A fourth tender for the construction of the 46,000-euro project in the Votanikos area will be made next month, according to the Infrastructure Ministry, Kathimerini reports, as all previous attempts have failed to attract any takers.

Kathimerini spoke to representatives of several smaller companies that had expressed an interest in the project previously and admitted they are concerned about the popular opposition to the construction of a mosque in Athens.

Only a few days after the government issued a tender for the construction of the mosque the Council of State heard an appeal against the project by Bishop Seraphim of Piraeus while residents in Votanikos have also expressed outrage for the building of the mosque.

Extremist-right party Golden Dawn has also threatened to fight against plans to build a long awaited mosque in the Greek capital.

“If a mosque is constructed for Islamist criminals in Greece, a front of 100,000 Greeks headed by Golden Dawn will be created,” Ilias Kasidiaris, spokesman for the far-right party, told supporters at a rally in May, AFP reported.

Athens is one of the few European Union capitals without a mosque.

The mosque  will have no minaret, in order to adopt to the surrounding environment and it will be built in the Athens neighborhood of Votanikos.

It will have an area of just over 1,000 square meters and the capacity to accommodate 400 people, according to news reports.

Muslims in Greece are left to pray in basement apartments, garages or underground basements, as the Greek government has stalled for over a decade in building an official mosque.

In 1920 Muslims were more than 15% of the population of the “Great Greece”. In fact, they were the big majority in a lot of regions.

Greece, in contrast with the Neo-Turks, did not follow a policy of systematic ethnic cleansing but an impressive policy of support of the moderate Muslims whose the peak was the law 2345/1920 “About the temporary Great Mufti and the Muftis of the Greek Muslims”. Eleftherios Venizelos himself, nominated a Muslim as the first prefect of liberated Adrianople while in a series of documents of the Greek Government, the Muslims are characterized as “peaceful and easy to be administrated people”.

All the Greek governments have given the same answer to the essential question “which is the best way to treat the Muslims” for 132 years: a) full support to the emergence of the moderate Muslims as privileged allies of the Greek State, b) support of their religious freedom and identity and c) maintenance of the Saria. This policy is more promoted even compared to what is done by the Muslim countries like Turkey.

The only exception in this general policy were the periods that Greece was trying to ensure the support of Turkey against Italy and Bulgaria. It was then when the Muslims of Thrace were left in the hands of the “Grey Wolves” (Turkish nationalist movement) with the known results.

Even when Turkey completed the policies of the extermination of the Greeks, Greece did not turn against the Muslims of Thrace. It did not turn the genocide into a confrontation between “Christians – Muslims”.

On the contrary, it invested seriously, in a long term period and effectively in the development of special relations with the Arabic world but also with Iran. The peak of this policy were the decisions of Andreas Papandreou for the support of the Palestinians and especially of the PLO when all the others had turned their backs against them. 184 countries and 1,8 billions of people must not follow the Turks.

The role of our Orthodox Religion has been especially crucial throughout this course. Greece has got an invaluable position and importance, thanks to the most ancient Patriarchates, which doesn’t seem to fully understand and this is a sample of our fundamental weakness to manage successfully the heritage of the glorious Byzantium.

What has Greece won out of this policy?

A) in 1920/1923 the Muslims of Thrace asked by themselves to be incorporated in the Greek state, b) despite the restless efforts of Kemal Ataturk and the Bulgarians, the Muslims of Thrace did not form partisan groups behind the lines of the Greek army in 1920-1922, c) Greece holds the unique example in the whole Europe of a native Muslim minority settled in its borders which has not only caused problems but during the war of 1940-41 against Italy and Germany it did in full its patriotic duty (how many people know that there are war memorials for killed in action Muslims or that Muslims have been awarded medals for their bravery in the battle?), d) Greece has a very good image in the Muslim and in particular in the Arabic world despite the permanent efforts of Turkey to destroy it, e) it did never enter the map of the “enemies of Islam”.

What does Greece jeopardise today

The way in which the Nazis of the Golden Dawn are moving has already created important cracks in the big success of Greece and threatens to lead to devastation the most successful policy of management of the Islam in the whole Europe.

Our essential difference with the Westerners is that the State played a fundamental role for the organisation and the support of Islam not leaving thus any vital space for its radicalisation, in contrast with the western tactics of “laissez faire”. It is completely incomprehensible for which reason, especially since 2000 and afterwards, we have been doing everything we can to imitate the fundamental errors of the Westerners.

At the same time, incredible lies are disseminated in the internet starting from mentioning completely unrealistic numbers of Muslim immigrants in Athens and reaching the invocation of statements of Arabic Islam distinguished figures who even if they died in 1949, are mentioned to have said in the year 2013, that they want to see “the Islamic flag on the Greek islands” again!

The Greek extreme right and especially the two dictators Metaxas (1936-1941) and Papadopoulos (1967-1974), was neither anti-Semitic nor anti-Islamic. They both followed the permanent Greek policy of supporting the moderate Muslims and did never allow the development of anti-semitic ideas. During the Papadopoulos governance a special agreement of immigration with Pakistan was signed, having as a result the fact that the Pakistan community in Athens be one of the oldest. The Greek extreme right should not be unwisely and hastily identical to the Nazis of the Golden Dawn.

The policy of the Golden Dawn about the Islam (from its identification with the problem of immigration and the construction of the Mosque to the motorised marches in Muslim villages of Thrace) serves the Turkish strategy to present our country as an anti – islamic state, it jeopardizes the position of the Orthodox Patriarchates in the Arabic world, undermines the peace and the social cohesion in Thrace, weakens the position of Cyprus and opens the way to a provocation against the Muslim people in a Greek territory.

The potential victimiser or perpetrator, in order to be able to take a human life, firstly dehumanises himself and afterwards the “opponent”. This ideological procedure progresses intensively (“the immigrants are deplorable and subhumans who carry every kind of illnesses”, E. Zaroulia member of the parliamentary group of the Golden Dawn 18/10/2012). Many people think that the racist texts dominating especially the internet are just words without danger. They make a fatal mistake. In 1999, in a period of big prosperity and with the racist sermons having a much smaller audience than today, Greece experienced an unprecedented racist crime when a 23-year-old Greek man with a permanent job shot people in cold blood just for one reason: the colour of their skin. One man died, two were left paraplegic and four were heavily wounded. That was the result of this action. One insane man inspired by sermons, as those of the Golden Dawn, is enough in a period of crisis to immerse a country in a cycle of racist or religious violence.

We have already very serious problems; let us not commit suicide humiliating the history and our culture.

Dr. George Kalantzis is General Secretary of Religious Affairs, Ministry of Education.

“If a mosque is constructed for Islamist criminals in Greece, a front of 100,000 Greeks headed by Golden Dawn will be created,” Ilias Kasidiaris, spokesman for the far-right party, told supporters at a rally late on Sunday, AFP reported.

The threat came as a letter sent via post to the Muslim Association of Greece last which threatened Muslims in Greece with bloodshed giving them a month time to evacuate the country.

Police said they were examining the note, written in Greek, Arabic and English and on its backdrop carried the logo of the far-right party.

The Muslim Association condemned the letter saying that: “Every Muslim is any time ready and fearless to defend his faith, not caring for his life. Human dignity is challenged along with the sense of mutual respect and coexistence.”

Naim El Ghandour, president of the Muslim Association told Alyunaniya.com concerning the note that “even if we hypothesize that the note is 99 percent a provocation who can guarantee the remaining 1 percent?”

Golden Dawn, whose logo is reminiscent of a swastika, gathered enough votes to win almost 20 seats in the Greek parliament. Members of Golden Dawn have been accused of carrying out acts of violence and hate crimes against immigrants.

Meanwhile, the Greek government has stalled for over a decade the building of an official mosque leaving its 700,000 Muslims to pray in more than 120 basements and garages in Athens.

Earlier this month, the Greek Ministry of Education announced that it will allocate the sum of EUR 946,000 to the Ministry of Growth to fund the construction of the controversial mosque in Athens.

The mosque will have no minaret, in order to adopt to the surrounding environment and it will be built in the Athens neighborhood of Votanikos.

Athens Mayor George Kaminis, a supporter of the controversial mosque that some critics such as the neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party are trying to block has said that the pending opening of the first official mosque in Greece, being built in Athens by the government, will pave the way for more, as many as two or more in each district of the city.

“The Muslim Association of Greece welcomes the next step of the government for the construction of a mosque in Athens, “ the association said in a statement.

“We believe that our country will be able to recognize the necessity of religion to all the citizens, as these are  messages we have been receiving all these years since 2006 during our collaboration with relevant bodies topped by the Ministry of Education. The mosque in Athens will be a place of Greek Muslims can pray or to visit anyone.”

The construction of the mosque puts an end to the critics against Greece for leaving its 300,000 Muslims to pray in more than 120 basements and garages in Athens.

The mosque will have no minaret, in order to adopt to the surrounding environment and it will be built in Votaniko. The project was designed by the architectural bureau of Alexandros Tombazis that has created some of the most beautiful mosques in the world.

“We also want to emphasize that the idea of a pure state mosque in Athens was our solid and constant demand form the beginning, as we have aimed to live equally, independently and with respect to our country, although at times we have read that belong to other countries. These reports intend to disorient and take advantage of the crisis that has brought chaos. They are hate fireworks with ulterior motives. But it is always one-sided hatred and characterizes those who feed it.”

“The mosque issue is a matter of fairness and humanity, values that are non-negotiable for Greece, and should not be associated with the immigration policy, or with the relations between Greece and other countries.”

However, as the Greek government readies to build the country’s first official mosque, the Council of State is to hear today an appeal against the project by Bishop Seraphim of Piraeus who says he doesn’t want muslims to have a sanctioned place of worship. The bishop’s appeal has been backed by a philosophy professor at the University of Athens, two doctors at the Athens Naval Hospital and a cultural association based in Votanikos, where the mosque is to be built, and five local residents.

Athens is the only European capital without an official mosque.

The executions took place in Abha, a city in the southern region of Asir, the Saudi Press Agency said.

According to reports, the men were charged with organizing a criminal group, armed robbery and raiding and breaking into jewellery stores in 2005, and consequently sentenced to death in Asir in 2009.

Two of the men are believed to have been juveniles at the time of the alleged crime: Ali bin Muhammad bin Hazam al-Shihri and Sa’id bin Nasser bin Muhammad al-Shahrani, according to Amnesty International.

In a trial only lasting several hours, all men were denied legal representation and refused the opportunity to appeal, Amnesty added.

Saudi Arabian authorities postponed the executions which were initially set to take place on March 5.

They were executed “as a punishment to them and to deter others” from carrying out similar crimes, said SPA.

The kingdom usually beheads or sentences people to lashes for murder, rape and drug- smuggling.

Saudi Arabia has been criticized by international human rights and UN experts over death sentences.

One day before the executions Amnesty International released a statement saying: “Executing these men would be an act of sheer brutality – it must be stopped immediately. All seven should be granted a new trial and torture allegations must be investigated,” said Philip Luther, Amnesty International’s Director for the Middle East and North Africa.

“In countries that have not abolished the death penalty, capital punishment may be imposed only following a trial that complied with fair trial and due process safeguards,” said the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Christof Heyns.

“Everything went very well,” Mecca governor Prince Khaled al-Faisal told reporters on Sunday, adding that this year’s pilgrimage was “the most successful hajj season ever.”

Muslim pilgrims,who officially number 3.1 million, completed their final hajj rituals in the Saudi city of Mecca on Monday, as the annual pilgrimage ended without any major incidents.

In a press conference held in Mecca, the prince congratulated the pilgrims whose number ranged this year between 3.16 to 3.65 millions, blaming the inaccuracy on the enormous number of unregistered pilgrims, according to Saudi Gazette.

There were between 1,300,000-1,400,000 pilgrims with no Hajj permits this year and they used services they were not entitled to, the Emir said, adding that this huge number of unregistered pilgrims has caused many problems for the hajj organizing committee.

Each able-bodied Muslim is required to make the hajj once in a lifetime, as it is one of Islam’s five pillars.

AFP citing officials said about 120,000 police were deployed throughout the five-day pilgrimage, along with an equal number of health and sanitation employees.

Though marred in the past by deadly incidents including floods, stampedes and fires, the hajj has become nearly incident-free in recent years because of multi-billion dollar projects.

The Emir ended his speech saying that the real message the Kingdom wants to present through Hajj is the fact that Islam is the religion of peace, love, and coexistence blaming  

 international media for not focusing on the great message of Hajj.

In Syria videos of Assad’s soldiers mocking the Quran and the prophet were released. Pictures of destroyed mosques, torn up Qurans and the corpses of tortured religious scholars were distributed. The Arab world said nothing. However, once a film portraying the prophet in an unrealistic offensive manner was produced by an American, the Muslims were outraged. Embassies were stormed, burnt and several Americans killed. The irony in these two scenarios is very clear: The Muslims are intolerant of Western criticism, but tolerant of Arab humiliation.

The Prophet Mohammad labored and suffered greatly in his life to ensure that Islam was protected by the right people. And the protection of Islam does not mean the protection of its only messenger, but of all messengers, including Moses, Jesus, Abraham and on. It also emphasizes that all those who are oppressed are to be protected. The prophet himself once said “Feed the hungry and visit a sick person, and free the captive, if he be unjustly confined. Assist any person oppressed, whether Muslim or non-Muslim.” Why is it that the Muslims aren’t protecting their oppressed fellow Muslim brothers and sisters in Syria, or Burma? Why did they not revolt when Gaza was under siege and attacked profusely by Israel?

The prophet asked that his religion be protected; he never put himself above it. The Muslims today have embellished his position in Islam and belittled the most basic elements of Islam. They have tarnished Islam with their silence, and now damaged its peaceful and just teachings with their uprisings. Uprisings that should’ve taken place as a response to Assad’s torture. Maybe if we hadn’t kept silent over the murder of thousands, then the West wouldn’t have underestimated our power and possibly wouldn’t have released videos of the beloved prophet.

A survey by the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project in March-April – well before Morsi emerged as a leading candidate in the presidential race, but after Islamist parties had won the majority of seats in the December parliamentary vote – found considerable support for Islam as a guiding force in the country’s future. However, the poll also revealed that not all Egyptians are equally comfortable with Islam’s expanded influence.

Already in early spring, there was broad acknowledgment of Islam’s rising profile, especially in the political arena. Roughly two-thirds (66%) of Egyptians saw Islam playing a big role in national politics, up 19 points from 2010, when just 47% said this was the case.

Most Egyptians appeared little troubled by Islam’s new status. When asked whether Saudi Arabia or the more secular Turkey would be a better model for Egypt in terms of religion’s role in government, a 61%-majority answered Saudi Arabia. Only 17% chose Turkey, while 22% claimed neither country was a suitable model.

Similarly, when asked about their country’s current political life, 64% expressed a positive view of Islam’s role in politics. (This included 40% who saw Islam playing a large role and who thought this was good, and 24% who saw Islam playing only a small role and who thought this was bad).

However, while majorities were attracted to the Saudi model and seemed to welcome Islam’s expanded influence, support for Islam’s role in politics was significantly lower than in 2010, when 82% had seen Islam as a positive force in Egypt’s political life. Meanwhile, the number of people who saw Islam playing a big role in politics and who said this was a bad thing was up 19 percentage points over the same two-year period (20% vs. 1%).

On the question of Egypt’s legal code, the spring survey also found broad support for Islam playing a major role: 60% said the country’s laws should strictly follow the teachings of the Quran, while 32% thought Egyptian laws should broadly reflect the values and principles of Islam. Only 6% of Egyptians embraced the secular view that laws should not be influenced by the Quran.

Yet, the survey revealed that not all Egyptians were equally enthusiastic about Islam shaping the country’s legal code. Younger people, in particular, were less likely to believe laws should strictly follow the Quran –about half (54%) expressed this view, compared with 68% among those 50 and older.

Better educated Egyptians, too, were not as eager to endorse Islam as the exclusive foundation of the country’s legal code. Only 55% of those with college degrees backed laws that strictly adhered to the Quran, compared with 68% of those with a primary education or less. Moreover, the number of Egyptians with secondary or college education who supported a strict Quranic basis for the country’s laws was 12 percentage points lower than in 2011.

It remains to be seen whether unease about Islam’s influence in Egypt’s legal and political life will deepen in the months ahead. Much will depend on the ability of president-elect Morsi and other Islamist politicians to convince the public that they are building a future for all citizens. In the meantime, the experiment of integrating Islam and democracy continues in Egypt.

The conference, organized jointly by the OIC and UNHCR is the first ministerial-level meeting to deal specifically with the issue of refugees in the Muslim world.

The OIC’s 57 member states, non-member states, NGOs and international organizations participated in the event and shed light on the hospitality and assistance extended by OIC member states to refugees and asylum-seekers, according to UN.

The top United Nations refugee official ,António Guterres, today urged Islamic nations to take long-standing principles of providing asylum and enshrine them in national legislation

“Islamic law and traditions embrace the principle of providing protection to those who seek asylum,” António Guterres, told delegates.

“It also forbids the forced return of those asylum-seekers. Both of these principles are cornerstones of international refugee law,”  he added in his address to the opening of the conference in Turkmenistan’s capital, Ashgabat.

Mr. Guterres noted that 50 per cent of those issues of concern to UNHCR last year were hosted in OIC member countries. That amounted to more than 17 million people, comprising refugees, asylum-seekers, returnees, internally displaced people and the stateless.

In addressing the Afghan refugee situation, now more than 30 years old, Guterres pointed to a regional solutions strategy agreed between Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan and UNHCR, as a recent success. “Just as Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan are forging a common vision and approach, there are other opportunities for a structured dialogue to promote solutions in other protracted refugee situations in the Muslim world,” he said.

In an effort to offer a window onto this historical truth, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in New York, is hosting an enlightening exhibition: Byzantium and Islam – Age of Transition.

As declared by the curator at the Metropolitan Museum: ‘The exhibition follows the artistic traditions of the southern provinces of the Byzantine Empire from the seventh century to the ninth, as they were transformed from being central to the Byzantine tradition to being a critical part of the Islamic world.’

To create such a display of culture, a hight number of artefacts arrived in New York from many countries, and several flew in from Greece. Among these precious items are several beautiful 8th century carved ivory plaques, and golden earrings, decorated with vine scroll, birds and rabbits; treasures that tourists can usually admire at the Benaki Museum in Athens, Greece.

As to the thread connecting each artefact of the exhibition, it takes the visitor in territories extending from Syria to Egypt and across north Africa; directly in the heart of the world once ruled by the Byzantine Empire from its capital, Constantinople (today Istanbul). Much of the wealth of the Byzantine Empire came from these southern provinces. Trade routes moved silks, spices of the east and local products, to the west and the north. What is more, the state religion was Orthodox Christianity, as defined by the patriarch in Constantinople, but other forms of Christianity and Judaism flourished. As a result, these southern provinces, long influenced by Greco-Roman traditions, were home to Orthodox, Coptic, Syriac Christians, Jewish communities, and more.

These lands were dear to Constantinople, and commerce continued to flourish when the Sassanian Empire occupied much of Syria and Egypt from 614 to 629. In 630, the Byzantine emperor Heraclius regained these territories and celebrations were held in every city. As homage to the reacquired lands he offered the ‘True Cross’ to Jerusalem, and it remained in the city even when the Byzantine provinces were incorporated in the lands belonging to the Umayyad Dynasty, which lasted until 750.

Through time, and in spite of political changes, major cities were made wealthy by commerce. Trade routes reached eastward down the Red Sea, past Jordan, and entered India; other trades headed north to Constantinople and along the Mediterranean coastline. Commerce carried goods but also ideas, and they flowed freely throughout the whole region.

Islam, as the new religion and philosophy that emerged from Mecca and Medina, started to reach the empire’s southern provinces via the Red Sea trade route. In many cases political and religious authority was transferred from the established Christian Byzantine Empire to the newly established Umayyad Muslim dynasties – and later Abbasid dynasties. As natural in these cases, these new powers rooted their secular and religious identities onto the existing tradition, bending and transforming it. They gave shape and life to marvellous expression of faith and art, several of which we are able to admire today.

During the rise of the Umayyads and the transition of rule in the eastern Mediterranean, the text of the Qur’an, originally recited from memory, came to be written in Arabic, inspiring religious devotion and creativity. Verses from the Qur’an became standard decoration for mosques, funerary monuments, and other works. Calligraphy, evolved to present the teachings of the Qur’an, became a major artistic tradition. Mosques were erected in cities under Muslim rule and they would function as religious centres, but also as evidence of the authority in power. As speculated by scholars working on the exhibition, the new rulers might have hired Byzantine artisans to render the elaborate mosaic decoration of the Great Mosque in Damascus, the Umayyad capital, built between 705 and 715.

It would be naive to believe that when Islam became the dominant belief in the region, everything came to a stand still; fortunately, commerce and the flow of ideas continued, and evolved. Proof of it can be found in the history of many traded goods. Textiles are often taken into account, but they were only one of the many goods which were traded along the old routes, and brought valuables from the east to Byzantium, and later to the western Islamic world.

Several of these goods were decorated with popular motifs that remained in use when the Byzantine empire’s southern provinces became part of the Islamic world. Examples are found on silk, openwork censers, jewellery, and clay lamps. They vary from animal motifs, vine motifs and depictions of courtly pleasures – including female acrobats, dancers, and musicians.

Vine patterns were a favourite; however, as they passed from the classical period through the Byzantine era, and arrived in the Islamic period, they evolved into more stylized forms. Interesting enough, this decorative pattern would leave space for an increasing number of inscriptions, which will become a decorative motif – beautiful in themselves but also useful because they could identifying the donor, and offer auspicious wishes to the owner.

Further on, one of the most fascinating aspect of the exhibition is its ability to bring to life ways in which in the Arabic peninsula Christianity was able to live side by side with Islam.

To find out that Christians speaking Syriac trace their origins back to Saint Peter, and according to tradition he established a church in Antioch in the first century, is truly enlightening. To learn how the apostle Thomas spread the Gospel to the Syriac cities of Edessa and Nisibis (now in Turkey), helps the visitor to grasp the complexity and beauty of this philosophically intertwined society.

Following the exhibition, I learn that the Syriac Bible, known as the Peshitta, is based on the Hebrew Bible, which was translated into Syriac in the second century. In the same period, the Church of the East (once called the Nestorian Church) developed further east in the Sasanian Empire; another Syriac-speaking Christian community, it was active far into the Arabian Peninsula.

I am deeply grateful to the major support to the exhibition provided by Mary and Michael Jaharis, The Stavros Niarchos Foundation and The Hagop Kevorkian Fund; the exhibition is simply mesmerizing the visitor. Hopefully, many people will visit this display of culture, this window into one of the most fascinating and shrouded periods of Medieval history. To say they will learn how we can live side by side, in peace and mutual admiration and respect, might be naïve; however, if our ancestors were able in the past, we need to find a way to make it happen today as well.

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Romana Turina is a lecturer in Communication at the University of Indianapolis. She works as screenwriter and research thematics concerning dramaturgy, memory studies, and animation as applied to the divulgation of knowledge.