The Kobe Mosque, also known as the Kobe Muslim Mosque, is the oldest mosque in Japan, built in 1935 by the city's Indian and Arab Muslim merchant community. It stands near Kitano-chō, a short walk from the ijinkan mansions, its two minarets rising above the surrounding rooftops. The building is a dignified Ottoman-influenced design in reinforced concrete, architecturally distinct from its Japanese neighbours.
Visitors are welcome outside of prayer times; there is a small museum about the history of Islam in Japan and the mosque's community. Kobe's Muslim population has been present since the Meiji era, part of the international trading community that gave the city its cosmopolitan character.