First Hindu temple inaugurated in Abu Dhabi by Indian prime minister
A year ago, the UAE emirate inaugurated its first synagogue as part of the Abrahamic Family House
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated Abu Dhabi’s first Hindu mandir (temple) last week in a festive consecration ceremony attended by Hindu and Muslim leaders and thousands of spectators.
Built across 27 acres of land gifted by United Arab Emirates President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan in 2015, the temple is the biggest in the Middle East and is made of pink sandstone from Rajasthan, India. Modi unveiled a model of the building in 2018 during a visit to the UAE and returned six years later to inaugurate the new mandir.
The building has seven columns representing the seven sheikdoms of the UAE and each houses a shrine to a representation of Hindu deities across diverse denominations of the faith.
The new temple marks another expansion of the religious services offered in Abu Dhabi a year after the emirate inaugurated its first synagogue as part of the Abrahamic Family House, which unites Islam, Judaism and Christianity faiths in one location.
The complex is home to three houses of worship — Eminence Ahmed El-Tayeb Mosque, St. Francis Church and Moses Ben Maimon Synagogue — where visitors of all faiths are invited to take part in and learn about the three religions.
The three houses of worship were designed by Ghanaian architect David Adjaye to be the same size and complement each other. They are joined together by a garden where worshipers of the three Abrahamic faiths can mingle together.
Like the new Hindu temple, the synagogue in the Abrahamic Family House was the first purpose-built synagogue in Abu Dhabi, and the project was announced a year before Israel and the UAE signed the Abraham Accords that finalized normalization between the two.
The new Hindu temple was inaugurated last Wednesday by the guru of the BAPS Swaminarayan Sanstha Hindu denomination, Mahant Swami Maharaj, who said that the new temple would be “an abode of love, peace and harmony.”
Also speaking at the ceremony, Modi said that “the UAE has written a golden chapter in the history of humanity by supporting this mandir.”
Ties between the two nations have deepened since 2015, when Modi made the first visit to the UAE by an Indian prime minister in more than three years.
Modi added that the temple had “infused new energy into [India’s] age-old relationship” with the UAE which is home to some 3.5 million Indians.
He also said that the temple had been built for all of humanity and that he had faith it would “usher in a new age of faith and hope, bringing the whole world together in harmony and collaboration.”
Tolerance and Coexistence in the UAE Minister Sheikh Nahayan Mabarak Al Nahayan also attended the ceremony, saying that the temple marked “the beginning of something special.”
