Monday, November 7, 2011

80,000 Muslims pray on Moscow street


Tens of thousands of Muslim men have knelt shoulder-to-shoulder in prayer on the freezing streets of Moscow to celebrate the religious holiday of Eid-ul-Azha.

Estimates of the number of Muslims living or working in the Russian capital run from 2 million to as high as 5 million, but the city has few mosques.

Police said 1,70,000 people celebrated the holiday in Moscow, including 80,000 who gathered on the street outside what was once the main mosque. The 100-year-old building was torn down in September and a new mosque being built next to it is still under construction.

Many of those who braved the freezing temperatures to pray on Sunday were migrant workers from countries in Central Asia that were once part of the Soviet Union.

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