Mufti Muurat Iusuf: Romania is a world model of Muslim minority's rights observance

Head of the Muslim Cult in Romania, Mufti Muurat Iusuf, attending in Istanbul the World Muslim Minorities Summit running April 16 - 19, said that Romania is a world model as regards religious freedoms and the observance of confessional and cultural rights of the respective minorities.

Addressing on Tuesday the World Muslim Minorities Summit, the top religious leader of Romanian Muslims, Mufti Muurat Iusuf, said that Romania's state policy as regards the observance of the rights of minority religious communities - the Muslim one included - can be considered a worldwide model.

"I argued that the Muslim minority is a respected confessional community, with a well-defined status, that stands in accordance with its 900-year long existence on the territory of our homeland, Romania. In Romania, the Muslims' cultural and confessional rights are respected and are therefore exercised exactly according to the basic precepts, beginning with the recognition and grant of days off on official holidays to the imams' public call to prayer from mosque minarets. And let me tell you that this is not a minor thing, given that there are states in Europe where this tradition is not allowed," the Mufti told AGERPRES.

According to the head of the Muslim Cult in Romania, the 66,700-strong community he represents is served by 60 imams in 78 places of worship, most of which are located in the counties of Constanta, Tulcea, Braila and Galati. The clerics are trained at the Muslim Theological Highschool in the eastern city of Medgidia and 25 teachers - most of them from among imams - teach faith in schools.

The World Muslim Minorities Summit, attended by 250 senior Muslim clerics from 120 states from Europe, Africa, Asia, North and South America, Australia and India, opened on Monday at the Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul, in the presence of Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Premier Binali Yildirim.