Lost Mosques of Singapore

Singapore underwent an extensive urbanisation programme in the late Sixties and Seventies. Slums and squatter settlements had to be cleared to make way for public housing and industrial estates. Inadvertently 18 mosques or suraus (prayer houses) had to be phased out, which continued until 1985. The Muslim community was unhappy. There was therefore a need to build new mosques to make up for the lost places of worship.
Mr Lee Kuan Yew's simple but profound idea to set up a Mosque Building Fund not only enabled the Muslim community to build modern mosques in all housing estates but created a deep impact on their lives domestically and reputation abroad.
The size of the MBF grew significantly from a mere $0.6 million in 1975 to $19 million in 2012. A total of $166 million had been collected since MBF started, allowing 23 modern mosques to be built in all the major housing estates.
Observers and visitors were impressed with the MBF idea. Mr Lee Kuan Yew should go down in Singapore’s history books as the non-Muslim leader who had in spirit “built” the most number of mosques!
- Musa, Mohamed Alami. "Funding mosque building in Singapore: a legacy of Mr Lee Kuan Yew." (2013