Seoul Central Mosque (이슬람교 성원)

I took this photo from a roof of a house near the Seoul mosque

Seoul Central Mosque established under the Presidential Decree (on May 1969)- during General Park Chung-hee's era - is the 'only' mosque in Seoul, a city of about 12 million people and the highest number of foreign residents in Korea.

 This mosque first opened its doors back on May 5, 1976 in the area called Hannam-2-dong, close to the main Itaewon street in Yongsan-gu and has been attracting a crowd of close to a 1000 worshippers from around the world for the Jumma Prayers (scheduled at 1 a.m ) every Friday. It covers an area of 5000 square meters and has a capacity to accomodate 1500 people. On EID, the space is overwhelmed and worshippers are seen praying outside on the roads using their prayer mats - all around the mosque to be a part of EID congregation.

These are some of the images of the Seoul Central Mosque from a street going up towards Hyat - a hyper wired street but for great photos visit thr blogger PENNPENN (leeesann)  here.


It has 3 floors in general and has a seperate facility for women to pray at the mosque on its 3rd. floor. Saudi Arabia's generous donation of about 3.5 billion won in 1991 helped open a madrasa for the muslim children to learn about Islamic culture, Arabic, Quran and English. I also taught there for about a year and was delighted to see Korean children's interest to learn the basics of Islam and their emphasis on learning Arabic. Children from countries like, Egypt, Libya, Syria, Sudan, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Turkey and Indonesia are among the few countries where these students have come from.

Seoul Masjid has a modest Islamic Cultral and Research Center.



Among the local community, it is a sort of a toursit site because many people want to see the arcitecture. It is located beautifully between the Namsan and the Han River.

'Click on the map for an enlarged image'

More information on Islam, the Mosque and its activities can be found at 'Korea Muslim Federation's' website.

Address:732-21 Hannam 2 Dong, Yongsan-gu, Seoul, South Korea
Telephone:82+ 2+ 793-6908
Website: http://www.koreaislam.org

Mosque by subway: Get off at Itaewon Station, Line No.6. Take Exit:3 and go straight for 3 min. From the crossing near Sultan Kebab/Dunkin Donuts take a right turn and go further straight for 5 min. Again turn left in a street with a school's wall on one side. You can see the mosque.

Note
A very comprehensive post by the blogger "Old Knicks man" on: how many mosques do we have in Korea (한국에는 이슬람교 성원이몆개나 있을까요)? Read Here.