El Noor Mosque
El Noor Mosque in Chréa serves the mountain commune of the same name, providing a place of worship for residents and visitors to this national park commune in the Blida Atlas.
1 January 2025
Overview
El Noor Mosque (Mosquée El Noor — "the Light Mosque") serves the commune of Chréa in the Blida Atlas mountains. Noor (نور) means "light" in Arabic — a name drawn from Surah An-Nur (Quran 24), one of the most frequently cited chapters in Islamic spiritual thought.
Chréa Commune
Chréa is the highest commune in Blida wilaya, situated in the Blida Atlas at approximately 1,500m elevation. It is the access point for [[lifestyle/places/parc-national-chrea|Chréa National Park]], which contains Algeria's only ski station, cedar forests, and populations of Barbary macaques.
The commune's small year-round population is swelled by seasonal visitors and weekenders from Algiers and Blida. El Noor Mosque serves this community in a setting of exceptional natural beauty.
The commune also contains [[culture/religion/notre-dame-des-cedres|Notre-Dame des Cèdres]] — a historic Catholic chapel among the cedar trees, a colonial-era heritage structure.
Connections
- Chréa geography: [[lifestyle/places/parc-national-chrea|Chréa National Park]]
- The parallel Christian heritage in Chréa: [[culture/religion/notre-dame-des-cedres|Notre-Dame des Cèdres]]
- The 1997 massacres that affected the Chréa area: [[archives/history/beni-ali-massacre|Beni Ali Massacre (1997)]]