The first mosque for Muslims in Wales built  

RELIGIOUS NEWS AGENCY (REDNA) – The Muslims in Wales finally have their own mosque.

The mosque is located in Pembrokeshire and offers a space for Muslims with more people turning up for services than ever before.

  It used to be a tax office in a South Wales market town but now it is converted into a mosque.

Haverfordwest Central Mosque is the first official Muslim place of worship in Pembrokeshire.

For the previous 25 years the only place was a shared upstairs prayer room above an Indian restaurant. That had 30 people in one room. Before that Muslims would have to travel 60 miles to Swansea. The new mosque attracts up to 200.

The Islamic community grew in Haverfordwest with the expansion of Withybush Hospital, which employs many staff from overseas, as well as international students attending Pembrokeshire College and — in recent years — the boom in Turkish barber shops.

With more Muslims moving into the county, there was a greater need for a more suitable place of worship.

Today the mosque stands not just as a place of worship but as a community centre for the wider area, allowing a range of activities such as martial arts classes, a thriving youth club, daycare for toddlers, a space for women to meet, and English classes for refugees who have settled in Wales.

Although the Muslim population in Pembrokeshire sits at a little under 600, many come from across the UK to flock to the “seaside county” and its new mosque. With so many teenagers coming to the youth club from neighbouring towns, the mosque needs more volunteers to cope with them.

After a little over a year the mosque has exceeded the expectations and brought a spiritual cohesiveness to the Muslim community within the county, raising a new generation of worshippers who have learnt within a space that is theirs.