A purpose-built mosque, successor of the 1946 Peel St Mosque, constructed in 1988 adjacent to a block of four community flats in Maria Street built in 1978.
The new mosque had a complicated bulding history. Permissions for demolition and rebuilding were granted in 1976 and renewed in 1982 'if the design was not varied'. A 1984 brochure of proposals for the new mosque co-ordinated by Nader Hussam Kahn has plans and elevations for an ambitious new mosque with dome and minaret. The plans are annotated in Arabic and English with unified north point and qiblah (direction of Mecca). The architects are not named but were probably Kahn and Williams's Welsh Arabian Technical Services Organisation (WATSO).
The new mosque was eventually designed by Cardiff-based architectural practice Forster & Vining Architects and built in 1988. Externally, the mosque is a modest brick structure aligned with the street, but the internal geometry and structure is orientated towards Mecca. A proposed dome was never constructed but the first-floor timber platform echoes the balcony of a minaret used for the call to prayer. A plaque by the entrance commemorates in Arabic and English the earlier Peel Street mosque: 'This Noor El Islam Mosque / was established in 1936 –– by –– Sheikh Abdullah Ali El Hakimi. / It was erected in 1947 by the assistance / of / [several names follow].
This record was created by RCAHMW’s Welsh Asian Heritage Project (2023–24), funded by the Welsh Government’s Anti-racist Wales Action Plan.
Sources:
TrinityMirror (via MemoryLane) 1954: https://shop.memorylane.co.uk/mirror/1100to1199-01117/children-attend-peel-street-mosque-tiger-bay-21804149.html; Getty Images collection (Various): https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/photos/cardiff-mosque; Glamorgan Record Office: https://calmview.cardiff.gov.uk/Record.aspx?src=CalmView.Catalog&id=D464%2F5%2F029; https://glamorgan.epexio.com/en/records/BC/S/1/35865; https://glamorgan.epexio.com/en/records/D464/5/020 RCAHMW blog https://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/archive/a-history-of-mosques-in-britain.