Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque
The Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque (Arabic: جَامِع ٱلسُّلْطَان قَابُوْس ٱلْأَكْبَر,romanized: Jāmiʿ As-Sulṭān Qābūs Al-Akbar) is the main mosque in the Sultanate of Oman, located in the capital city of Muscat.
In 1992 Sultan Qaboos directed that his country should have a Grand Mosque. A competition for its design took place in 1993 and after a site was chosen at Bausher construction commenced in December 1994. Building work, which was undertaken by Carillion Alawi LLC, took six years and seven months. The great opening was 2001.
The mosque is built from 300,000 tonnes of Indian sandstone. The main musalla (prayer hall) is square (external dimensions 74.4 by 74.4 metres (244 by 244 feet)) with a central dome rising to a height of fifty metres above the floor. The dome and the main minaret (90 m (300 ft)) and four flanking minarets (45.5 m (149 ft)) are the mosque’s chief visual features. The main musalla can hold over 6,500 worshippers, while the women's musalla can accommodate 750 worshipers. The outer paved ground can hold 8,000 worshipers and there is additional space available in the interior courtyard and the passageways, making a total capacity of up to 20,000 worshipers.
The mosque is built on a site occupying 416,000 m2 (4,480,000 sq ft), 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.
Thank you!
