Mosque in the Sultanate of Oman
The Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque (Arabic: جَامِع ٱلسُّلْطَان قَابُوْس ٱلْأَكْبَر, romanized: Jāmiʿ As-Sulṭān Qābūs Al-Akbar) is the largest mosque in Oman, located in the capital city of Muscat.[1]
Construction
In 1992, the then Sultan of Oman, Qaboos bin Said al Said, directed that his country should have a Grand Mosque. In 1993, a competition for the design of the proposed mosque took place. The building contract was awarded to Carillion Alawi LLC.[2] Construction commenced in December 1994, after a site was chosen at Bausher, and it took six years and seven months to build the mosque.[3]
The mosque is made of stone, with doors, windows and embellishments made of wood and glass. Around 300,000 tons of Indian sandstone was imported for the building. Five minarets have been built around the premises of the mosque: the main minaret (90 metres (300 ft)) in height, and the four flanking minarets (45.5 metres (149 ft)) are the mosque’s chief visual features from the exterior. In the interior, the main musalla is the focus of both prayer and tourism. The prayer hall is square in shape and 74.4 by 74.4 metres (244 by 244 feet) has a central dome rising to a height of 50 metres (160 ft) above the floor.[4] The dome is embellished spectacularly from the inside and it is a major tourist attraction in itself. The main musalla can hold over 6500 worshippers, while the women's musalla can accommodate 750 worshipers. The outer paved ground can hold 8000 worshipers and there is additional space available in the interior courtyard and the passageways, making a total capacity of up to 20,000 worshipers.[5]
The mosque is built on a site occupying 416,000 m2 (4,480,000 sq ft),[4] and the complex extends to cover an area of 40,000 m2 (430,000 sq ft). The newly built Grand Mosque was inaugurated by Sultan of Oman on May 4, 2001 to celebrate 30 years of his reign.[6]
Interior
A major feature of the design of the interior is the prayer carpet which covers the floor of the prayer hall. It contains, 1,700,000,000 knots, weighs 21 tonnes and took four years to produce, and brings together the classical Persian Tabriz, Kashan and Isfahan design traditions. 28 colors in varying shades were used, the majority obtained from traditional vegetable dyes. It used to be the largest single-piece carpet in the world, but is now the second,[7] after the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi, the UAE.[8] This hand-woven carpet was produced by Iran Carpet Company (ICC) at the order of the Diwan of the Royal Court of Sultanate. The carpet measures over 70 by 60 metres (230 by 200 feet), and covers the 4,343 m2 (46,750 sq ft) area of the praying hall.
The chandelier above the praying hall is 14 metres (46 feet) tall and was manufactured by the Italian company Faustig. Since the mosque is 90 metres (300 feet) high, the chandelier looks proportional, but it used to be the world's largest chandelier,[7] before again being replaced in this respect by the Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhabi.[9] It weighs 8.5 tons, includes 600,000 crystals, 1,122 halogen bulbs complete with a dimming system, and includes a staircase for maintenance within the chandelier. Thirty-four smaller chandeliers of the same design are hung in other parts of the building.[10]
