It is a first in the United Emirates with the ground-breaking ceremony of a Hindu temple in Abu Dhabi.
The Hindu temple will come up in a 14-acre land by 2020 with seven towers representing the seven emirates in the UAE, officials have disclosed.
The stones for the temple will be carved by temple artisans in India and assembled in the UAE.
The temple itself is expected to cover about five acres of land.
But it is certainly not the first Hindu temple to see light in the UAE. In a quiet cobbled alleyway of Bur Dubai, the door of the Imam House opens out to the courtyard of an ancient Hindu temple called Haveli, built more than 100 years ago — 1902 to be precise.
The muezzin’s call rises, calling the faithful for the Maghrib prayer, while the bells of the aarti ring out in celebration of worship of the deity Krishna. And this has been happening for well over a century.
“Since the 1820s many traders used to pass through the UAE, it has always been open and people were allowed to practice their religion. We have always been accepting. The UAE has always been based on freedom of religion – the moment you accept the existence of a person in your country, you are also accepting their religion,” Abdullah Bin Jassim Al Mutairi, told Gulf News. He is Advisor to the Chairman of the Dubai Arts and Culture Authority.
As the prime minister will then be attending the community event at the Dubai Opera, stone-laying ceremony at the temple site in Abu Dhabi will be livestreamed at the Dubai event, Navdeep Singh Suri, the Indian Ambassador to the UAE, told Gulf News.
Modi will witness the ground-breaking ceremony through a livestreaming at theDubai Opera as the stone-laying ceremony at the temple site in Abu Dhabi will be livestreamed at the Dubai event.