# Lakemba Mosque

The Lakemba Mosque, also known as the Masjid Ali Bin Abi Talib and officially the Imam Ali bin Abi Taleb Mosque, is a Sunni Islam mosque, located at 71-75 Wangee Road, Lakemba, in suburban Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is Australia's largest mosque. Owned and managed by the Lebanese Muslim Association (LMA), Lakemba Mosque and the LMA offices are situated contiguously at the same address.

## History

A small house on the current site of Lakemba Mosque was purchased and used by the Lebanese Muslim Association from the 1960s as a place of worship. The house was demolished in the early 1970s and construction of the current building commenced. Construction lasted five years, with the mosque being completed in 1977. The opening of the mosque was attended by the former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. Fundraising for the mosque took place both locally and internationally, with about half the funds coming from the Middle East and the largest single donation coming from the Saudi royal family. Lakemba Mosque was the second purpose-built mosque in Sydney and remains arguably Australia's most well-known and important mosque.
While historically Muslims of Lebanese heritage constituted the majority of the congregation, today people of Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Somali and South-East Asian backgrounds also attend in significant numbers, along with a small but growing number of converts. The overwhelming majority of the congregation is either of Hanafi or Shafi'i background.

## Controversies

Taj El-Din Hilaly
Taj El-Din Hilaly, the former Imam of Lakemba Mosque from the 1980s till 2007 (and whose wages were paid by Gaddafi's Libyan Islamic Call Society and private individuals"[7][8]) is known to have made numerous controversial statements.
October 2006 sermon
In October 2006, Hilaly delivered a Ramadan sermon in Arabic in which he made statements concerning female clothing which proved highly controversial. The key part of these was:
If you take out uncovered meat and place it outside on the street, or in the garden or in the park, or in the backyard without a cover, and the cats come and eat it ... whose fault is it, the cats' or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem. If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred."
— Taj El-Din Hilaly[9][10] He also said, "in the state of zina, the responsibility falls 90 per cent of the time on the woman. Why? Because she possesses the weapon of enticement (igraa)."[11] Hilaly later claimed that he had intended to suggest that "if a woman who shows herself off, she is to blame...but a man should be able to control himself." He also contended that his references to the prison sentence of Bilal Skaf, the leader of a group of Lebanese Australians who committed gang rapes in Sydney in 2000, in which he said that women would "sway suggestively" before men "and then you get a judge without mercy (rahma) and gives you 65 years", were aimed at illustrating the need for harsh sanctions for rape.[11]
October 7th 2023
Following Israel's attacks on Gaza, Lakemba Mosque has committed to wholeheartedly supporting the innocent civilians in Gaza, which unfortunately attracted negative views by the Australian Government. Lakemba Mosque is always focused on delivering social justice and takes a strong stance against any forms of "wedge politics". Lakemba Mosque still deeply condemns Austalia's political attitudes towards the Israel-Gaza conflict.

## Mosque personnel

The LMA, the first Muslim-centered organisation in Australia, are the primary caretakers of all operations at Lakemba Mosque. Lakemba Mosque has a number of staff who assist in the running and maintenance of the mosque. Currently the mosque has three official Imams:
* The Imam of Lakemba Mosque is Sheikh Yahya Safi, who worked as an Imam in Lebanon before his appointment at the Lakemba Mosque in 1996.
* The Assistant Imam, appointed in 2022 is Sheikh Jamaluddin El-Kiki. Sheikh El-Kiki is fluent in both English and Arabic, as he was brought up in Australia and is of Egyptian heritage. Sheikh El-Kiki is a graduate of the Islamic University of Madinah, renowned in the Muslim world for Islamic sciences.
* The Deputy Assistant Imam, as of 2015, is Sheikh Mohamed Harby. Sheikh Harby is a qāriʾ from Egypt who specialises in the sciences of Qur'an which he teaches to students at Lakemba Mosque.

## Activities

The mosque offers a number of religious classes, such as in prophetic biography, fiqh and aqidah. The mosque gives a platform to a number of local Shaykhs to speak and teach, such as Shaykh Wesam Charkawi. Since 2014, the mosque has served as the centre of the National Mosque Open Day event.
Several thousand worshippers normally attend weekly prayers on Fridays. In 2015 around 30,000 worshippers attended Eid prayers at the mosque and in the road outside, making it one of Australia's largest Eid celebrations. In 2016, an estimated 40,000-50,000 attended Eid prayers.