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Islamic Centre Hamburg
The Islamic Centre Hamburg (German: Islamisches Zentrum Hamburg, IZH; Persian: مرکز اسلامی هامبورگ, romanized: Markaz-e Eslāmī-ye Hambūrg), was the proprietor organisation of the Imam Ali Mosque (German: Imam-Ali-Moschee) also known as the Blue Mosque (German: Blaue Moschee), the oldest mosque in Hamburg, Germany. It was established in the late 1950s by a group of Iranian emigrants and construction was completed in the early 1960s. The IZH served both as a place of worship and of inner- and inter-religious dialogue. It was generally considered to be aligned with the government of Iran, both during the Shah's reign and later following the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Amid investigations into these latter ties, the Federal Ministry of the Interior and the Homeland deemed the IZH to be unconstitutional in July 2024, leading to the mosque’s closure and the building being placed under the ministry’s administration. The IZH challenged the decision in the Federal Administrative Court. As of July 2025, the case remains pending, and until the court rules on the legality of the closure and the federal takeover of the building, it cannot be repurposed or reopened.
Hamburg as Germany's main harbor city has been a trading hub throughout the nation's history. It therefore attracted many immigrants, including a large number of rug traders from Iran. During a meeting at the Atlantic Hotel in 1953, a group of Iranian residents of Germany discussed the need to establish their own religious center. They elected a board of nine community members to lead the organisation set to be established to realize this undertaking. Thereafter an Iranian rug trader registered a non-profit organisation for the purpose of constructing a Shiite mosque. Simultaneously another group of Iranian rug traders began to collect money for the construction of a mosque in Hamburg at the suggestion of Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Husayn Borujerdi. Later, a letter was sent to Husayn Borujerdi and other prominent leaders in Iran asking them for help; Borujerdi agreed to help and donated RI100,000 for the mosque. Additionally, Borujerdi insisted that no financial aid from the German government or German NGOs was to be accepted for the mosque. This led him to have to shoulder the vast majority of the cost. He received financial support of RI300,000 from the Iranian Endowments Administration and more support from the Iranian community in Hamburg, leading to the local name the Iranians' Mosque for the building. These funds were still insufficient for financing the mosque's construction. Therefore a loan was taken out from a bank in Hamburg to finance the project, but remittances from Iran came in lower than expected leading to the bank demanding repayment at once. These financial troubles impeded the building effort and were only able to be resolved by a new RI1 rial tax on sugar levied by the Tehran Chamber of Commerce. This made it possible to repay the entire 400,000 Deutsche Marks still owed to the bank in 1964.
Following a public design competition, Hosein Lorzade chose for Husayn Borujerdi an entry by Architekturbüro Schramm und Elingius with cooperation from an Iranian engineer named Parviz Zargarpour, which sought to combine eastern and western architecture. Gustav Lüttge was tasked as the landscape architect for the garden and fountain. The entire architectural ensemble of the mosque, its garden, fountain and fence is protected as cultural property by law.
Local authorities in Hamburg initially opposed the construction of a mosque, particularly as the plot chosen by the committee was zoned as green space. Additionally, building codes made the extravagant blue exterior difficult to realize. These issues were however resolved due to political goodwill by Paul Nevermann and Kurt Braasch towards the Iranian community. This change of opinion in the city government can largely be attributed to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's intervention on behalf of the Iranian community in Hamburg related to his upcoming 1967 state visit. Construction eventually began once the organization's first director, Ayatollah Mohagheghi, arrived in Hamburg. The building's cornerstone was laid by Mohagheghi at the Shah's request on 13 February 1961. In 1963, Mohagheghi's return to Iran due to the aforementioned financial troubles halting construction. It resumed in 1964 and in 1966 most of the mosque's tile work was finished under the supervision of Mohammad Bagher Ansari and financed by private donations from Hamburg and Tehran. The mosque officially opened on 8 February 1966.
Mohammad Beheshti reported early experiences of religious discrimination in Germany, for example being arrested as a "sorcerer" for praying in Frankfurt Airport. He was aware of his negative perception by the German public and tried to encourage the use of "Muslim" when referring to the adherents of Islam instead of Mohammedan. Additionally, when a German newspaper called the newly founded Islamic Republic a "dictatorial regime of clergy" Beheshti perceived it as a mischaracterisation. Therefore, he published a German booklet via the IZH in defense of the new Islamic system of government, even a decade after his tenure in Germany had ended. However, his successor Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari inversely became a political activist and anti-Islamic-Republic cleric in Iran.
Beheshti also initiated a tradition of inter-religious academic dialogue in the IZH. The IZH hosted a number of notable intellectual and religious figures since. While its German and Persian language outreach was primarily organized by Shiites, its Arabic language activities were largely carried out by Sunni Muslim members of the Muslim Brotherhood. This led to large numbers of Sunni Muslims attending the mosque. They often responded to Quranic recitations by saying "Ameen", which caused some Shiite extremists to denounce the mosque as having been "turned Sunni".
From its inception the site had primarily been focused on providing Muslims and non-Muslims in particular with scholarly information about Islam, without trying to proselytize. For this purpose the mosque allowed visitors at all events and had informed personnel on staff during all opening hours willing to answer the public's questions. Additionally, the site annually participated in Open Mosque Day and in 2022 began Islam Week to inform outsiders about their beliefs. The site's multilingual library, as well as its youth library, were open to the general public but only members of the organisation were allowed to borrow books.
The then-head of the Senate Chancellery of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, Christoph Krupp, spoke favorably about the mosque's efforts of inner- and inter-religious dialogue and called it a "successful model" for an Islamic cultural center that should be imitated.
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Islamic Centre Hamburg
The Islamic Centre Hamburg (German: Islamisches Zentrum Hamburg, IZH; Persian: مرکز اسلامی هامبورگ, romanized: Markaz-e Eslāmī-ye Hambūrg), was the proprietor organisation of the Imam Ali Mosque (German: Imam-Ali-Moschee) also known as the Blue Mosque (German: Blaue Moschee), the oldest mosque in Hamburg, Germany. It was established in the late 1950s by a group of Iranian emigrants and construction was completed in the early 1960s. The IZH served both as a place of worship and of inner- and inter-religious dialogue. It was generally considered to be aligned with the government of Iran, both during the Shah's reign and later following the 1979 Iranian Revolution. Amid investigations into these latter ties, the Federal Ministry of the Interior and the Homeland deemed the IZH to be unconstitutional in July 2024, leading to the mosque’s closure and the building being placed under the ministry’s administration. The IZH challenged the decision in the Federal Administrative Court. As of July 2025, the case remains pending, and until the court rules on the legality of the closure and the federal takeover of the building, it cannot be repurposed or reopened.
Hamburg as Germany's main harbor city has been a trading hub throughout the nation's history. It therefore attracted many immigrants, including a large number of rug traders from Iran. During a meeting at the Atlantic Hotel in 1953, a group of Iranian residents of Germany discussed the need to establish their own religious center. They elected a board of nine community members to lead the organisation set to be established to realize this undertaking. Thereafter an Iranian rug trader registered a non-profit organisation for the purpose of constructing a Shiite mosque. Simultaneously another group of Iranian rug traders began to collect money for the construction of a mosque in Hamburg at the suggestion of Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Husayn Borujerdi. Later, a letter was sent to Husayn Borujerdi and other prominent leaders in Iran asking them for help; Borujerdi agreed to help and donated RI100,000 for the mosque. Additionally, Borujerdi insisted that no financial aid from the German government or German NGOs was to be accepted for the mosque. This led him to have to shoulder the vast majority of the cost. He received financial support of RI300,000 from the Iranian Endowments Administration and more support from the Iranian community in Hamburg, leading to the local name the Iranians' Mosque for the building. These funds were still insufficient for financing the mosque's construction. Therefore a loan was taken out from a bank in Hamburg to finance the project, but remittances from Iran came in lower than expected leading to the bank demanding repayment at once. These financial troubles impeded the building effort and were only able to be resolved by a new RI1 rial tax on sugar levied by the Tehran Chamber of Commerce. This made it possible to repay the entire 400,000 Deutsche Marks still owed to the bank in 1964.
Following a public design competition, Hosein Lorzade chose for Husayn Borujerdi an entry by Architekturbüro Schramm und Elingius with cooperation from an Iranian engineer named Parviz Zargarpour, which sought to combine eastern and western architecture. Gustav Lüttge was tasked as the landscape architect for the garden and fountain. The entire architectural ensemble of the mosque, its garden, fountain and fence is protected as cultural property by law.
Local authorities in Hamburg initially opposed the construction of a mosque, particularly as the plot chosen by the committee was zoned as green space. Additionally, building codes made the extravagant blue exterior difficult to realize. These issues were however resolved due to political goodwill by Paul Nevermann and Kurt Braasch towards the Iranian community. This change of opinion in the city government can largely be attributed to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's intervention on behalf of the Iranian community in Hamburg related to his upcoming 1967 state visit. Construction eventually began once the organization's first director, Ayatollah Mohagheghi, arrived in Hamburg. The building's cornerstone was laid by Mohagheghi at the Shah's request on 13 February 1961. In 1963, Mohagheghi's return to Iran due to the aforementioned financial troubles halting construction. It resumed in 1964 and in 1966 most of the mosque's tile work was finished under the supervision of Mohammad Bagher Ansari and financed by private donations from Hamburg and Tehran. The mosque officially opened on 8 February 1966.
Mohammad Beheshti reported early experiences of religious discrimination in Germany, for example being arrested as a "sorcerer" for praying in Frankfurt Airport. He was aware of his negative perception by the German public and tried to encourage the use of "Muslim" when referring to the adherents of Islam instead of Mohammedan. Additionally, when a German newspaper called the newly founded Islamic Republic a "dictatorial regime of clergy" Beheshti perceived it as a mischaracterisation. Therefore, he published a German booklet via the IZH in defense of the new Islamic system of government, even a decade after his tenure in Germany had ended. However, his successor Mohammad Mojtahed Shabestari inversely became a political activist and anti-Islamic-Republic cleric in Iran.
Beheshti also initiated a tradition of inter-religious academic dialogue in the IZH. The IZH hosted a number of notable intellectual and religious figures since. While its German and Persian language outreach was primarily organized by Shiites, its Arabic language activities were largely carried out by Sunni Muslim members of the Muslim Brotherhood. This led to large numbers of Sunni Muslims attending the mosque. They often responded to Quranic recitations by saying "Ameen", which caused some Shiite extremists to denounce the mosque as having been "turned Sunni".
From its inception the site had primarily been focused on providing Muslims and non-Muslims in particular with scholarly information about Islam, without trying to proselytize. For this purpose the mosque allowed visitors at all events and had informed personnel on staff during all opening hours willing to answer the public's questions. Additionally, the site annually participated in Open Mosque Day and in 2022 began Islam Week to inform outsiders about their beliefs. The site's multilingual library, as well as its youth library, were open to the general public but only members of the organisation were allowed to borrow books.
The then-head of the Senate Chancellery of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, Christoph Krupp, spoke favorably about the mosque's efforts of inner- and inter-religious dialogue and called it a "successful model" for an Islamic cultural center that should be imitated.
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