PHOTOS BY MOSTAFA MERAJI
Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque is Oman’s largest and grandest mosque, centrally located in the heart of Muscat with extensive manicured gardens, fountains and long, elegant walkways. The Grand Mosque was inaugurated by the late His Majesty Sultan Qaboos bin Said himself on 4 May 2001, as a gift to the nation to celebrate his third decade in power.
In 1993, a competition was hosted for architects to design a mosque that combined modern with traditional architecture. The winning drawing then took six years and seven months to build, featuring a mix of Islamic, Middle Eastern and Omani architectural styles and was built using 30,000 tonnes of pink sandstone imported from India, as well as local granite and white marble.
It’s Oman’s tallest structure
Oman’s architectural style favours low-rise, whitewashed buildings that celebrate the country’s history through elaborate latticework, intricate mosaics and ornate carvings of flowers and this continued into the architectural aesthetic of the mosque.
Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque is the country’s tallest structure, with an imposing 90 metre minaret. The mosque has four further minarets, and together the five towers symbolise the five pillars of Islam.
It is the country’s largest mosque
This mosque is Oman’s largest. It has the capacity for 20,000 worshippers, with 6,500 in the main musalla prayer hall, 750 in the women’s musalla and a further 8,000 in the outer paved grounds, plus additional space in the interior courtyard and along the passageways.
Once the world’s largest chandelier
The enormous Italian-manufactured chandelier was once the world’s largest, this 24-carat gold-plated chandelier is trimmed with 600,000 Swarovski crystals and 1,122 bulbs. It is located at the centre of the men’s prayer hall and is surrounded by 34 smaller versions found across the mosque.
It has a 21-tonne hand-loomed prayer carpet
The mosque also features a hand-loomed prayer carpet within the main musalla. It took 600 Iranian women four years to complete the 21-tonne carpet, which consists of 1.7 million knots and features 28 natural vegetable dyes.
The library as a cultural landmark and centre of learning
The double-storey Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque library is a cultural landmark that’s representative of Oman’s contemporary renaissance inspired by the late Sultan. More than 23,342 books on the topics of Islamic culture, natural science, fine arts, philosophy and psychology are found within its six sections, which also includes a children’s section. The collection of predominantly Arabic and English books grows larger each year.
Virtual tours of the mosque, either with or without a VR headset, can be taken at www.sultanqaboosgrandmosque.
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