Mosque Keizerstraat appeared in Suriname in 1932, three years after the Muslim community of Paramaribo had been formed. The first building, rectangular in design, was was quite compact. The construction of 9 meters wide with four octangular towers was made of wood as well as many other buildings in Suriname. As for the style, it followed the Suriname tradition of wooden building: it was still quite influential at that time to be reflected in this building. A stone structure replaced the wooden half a century after. Today’s building was finished and consecrated in 1984. It’s bigger, more spacious, and appropriate to the modern age. Minarets of 29 meters high rise above the mosque.
This mosque belongs to Suriname Islamic Association and serves as a headquarters of the Muslim Lahore Ahmadiyya movement on the Suriname territory. The Ahmadiyya community follows the branch of Islam founded in British India at the end of the 19th century. Most of the mosques built in Western countries belong to this Islamic movement. Its founder, Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, wanted to repeat the success of his contemporaries, Christian missioners in India. Building a mosque in Paramaribo was a part of the community policy coordinating the spread of Islam in Suriname. It’s worth mentioning that today Suriname is the country with the highest percentage of Islam adherents in America (up to 20%).
The exterior of the religious building in Keizerstraat street, which gave the name to the mosque, is at the same time laconic and respectable. The tourist and the residents consider it to be one of the most beautiful buildings in the city. It can be justly called a masterpiece of Eastern architecture in Suriname.
Not only members of The Ahmadiyya community frequent visitors of the mosque, but also eminent guests from all over the world. For instance, in 1979 an American professional boxer Cassius Marcellus Clay Junior, known to the sport world as Muhammad Ali visited the mosque.