İstanbul Mufti Professor Hasan Kamil Yılmaz, appointed by Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate (Diyanet), on Monday said İstanbul needs at least 10,000 new mosques, Spunik Turkey reported.
Speaking to reporters at a ceremony for Mosques and Religious Practitioners Week, Yılmaz said there are currently 3,365 mosques in İstanbul but that in proportion to the population, that number should be 15,000.
Nearly 9,000 mosques have been built over the last decade in Turkey, according to statistics released by Diyanet, the Hürriyet daily reported. A total of 8,985 mosques were constructed between 2005 and 2015, while the Central Anatolian province of Konya hosts the highest number of mosques, the Doğan news agency reported on Sept. 16, 2016.