Refutation on behalf of Grand Mufti’s Office with regard to the incorrect information about the prayer home in the capital’s quarter “Lyulin”

In view of the daily increasing number of the citizens professing Islam in the capital increases also the need of mosques and prayer homes (masjids) where the believers to be able to perform their religious duties. Notorious is the need of more than one mosque and the inability it to be built due to administrative inaction of the municipal authorities. The need for temples in the capital under the regulation of the Muslim Denomination is a topic which the management raises for years to the highest state level.

Grand Mufti’s Office refutes the released incorrect information in the media related to the prayer home in the capital’s quarter “Lyulin”. The masjid is opened in connection with the expressed need by the local Muslim community. The Muslim Denomination rented a property located on address: Sofia, “Lyulin-6”, 6 “Indira Gandi’ Str. in order to provide the constitutional right of the citizens to profess freely the Islamic religion and to perform prayers.

The local Muslim Board of Trustees with a Chairman Hyusein Abu-Kalbayn also is established at the initiative of the citizens who themselves choose and propose for appointment the management of the Board of Trustees. This Board of Trustees according to the Statute of the Muslim Denomination is not appointed but elected by the community. The person elected for Chairman, is a Bulgarian citizen. The Board of Trustees is registered in Sofia Municipality according to an order of the Law on the Religious Denominations.

In order the masjid to be functioning according to the regulation of the Denomination is appointed a clergyman – imam with an employment contract, who to lead the prayers and the sermons and who reports to the Regional Mufti of Sofia. The name of the imam is Ahmed Karafeyzov, a Bulgarian citizen with secondary religious education from Secondary Religious School – Momchilgrad and a diploma for Bachelor’s Degree in Theology from Jordanian university legalized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Bulgaria.

Speculative and incorrect are the blames that in the mentioned masjid are preached unregulated ideas related to radial thoughts. The Denomination refutes all murmurs existing in the public space in the form of unsupported doubts. For years such speculative statements without whatever legitimate proofs are used in order to be misinformed the public opinion regarding the Muslim community in the country and its religious management. Grand Mufti’s Office calls upon the mass media to check the authenticity of the published information and its sources.