BERLIN — The chink and scrape of stonecutters echo through the gray-domed mosque that rises like a glimmer of misplaced architecture in a city where the Muslim call to prayer is a widening whisper.
Dusted in marble, workmen scurry in the muted glow of stained glass. Some paint Koranic verses on the walls; others make last-minute alterations to golden-tipped minarets pricking a drizzly skyline. Anxious Berliners sometimes peek into the courtyard, where Ali Gulcek, a husky, nimble man, assures them his religion is not a threat.
"I need to enlighten the Germans so their prejudice of Islam will go away," said Gulcek, whose Islamic organization is building the mosque. "Our mosque will be completed in May. We've wanted a legitimate mosque for so long. For years, we've been meeting in backyards and basements. We don't want to hide anymore."
Gulcek's mosque is part of the surge in Islamic construction sweeping Germany. The number of traditional mosques with their distinctive minarets nearly doubled in Germany from 77 in 2002 to 141 in 2003, according to Islam Archive, a Muslim research group in the city of Soest. An additional 154 mosques and cultural centers are planned, many of them in the countryside, where vistas are dotted with symbols of crescent moons and crosses.
Like the cultural battles over allowing Muslim women to wear headscarves in European schools, mosques are an indication that immigration is transforming social, religious and aesthetic landscapes. Staccato Turkish and throaty Arabic syllables whirl amid European vernaculars, and where once there was a German bakery there is now a Moroccan kebab stand. In some bookshops, the Koran is as prominent as the Bible, and Islamic worry beads sometimes rattle alongside rosaries.
Mosques are landmarks of faith. But in Europe they are also symbols of change that can instigate fear, especially as congregations at Christian churches steadily decline on a continent with the fastest-aging population in the world. A mosque often means a neighborhood is no longer what it was. Skin hues are darker, customs different, and society's failure at integration is laid bare.
For many Europeans since Sept. 11, mosques are perceived -- unlike churches or synagogues -- as caldrons of radicalism instead of places of worship. That sentiment is likely to endure if Islamic militants were involved last week's train bombings in Madrid that killed 201 people and wounded 1,500 others.
