Jakarta, IO – KH. Nasaruddin Umar, the grand imam of the Istiqlal Mosque, seemed emotionally touched when representing the mosque he has been taking care of in receiving an international award. On April 6, 2022, the Istiqlal Mosque was awarded Green Mosque for the first environmentally friendly house of worship in the world.
This award was conferred by International Finance Cooperation (IFC), an institution under the World Bank Group. Istiqlal, the largest mosque in Southeast Asia, is noted for its initiative in applying the principles of green building in saving energy and promoting environmental sustainability. For its endeavor, it was awarded IFC’s certificate of Excellence in Design for Greater Efficiencies (EDGE).
The pride does not just belong to Nasaruddin Umar, but also all Istiqlal Mosque administrators who have tried to ‘enliven’ the mosque. Observerid.com has had the opportunity to talk with Abu Hurairah, one of the Istiqlal Mosque’s administrators.
Abu said they never expected that Istiqlal Mosque would be one of the mosques nominated for evaluation by IFC.
“Of course, we feel very proud and welcome the trust given to us. We become more confident that what we have done for the mosque so far has been recognized by a global institution,” explained Abu.
“Actually, we were not aware that we were being assessed, so we didn’t really know when the period [of the evaluation] was. They said they had actually paid attention to Istiqlal Mosque for a long time, especially since the renovations we carried out in the last two years, it seems they noticed the current green concept that we adopted,” he continued.