The place where Europe and Africa meet, through a narrow straight of less than 15 km width, is more a strategic and sentimental point. Technically, Gibraltar belongs to Great Britain, it has scrupulous check-points and her majesty’s Royal Police patrolling. Otherwise, this tiny limb of land is not separated from the Iberic Peninsula, and authorities even made the compromise of allowing cars to circulate on the right side, and not on the left, as in the bizarre British way.
Gibraltar is not only the place where two continent meet, or where the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean See meat, but also a bridge between cultural worlds. Much of Spain was under Moorish (Muslim) rule for some seven centuries, and with positive effects. When the Spanish finished the Reconquista, Gibraltar was the last place in the Iberia Peninsula from where they drove the Arabs out. In remembrance of that event, a Catholic church was built near the lighthouse at the plateau called Europa Point.
With Islamic awakening movement on the rise, the Saudi monarchs wanted to mark this symbolic place by building one of the largest European mosques. It is a beautiful building made of shining white marble, that serves as a cultural center and place of worship for the 5% Muslim population in Gibraltar. The commissioner of this building was Saudi Arabia’s king Fahd. The mosque with one minaret is dedicated to Ibrahim al Ibrahim, from the Arab name of the biblical patriarch Abraham, the ancestor of Israel and regarded as a godly human being by Judaism, Christianity and Islam.