Sultan Qaboos Mosque, Salalah, Dhofar Governorate‎, Oman 

Close to the road leading to the heart of the capital Muscat stands the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque in Wilayat Bawshar, like a radiant lighthouse attracting its visitors to interact with the spirit of Islam as a religion, science and civilisation. This mosque highlights its role as a scientific and intellectual source of knowledge across the Islamic world.

After having an architectural competition to select the best design for Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque, construction took six years. The mosque’s total capacity is 20,000 worshipers, and it covers an estimated area of 416,000 square metres. The main square-shaped prayer room can accommodate 6,500 worshipers and has a central dome which rises 50 metres above the floor. The mosque’s distinctive minaret lends it its individual style. Connecting the top of the mosque’s walls and the internal courtyard is a bar inscribed with verses from the Koran in Thuluth script, with Islamic geometric frameworks filling the corridor archways. The names of Allah are inscribed in Diwani script on the corridors’ front walls.

The corridors seem like a secure wall surrounding the mosque’s building and meet through the five minarets that delineate the borders of the mosque’s location and symbolise the five pillars of Islam. The length of the north and south corridors is 240 metres each. These have been divided into halls, each containing a decoration from a specific Islamic culture. The northern and southern corridors constitute the boundary between the places of worship and the mosque’s other facilities. A canopy of domes resembling the domes of Bilad Bani Bu Ali mosque in A’Sharqiyah Region(Eastern Region) crowns the top of the corridors.

Epic Oman Culture & Adventure Route © Monika Newbound

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