ALBAWABA- Dresden's tobacco mosque was built in 1907 by Jewish businessman Hugo Zietz, who created the Yenidze Tobacco and Cigarette Factory in the late 19th century.
It is a massive building mixing Islamic and European architectural styles with a 60-foot-high glass dome.
The mosque sticks out from Dresden's usual Baroque architecture making it iconic and eye-catching to Germany's people.
According to Yendizu's education website, the mosque has 600 windows on the outside and a factory with offices on the inside.
Hugo took full advantage of producing cigarettes in the building, the basement was used for storing raw tobacco and preparing it for processing.
Yendizu's second and third floors were used for manually rolling cigarettes while the fourth floor depended on machines for mass production and the dome was the rest area for staff.
What was Hugo's motivation behind Dresden's tobacco mosque?
Back then it was prohibited to build factories in the center of Dresden's town so Hugo had the idea of hiring an architect to build the factory in the style of a mosque.
Architect Martin Hammitzsch built the Yenidze factory in 1909 and had a lot of eyes on it because of its busy location near the main railway line of Berlin-Prague.
An illuminated sign saying ''Salem Aleikum'' (may peace be upon you in Arabic) was seen by passengers passing through the railway line.
More than half of Hugo's mosque got destroyed during World War ll but was restored after the German reunification in 1991.
The tobacco mosque operates to this day as a restaurant
The mosque currently operates as an office location for Dresden-based companies with a restaurant located in the building's dome.
Yendizu's two-floor restaurant goes by the name "Kuppelrestaurant," and offers both national and international cuisines to its guests.
