Our first excursion in Muscat took us to the Grand Mosque. The mosque is open for tours from 8-11AM and closed the remainder of the day for prayer. The grounds were huge with tons of trees and flowers all around. Very beautiful!
The mosque was a gift from Sultan Qaboos to mark the 30th year of his reign. Construction began in 1995 and it took 6 years and 4 months to complete.
We are soaking up all of these fresh flowers before the heat comes and they will probably all be gone.
In order to tour the mosque women have to cover their heads and men have to wear long pants and sleeves. They weren't too keen on my capri pants, but there were lots of other women in capris, and fortunately they let us in. This nice Omani woman helped me wrap my scarf so that I didn't look like a complete fool. Eric said I was the most colorful woman in Arabia! Haha!!! I do love my colors!
Madison is becoming a budding little photographer. She took this picture for us.
The mosque is built from 300,000 tons of Indian sandstone
This is the women's musalla (prayer space). It can hold approximately 750 worshipers.
It was hard to show the size of this room because half of it was roped off for people to walk thru.
There are 5 corridors that surround the grand mosque, symbolizing the 5 pillars of Islam.
This is a plaque explaining the different colored niches. Simply stunning.
The ablution room
The chandelier in the grand mosque - wouldn't want to have to dust that!!!
These ladies were taking two women from Canada on a tour and kindly allowed me to get a photo with them. Behind us is a niche where the man who leads the prayers stands and kneels.
The central dome rises 164 feet above the main worship space
The musalla (prayer room) can accommodate approximately 6,500 worshipers
This Persian rug is one single piece! It is the second largest hand loomed Iranian carpet in the world! It took 600 women 4 years to weave and measures 300 feet long by 197 feet wide.
The Quran
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