Abbey Mills Mosque

The Abbey Mills Mosque, also known as the London Markaz or Masjid-e-Ilyas, is a mosque located in Stratford, east London. It had been proposed to expand it to a larger Islamic centre 7.3-hectare (18-acre). It was originally reported that the structure, had it been built, would have been the largest religious building in Britain and the largest mosque in Europe. For this reason it is often informally referred to in the press as the "mega-mosque".

The mosque extension would have been built by Tablighi Jamaat (a Muslim missionary movement) near the site of the London 2012 Olympic Park. Anjuman-e-Islahul Muslimeen is Tablighi Jamaat's charitable trust and has been the owner of the site since 1996. The Tablighi Jamaat website devoted to the mosque places the maximum capacity at 12,000 worshipers.n 1996 Anjuman-e-Islahul Muslimeen purchased the Abbey Mills site (the location of a former chemical works) for £1.6 million. In 2001, the Tablighi Jamaat was issued a five-year permit to use the site as a place of worship; however, the permit expired before building commenced^. As of 2007 the site plan incorporated a mosque capable of accommodating 12,000 people, a visitor and conference centre, substantial parking for cars and facilities for bicycles, a new entrance to the West Ham tube station, a residential school for 500 pupils, a reception center for visiting VIPs—including about 20 guest suites, a plan for the retention of the natural habitat on the island location within the site, and extensive landscaping. The Tablighi Jamaat also stated that they plan to develop the mosque to make full use of natural resources, reducing the mosque's energy consumption and increasing the mosque's recycling.