It is the second largest mosque in Latin America after the King Fahd Islamic Cultural Center in Buenos Aires.

Mirroring modern Venezuela's religious tolerance and its oil realpolitik the construction of the mosque began in 1989 by Sheikh Abdulaziz Bin Ibrahim Al Ibrahim.

Rising higher between the Catholic Cathedral a few blocks away and the Caracas Synagogue, the minaret is the highest in the Americas.

[1] "It is like a dream come true for us," Hassan Majzoub, president of Venezuela's Islamic Center, said of the four-year project, culminated in March 1993 with the inauguration of the Caracas Islamic Center.

Mr. Majzoub, a shopkeeper who emigrated from Lebanon in 1968, acknowledged that the 100,000 Muslims in Venezuela were easily surpassed in number by Muslims in Argentina, Brazil and the United States.