MOSCOW, April 3 (IslamOnline.net) – Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov ordered building no more mosques in the predominantly-Muslim country, another controversial – if not weird – move by the life-long leader.

"Religion is free. Do not build any more mosques. We have enough mosques already," Niyazov told officials of the government's Council for Religious Affairs March 29.

The officials of the council - a government body which reports to the cabinet - must continue to appoint all imams and control mosque funds, he was quoted by the official Turkmen news agency as saying.

"The mosques should not choose the imams themselves. Since you work here, you should appoint them from among those who have graduated from the department of religion and have them approved by the court," he said.

"Otherwise, they select anyone they want in the localities."

For the Zakah (alms), Niyazov said that mosques should come under more scrutiny, with "proper order" over donations to mosques.

"We will not take it from you. You just need to maintain order in it and look at their expenditures," he said.

The authorities have granted legal status only to Sunni Muslims and the Russian Orthodox Church in this mostly Muslim, but mainly secular state.

Islam first appeared in the country in 1039 until the Bolshevik revolution that forced all mosques and Islamic institutes closed.

But in 1980s, the country witnessed a revival of Islam, having 70 mosques in 1990 from four in 1985.

Reports have it that more than half of the 250 registered mosques were stripped of their legal status in 1997, and only 140 have registration.

'Weird'

The decisions are a new series of bizarre moves taken by Niyazov, who is president for life in this mostly desert nation of five million people.

He ordered a change of the months to be named after his family members. Now, April is "Qurban Sultan", his mother and May is "Atamurat", his father.

Golden statues and portraits of the president can be found on almost every street in the country and towns and regions are named after him and his parents.

In March, Turkmenistan's parliament added to the personality cult surrounding Niyazov by dedicating 2004 to the president's deceased father.

The parliament took the decision in order to "immortalize the sacred image and bright memory" of Atamurat Niyazov, who is officially said to have died in fighting in southern Russia during World War II.

Niyazov is ruling the isolated former Soviet republic with an iron fist and a North Korean-style personality cult, Agence France-Presse (AFP) had reported.

He underwent major heart surgery in 1997, after which he quit smoking, ordered all his ministers to do likewise and banned smoking in public places.

When Niyazov started to go bald after the operation he resorted to Chinese herbal remedies, he said, to save his people from the "unpleasantness" of having a bald leader.

Niyazov also ordered his village to become the site of the largest mosque in this former Soviet state.

In March, he ordered all men to have their moustaches and beards cut and banned them from growing their hair.

At first the decision was against extremists, but later he insisted it should be applied to all men, raising anti-government sentiments, especially among youths fed up with these weird decrees.

Desert Lake

Nation-building efforts in Turkmenistan have concentrated mainly on fashioning a personality cult around Niyazov.

He issued a decree to build a 4-thousand -meter lake at the heart of the desert at the cost of five million dollars. The project is to be opened in 2008 as a resort near the capital.

Turkmenistan is made up mainly of desert and has the smallest population of the five former Soviet republics in Central Asia. It was also the poorest republic within the Soviet Union.

Although possessing possibly the fourth largest gas reserves in the world and substantial oil deposits, according to the CIA Fact Book, it has a rate of poverty hitting 58 among the five million population.

Turkmenistan is the most ethnically homogeneous of the Central Asian republics, with the vast majority of its population consisting of Turkmens. There are also Uzbeks, Russians and smaller minorities of Kazakhs, Tatars, Ukrainians, Azerbaijanis and Armenians.

Annexed by Russia between 1865 and 1885, Turkmenistan became a Soviet republic in 1925. It achieved its independence upon the dissolution of the USSR in 1991.