First Prison Mosque Opened in Kharkiv Oblast on Eve of Mawlid Al-Nabi

On February 1, in the Kholodnohirska Penitentiary in Kharkiv Oblast, the region’s first prayer room for Muslim convicts has been opened. There are over 30 Muslim convicts in the colony.

An Orthodox Church has functioned in the institution for 10 years, but there was no mosque. Mosques are rare in Ukrainian prisons, the website of the Kharkiv Oblast State Penitentiary Service of Ukraine reported.

The Muslims were regularly visited by representatives of a Muslim religious community called Mercy. The administration of the prison allowed them to conduct prayers in the methodology room of the institution.

Later, the Muslim convicts approached the administration with a request to allocate for them a room for prayers.

According to the head of Mercy, Serhii Putylin (Murad), for the Muslims, any room where a believer can worship God in prayer and which provides ritually pure space is a mosque. With the assistance of the administration of the prison and financial support of the Mercy community, the Muslim convicts themselves prepared a prayer room with an ablutionary facility. “For every Muslim should communicate with God with pure body and thoughts,” said Putylin.

On February 1, on the eve of the Birthday of the Prophet Mohammed, celebrated on February 4 this year, the prayer room for the Muslim convicts was officially opened in Kholodohirska Penitentiary. The convicts and visitors, the head of the Mercy religious community, Serhii Putylin (Murad), and the head of the Kharkiv Islamic Cultural Center, Otman Shadi, gathered in the prayer room with a carpeted floor and Islamic pictures on the wall.