IT was almost 11am, and people started gathering in front of a building by the bus terminal in Sevilla, Spain, even before the gates with the sign Fundacion Mezquita de Sevilla (Sevilla Mosque Foundation) were opened. Once inside, worshippers went to a spacious room on the second floor.

“We recite the Qur’an every Sunday,” said a woman present on that day in late August.

By noon, they were doing that together, mainly reading