj Mahal on Carlton House Terrace—the Mall glittering with a £171,000 Moslem mosque, with copper green domes, Eastern garden and minaret from which the call of the faithful to prayer will echo across St James’ Park and Piccadilly. This is the fantastic possibility of a gigantic scheme organised by the: National League to build a Moslem centre in the heart of London. The National League is one of the most powerful English-Eastern movements. Its members include British peers and members of Parliament and the richest Asiatic princes in the world. ,

Sheik Abdul Hamid, the 3'2-year-old sou of the leader of an Indian tribe, and the only Indian member of the Royal Institute of British Architects, has already designed the mosque as well as a Moslem centre and Anglo-Saxon-Moslem club to be included in the same architectural group. The building will be in Indo-Saracenic style, similar to the Taj Mahal and the romantic Moorish architecture of southern Spain.

Details of the proposed building were given recently by the brilliant young Indian architect who is already responsible for magnificent palaces and buildings in India. “We realise the difficulty of obtaining a- site on the terrace,” lie said, “but we think it may be managed. The building will comprise pure white stone and marble, probably with copper green domes. At one end will rise the great dome of the Moslem centre, and at the other the smaller dome of the mosque and a tall minaret. Between these will be the connecting wing of the club. In the centre will be an Eastern garden surrounded' by arcades with a fountain and pools.” The building as a whole will be a memorial to Mary Brdadhurst, who, with Miss. Margaret Farquharson. founded the league in 1922. Many if the rooms of the centre will be nemorinls to the great leaders of Is’am. A site is to be obtained and the building begun before the end of this year.