Mr Benn's Blog

Wednesday, 7th, January, 2025

We had an early start today, not planned as such, just one of those things, which meant we were up and breakfasted and on our way to the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque by just past 10am. It is certainly a stunning building, as you might expect, though the entrance, rather surprisingly, is from another building where you descend to the basement, walk through a shopping mall past Burger King and perfume shops to the far end where you register. You then walk all the way back where, thankfully, there are buggies to whisk you underneath the gardens of the mosque and off to the lift that takes you up into the sunlight and the outside of the mosque. I have heard of ‘exit through the gift shop’, but this was a new one on me.

We emerged and asked if there were toilets nearby. Yes, they were at the far end of the building, so off we trundled, Val in her wheelchair and me pushing whilst stopping every now and then to take a photo.

I couldn’t get the whole mosque in one photo, so imagine this bit attached to the left of the bit in the photo below..

We arrived at the loos, only to discover that they were not the usual disabled ones, but for females only. Val wanted me to go in with her, but that was definitely not going to happen, so they ordered up a buggy, we headed back to the other side of the mosque and were suitably accommodated. A bit of a palaver, but all ended happily.

I have pinched a photo of the whole mosque from the internet, as below, which must have been taken from the entrance to the underground shopping mall, so that should give you an idea of the distance you have to travel to get to the actual mosque.

I know you like a few statistics, so here we go. The mosque took from 1994 to 2007 to be built and covers about 12 hectares, not counting external landscaping. It has 82 domes, what is considered to be the world’s largest carpet and, inevitably, some very large chandeliers. It can accommodate 40,000 worshippers. More detail below…

It was then time to walk around the mosque. It was interesting to contrast it with the one we visited in Muscat last year. This one is very ethereal and has a Taj Mahal-like quality that is very pleasant, much enhanced by pools of water all round it.

As ever, it is huge, with the outside courtyard, below, able to accommodate 31,000 worshippers.

The main courtyard, 17,000sq m, with the largest marble mosaic in the world.

However, if you are one of my Faithful Followers, you will be saying, “that’s all well and good, John, but what about the chandeliers and carpets?” Well, good news – yes, we did see the world’s biggest carpet, but I am not sure the chandeliers were bigger than the one in Oman.

The carpet!! Or part of it at least. 5,627 sq m, made by about 1,300 carpet knotters, weighing 35 tons (the carpet, not the knotters) with 2,268,000,000 knots!

Here you go, a chandelier. Made by Faustig of Germany, there are 7 of them, the largest of which is considered to be the 2nd largest in a mosque and the 3rd largest in the world. There are some 40 million Swarovski crystals in them, allegedly. 10m wide and15 m tall.

The Mihrab, on the Qibla wall, with the Minbar to the right (from which sermons are given). This is the direction of Mecca and the Mihrab is designed to represent the many rivers that flow in heaven including those that flow with milk and honey. The half-circle shape was designed before electronics to help project the imam’s voice and create an echo.

The main interior prayer hall. The chandeliers are placed above strategic bits of the carpet, which has slightly raised lines to establish prayer areas.

There are 1,096 columns in the mosque – and no, I did not count them. Supposedly each side of each column is slightly different, which would make for a very absorbing game of ‘spot the difference’. The inlay is done with semi-precious stones using the 16th century Italian method of ‘Pietro Douro’, which was copied in the Taj Mahal and now here.

The inlaid mosaics are on display throughout and are very eye-catching.

Not my photo, obviously, but one that shows the Lunar Illuminations. I quote from the mosque’s website:
“The mosque’s lunar lighting system was uniquely designed to reflect the lunar cycle, projected onto the mosque’s external surfaces and the illumination varies intensity and brightness throughout the Hijri month according to the moon’s position and stage.
Soft undulating clouds of a bluish color are projected onto the mosque’s white marble external walls, including the façade and domes. Each day appears slightly different from the next as the lighting cycle commences with darker clouds when the month is in its early stages, and the moon is a small crescent. As the moon progresses through its cycle and becomes a full moon, the lighting effect becomes more brilliant.”

Lots of photos later, we made our way back past the shops and out to the taxi rank and back to the hotel for a break before lunch. As we have come to expect in this part of the world, the taxi drivers are from all over the place and we had a great time catching up with the latest situation in Uganda, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Ghana, etc, etc. All good fun and very nice to chat with them.

We had one more appointment for the day and that was lunch. Val particularly wanted a thali, which, for the uninitiated, is a bit like an Indian tapas and, in South India, is traditionally served on a banana leaf (saves washing up!). It is effectively a selection of different types of dishes, mostly curries, with a number of pickles, chutneys and other sauces, eg raita or yogurt. Easiest to look at the phots below. By way of contrast, I chose a North India thali. All delicious!!

Ok, I am actually still typing this on Saturday, so I had better leave it there. Suffice to say, we did not need supper that last night in Abu Dhabi and, since we had an early start the next day to catch our flight to Thailand, we inevitably had a rather restless night, but, good news, I am typing this in Thailand, so all is well.