The Habana Vieja neighbourhood is the centrepiece of the Cuban capital's normally bustling tourist industry. Colourful colonial buildings house hotels, restaurants, souvenir shops and boutiques – and also, a mosque.
Sitting on a quiet side street, across from the city's Arab history museum, the Abdallah Mosque caters to Havana's small Muslim community.
“This is a touristic area and when we used to have more tourism, they [foreign Muslim visitors] would come a lot,” Aqil Alexis Sanchez Tamayo, one of the imams at Abdallah Mosque, tells The National. “And they were always shocked at finding a mosque in Cuba.”
The mosque opened in 2015 in what was previously a classic car museum. A team from Saudi Arabia worked with Cubans to design the interior of the building, which can hold about 2,000 people.
“Since Ramadan of 2015, it became … the neurological centre of the Islamic community in Cuba,” Mr Sanchez Tamayo says.
Cuba is a communist country that discourages public displays of religion, but a landmark agreement between Havana and Saudi Arabia in 2022 paved the way for the mosque's construction. Saudi Arabia was the first Arab country to establish formal diplomatic relations with Cuba in 1956.
Before Abdallah opened, there was only a small mosque available to diplomats and other foreigners living in Havana, in the Casa del Arabe, the Arab history museum. The new mosque serves Cuba's entire Muslim community and welcomes visitors from abroad.
Cuba's Muslim community numbers only about 8,000, Mr Sanchez Tamayo says, a mix of Cuban converts and resident foreigners. He himself converted to Islam more than 20 years ago and studied in Turkey, and served in the leadership of the Islamic League of Cuba as well as becoming one of the imam's of the mosque.
“We have a lot of students from abroad, diplomatic personnel, people who base it here in Cuba, who practise Islam,” he says.
Abdallah Mosque is served by three imams – two from Palestine and Mr Sanchez Tamayo – and they take turns leading Friday prayers.
Mr Sanchez Tamayo says that another, larger mosque in the area is being planned, also with support from Riyadh.
“It will be in this area of the harbour of Havana, near to the power plant that used to be one of the more important of Havana, but it will take some time,” he explains. “It will be bigger than this one, and with more accommodations and services than this one.”
The Saudi embassy in Havana did not respond to a request for comment.
For Mr Sanchez Tamayo, the mosque is a testament to the resiliency of the Cuban people in the face of mounting challenges.
Tourism, once the economic lifeblood of the island, slowed dramatically after the Covid pandemic and even further under mounting US sanctions. Scarcity of fuel, food and other necessities have made life “stressful”, he says.
“We are suffering, but being Muslim, we are more than aware that every single thing that happens in our life is decreed by Allah, and we are trying to have that level of resilience to overcome this situation.”
