Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo inaugurated a newly improved Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta last week, after it had undergone large-scale renovations since May 2019.

The largest mosque in Southeast Asia, Istiqlal’s renovation cost 511 billion rupiah ($ 36.27 million), paid for by the state budget of a country with the world’s largest Muslim population.

Jokowi said this sum covered various upgrades, including expanded parking capacity, improvements in landscaping and maintenance of the plaza.

But the Covid-19 outbreak had spread to Indonesia by then, sparking a frenzied government response that at one point shut down places of worship around the country.

According to the government’s official tally as of January 8, Indonesia had logged 808,340 confirmed cases of the disease and 23,753 deaths, breaking previous daily records for three consecutive days, although the scale of the crisis might actually be higher if not for poor testing.

With Istiqlal’s official relaunch, held barely a week before the bulk of regions in Java and Bali are to see the imposition of new activity and mobility restrictions, Jokowi hopes the new look helps heighten the Muslim community’s devotion to God and be made a global example.

“The mosque should set an example for other mosques worldwide in terms of spreading Islamic values while also establishing tolerance and peace at the same time,” Jokowi said, as quoted by tempo.co.

According to the grand imam of Istiqlal, Nasaruddin Umar, the large-scale renovation took 14 months and involved 1,000 workers.

It also included the construction of an underground tunnel, dubbed the “brotherhood tunnel”, to connect Istiqlal with the Jakarta Cathedral, which is located across the road.

THE JAKARTA POST/ASIA NEWS NETWORK