The night I arrived in Abu Dhabi, after clearing the airport and grabbing a cab to my new temporary home, the first thing I remember seeing was this huge, beautiful mosque, lit up with blue and purple lights. It was a spectacular view from the cab as we drove over a bridge very near to it. I asked the cab driver if tours were given, and he told me they were, and went on to explain that it is the 3rd largest mosque in the world, and the largest outside of Saudi Arabia. He then reminded me to make sure I dressed appropriately.
Fast forward almost a month, and we decide to take a Big Bus Tour of our new city to learn the sights and some history… and to tour the Mosque. Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan Mosque or (Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque for short) is simply beautiful, and very impressive. Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque stands at the confluence of several freeways at the Eastern edge and the entrance to the island that is Abu Dhabi. The mosque itself, not counting gardens and parking lots, covers 30 square acres. The entire complex is much larger than that and still being worked on.
When we arrived, we were dropped in front of the Visitors, on the south side of the building. We entered through airport-like security and proceeded back out along the walkway toward the mosque. All visitors are directed by signage to the right and onto an escalator down about 2 stories and into a huge underground parking facility. At the right side of where we entered, was a door marked “changing room.” I had thought I was covered enough, but I was wrong. I had on a pair of jeans and a long sleeved white cotton blouse, buttoned to the top. While it was technically enough covering, it was not the correct type of covering. My jeans were considered tight, and therefore too revealing. I later found on the website an explanation of clothing allowed, and wished I had looked at it earlier.
It would have been much easier to wear a pair of palazzo style pants and a scarf! Instead I was directed to put an Abaya on over my clothing. An Abaya is essentially a hooded black robe, and is the traditional style of dress for women out here. As I was thinking it was silly to wear this over my clothing, it occurred to me that this is exactly how women here dress. They wear the Abaya over basic street clothing, just as I was doing. Let me state right here and now that these are no wimpy women. It is HOT in there! I have no idea how they do it and remain so calm and cool looking, and apparently comfortable, without runny makeup and nary a single drop of sweat. I am impressed. I was the polar opposite of all of those things.
Once I was appropriately dressed, I stepped out of the changing area to find that my husband, in pants and a loose fitting short sleeved shirt, did not need to put on a Keffiyeh, the white robe that is the men’s traditional dress, nor did he need to cover his head. My only thought was to quote the great Opus the Penguin “PPHHHTTTT!” lol. So off we went for our tour. We had arrived at a time between guided tours, so we checked out some head phones and opted for the audio tour, and I am going to share with you as much of it as I can remember.
The first thing of note is that there are 4 minarets, and 82 domes of different sizes, the largest of these is centered over the cavernous main prayer hall. I think they said it was 33 meters in diameter, which translates to over 108 feet. It’s huge! Starting on the outside of the mosque, you can see it has a main square in the center, lined on each side with a covered walkway. The floor is white marble, with inlays of multiple other colors of marble that form flowers and vines that trail up the columns as well as through the square. The exterior of the mosque is clad in SIVEC marble from Macedonia, which is purported to be the purest white marble on the planet. Interior white marble was sourced from Italy and Greece, and the colored marbles inlaid all around were sourced from Italy, Greece, and India. The green marble that is the predominant second color is Ming green marble from China.
I must say that the exterior is impressive, but the interior blows by simply impressive and well into incredible. To be fair, this is a new building. After 12 years of construction, it opened for worship in 2007. It does not have the patina of age like the churches and cathedrals of Europe, and the temples of Asia. It is shiny and sparkly and polished, and splendid in its perfection. Thankfully it is air conditioned and very cool. There is a lot to look at, a lot going on everywhere. It is the height of opulence, but it is decidedly NOT busy. The overall effect is surprisingly restful. The first thing you see are the chandeliers. There are 7 of them, in 2 different designs. They are made of thousands of LED lights shining through thousands of Swarovski crystals, and Murano glass.
They are lowered to the ground weekly, and the person assigned to clean them can actually go inside. The larger ones have an interior ladder to climb so to reach the upper parts of the chandelier as well as the lower. The 3 primary chandeliers in the prayer hall are designed to appear as though the colors in them dripped or spilled onto the carpet below, which is done in the same hues. The carpet! Just wow. It took 1200 Iranian carpet makers 2 years to hand knot it. It was shipped to the UAE in 3 pieces which were hand stitched together in place. It is the world’s largest carpet at almost 5700 square meters (over 60,000 square feet). In order to enter the Prayer Hall, you are required to remove your shoes in order to help preserve this stunning carpet.
Within the carpet are slightly raised lines made by a special type of stitching. These lines are not visible as you look at the entire carpet, they are only visible as you come up on them. They are not so high that you trip over them either. The lines are very subtle, and do not miss a stitch in terms of continuing the pattern. Inside the mosque, there are no pews to sit in and no pillows to kneel upon. Worshippers here stand, and these lines in the carpet direct them where to stand during prayer. I had a tough time picturing it, but the next day I witnessed worshippers outside one of the local city mosques standing in line with their heads bowed during Holy Day (Friday) prayers. It then made sense to me.
After the grandeur of the chandeliers and the carpet, you start to take in the finer details of the design. There are 96 marble clad columns inlaid with mother of pearl.
At the north and south ends of the prayer hall are foyers with carved marble flowers below plaster with more inlaid marble. The windows are triple paned, with the outer panes of standard glass encasing single pane of Murano glass with floral design. The floorin
g in each of the halls is once again colored marble flowers inlaid into white marble, but in this case, the southern foyer depicts flowers indigenous to the southern hemisphere, and the northern foyer likewise with flowers indigenous to the northern hemisphere.
The mosque as I saw it on that first night, was lit by blue and purple
lights, created to mimic the night sky (including clouds and the lunar cycle). Therefore it will may look different from night to night. I have inserted a few photos depicting that as well as a link I found explaining the detail of the lighting and how they did it for those of you with theater and lighting background. The process itself is no less impressive than the rest of the mosque.
http://www.martinpro-me.com/mosque.htm
There is just so much to see here. By the time we had made our way back to the basement and I removed my Abaya, we had been here over 2 hours. I still feel like we missed something!
Note: As of this writing, the cost to build the mosque as it sits right now was 2.5 Billion AED, or around $680 million. Since there are no taxes here (no sales tax, no income tax) I assume that the royal family paid for it themselves, as a tribute to the father of the United Arab Emirates, Sheik Zayed. It is indeed a beautiful tribute. There is still construction going on at the outer edge of the grounds, so perhaps more to come?
