Narendra Modi inaugurated the first Hindu temple in Abu Dhabi

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the first Hindu temple in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday.

According to Arab News, the 27-acre BAPS Hindu Temple, located on the main highway connecting Abu Dhabi to Dubai, is constructed of over 25,000 pieces of pink stone from Rajasthan, and white Italian marble from India. I have brought it to the United Arab Emirates after trimming.

Narendra Modi arrived at this temple on Wednesday afternoon along with the pandits of the temple to perform religious rituals.

On this occasion, Bollywood actor Akshay Kumar and singer Shankar Mahadevan and other stars and members of the Indian community based in UAE were present at the opening ceremony.

There are already three Hindu temples in Dubai, but the BAPS temple will be the largest Hindu temple in the Middle East.

The temple was built by a Hindu organization headquartered in Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat.

Navdeep Suri, who served as the Indian ambassador to the UAE from 2016 to 2019, told Arab News that ‘the opening of the temple is an important milestone in India’s relations with the UAE under the leadership of Modi.’

Navdeep Suri says that in August 2015, he (Narendra Modi) made his first visit to the Gulf country, which was the first visit of an Indian Prime Minister to the UAE after Indira Gandhi in 1981.

He further says that ‘Narendra Modi requested on this occasion to allocate land for a Hindu temple that would fulfill the long-standing religious and spiritual needs of a large section of the 3.5 million Indian community in the UAE.’

After which the land was donated by the UAE government and the foundation stone of the temple was laid in 2019.

The first Hindu temple in the United Arab Emirates was inaugurated in Dubai in the 1950s, after which many more temples were built, but this is the first temple in Abu Dhabi to be built using traditional techniques.