Opening ceremony of the Abrahamic Family House, Abu Dhabi, 16 February 2023 (Photo: Embassy of Ireland to the UAE)

The United Arab Emirates on Thursday inaugurated the Abrahamic Family House, a religious complex containing a synagogue, a mosque, and a church, in the UAE’s capital Abu Dhabi.

The Moses Ben Maimon Synagogue will hold its first Shabbat services on Friday, while the complex as a whole will be open to the public from 1 March.

The UAE’s President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed credited the opening of the first purpose-built synagogue in the UAE to the country’s history of diversity.

“The UAE has a proud history of people from diverse communities working together to create new possibilities,” Sheikh Mohammed said on Twitter. “As the [Abrahamic Family House] in Abu Dhabi is inaugurated, we remain committed to harnessing the power of mutual respect, understanding and diversity to achieve shared progress.”

Rabbi Yehuda Sarna, Chief Rabbi of the Jewish Council of the Emirates, has previously described the UAE’s Jewish community as “the first new Jewish community established in centuries on Arab soil.”

Aside from the synagogue, the site will contain the Catholic St. Francis Church, named in honor of both the eponymous saint and for Pope Francis, as well as the Imam al-Tayeb Mosque, named for the current Grand Imam of al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo, Ahmed al-Tayeb, one of the most senior figures in Sunni Islam.

The complex was designed by David Adjaye, an award winning Ghanaian-British architect who also designed the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History on the National Mall in Washington, DC. 

According to the Abrahamic Family House website, the complex “captures the values shared between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and serves as a powerful platform for inspiring and nurturing understanding and acceptance between people of goodwill.”