The beautiful white mosque in the capital Abu Dhabi is the largest mosque in the country, the grand mosque was constructed between 1996 to 2007, designed by Syrian architect Yousef Abdelky the project was launched by the late president of the (UAE), sheikh Zayed Bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who wanted to establish a structure that would unite the cultural diversity of the Islamic world with the historical and modern values of architecture and art, in the year 2004 Sheikh Zayed died and was buried in the courtyard of the mosque.
Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque Design and Construction:
Design of this mosque has been inspired by Mughal, Persian and the Alexandrian mosque of Abu al-Abbas al-Mursi Mosque in Egypt, also the Indo –Islamic mosque architecture, particularly the Lahore’s Badshahi mosque in Pakistan being direct Influences, the dome layout of and floorplan of the mosque was inspired by Badshahi Mosque.
The mosque was completed under the 2nd contract by a joint venture between ACC and Six Construction (part of BESIX) between 2004 and 2007.
The natural materials were chosen for much of its design and construction due to their long-lasting qualities including marble stone, gold, crystals, semi-precious stones, and ceramics. Materials and artisans came from many countries including Italy, Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, Iran, Germany, Marocco, Malaysia, China, New Zealand, United Kingdom, North Macedonia and the UAE.
A Cultural guide:
According to the Muhammad Abdulah Al-Hashmi, one of the team member of Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque Center, a culture guide (at the same an electrical engineer):
The mosque is here to open for Muslims and non-muslims offering the people a complimentary tour to share the experience of being inside a mosque.
This is the main entrance and you can see that all the managers are here is full with flower illustration in the middle of the main entrance.
There is a big flower which is the biggest among the flowers on the ground and the center of this flower is Praveen the color to the center of the chandelier above.
And the idea is that this flower takes the energy or the photons from the source of light
Which is above which is the chandelier is and when it comes to it, it grows all over to the walls.
This grand mosque has ten 10 clocks in different places of the mosque it’s made for helping the worshippers to show them the time of daily prays.
We are now standing in the main hall of Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque and this whole cloud takes around 7,000worshippers at once.
When you come to the mosque you would see that all of the walls and the ceiling are full of details
such a kind of design is related to the Moorish style of the mosque.
When you come to the inside part of the main hall you will find all the repetition of the angles repetition of the circles and the repetition of the flowers design.
The sheikh zayed grand mosque has 82 domes and the middle of this room (main hall) on the top it’s the biggest among the 82 domes and it is the biggest in the world inside a mosque as well.
Under the dome there is the beautiful chandelier it is one of the seven 7 chandeliers of the mosque and it is a largest chandelier in the world inside the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque weighing 9.5 tonnes.
All chandeliers are made in Germany, glass work are all Murano the crystals used are all suave escy crystals that brought from Austria, and aluminum work are all in the golden color, when you come to the main hall you will find the relation between the colors on chandelier and colors on the carpets.
The carpet you will see in the main hall is the largest handmade carpet in the world this colorful carpet is made in Iran by around 1200 ladies from the city called mesh head in Iran.
This mosque is one of the lists places in the world that you would find marble inlaid with the mother-of-pearl and that’s what we can see in the pillars of the grand mosque main hall under the pillar the outer shape is looking like the leaf of a tree leaf that I have been used as the grapes leaf that is mentioned in our holy book of Quran (that means “To Read Again And Again”) that grapes as one of the fruits in heaven and in the middle of the main hall pillars the beautiful floral design.
Which is made by a mosaic glass to show the grapes itself on the top of the all four 4 pillars there’s the golden-colored palm tree leaves in Islam.
The palm tree is mentioned more than twenty 20 times in more than twenty 20 different subjects in our holy book of the Quran. When we pray in the Islam we must face a certain direction which is the direction of the Makka and direction from this part of the world is this way so that‘s why we call this beautiful wall “the direction wall”, in the middle of this wall at the top there is a big circle and it’s written inside the name “ALLAH” it means the GOD, distributed all over the wall there are 99 names of ALLAH (Qualities of the God) written in the beautiful style.
All the calligraphy is used on this wall are kofi style and kofi is one of the calligraphy used to write our holy book of the Quran. In the middle of the wall, there is a semicircle shape that semicircle shape is where the imam / the leader of worshippers will aim while praying on the behalf of the worshippers behind the wooden pulpit in here is made by the sandalwood and allayed with mother-of-pearl.
Daily mail spraying hole has a different type of carpet ceiling used is a different kind of the design and there are no doors the carpet has the sandy color we can say as the desert color, flower illustration on the carpet itself could be the tents that we left in and could we also mean the Oasis and to go from one tent to another we can say that these (white) lines which are the white ones are the path.
The last December had around 30,000 visitors in a day for the whole month of December we got around the 300,000 visitors. Working in here the sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque center as a culture guide it’s given me the door to share my life to other people and also access to share their lives as well.
