The tentative plan calls for the Emir of Qatar to purchase the stadium and cover all costs associated with converting the property into a mosque, which would be the third-largest in the world after those in Mecca and Medina.
The mosque would be accompanied by a towering 300-meter (985-foot) minaret which, if approved, would dominate the Barcelona skyline and overshadow the spectacularly emblematic Sagrada Familia, a Roman Catholic cathedral less than one kilometer away.
The mega-mosque is "not suitable" for Barcelona because the "people and countries" involved in the project may have "values which collide with ours," according to Alberto Fernández Díaz, leader of the Popular Party.
Analysts say that Catalonia, which has the largest concentration of radical Islamists in Europe, is already a main center for Salafi-Jihadism on the continent and has the potential to become one of the top incubators for Islamist terrorism in the West.
"Muslims should vote for pro-independence parties, as they need our votes. But what they do not know is that, once they allow us to vote, we will all vote for Islamic parties ... and as we begin to accumulate power in the Catalan autonomous region, Islam will begin to be implemented." — Abdelwahab Houzi, a Salafi jihadist preacher in Catalonia.
