TRAVEL TUESDAY 385 - MUSCAT, OMAN

“Prayer does not change God, but it changes him who prays.” - Soren Kierkegaard

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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. 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 masque took place.

The building contract was awarded to Carillion Alawi LLC. Construction commenced in December 1994, after a site was chosen at Bausher, and it took six years and seven months to build the mosque. 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) in height, and the four flanking minarets (45.5 metres) 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 has a central dome rising to a height of 50 metres above the floor. 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.

The mosque is built on a site occupying 416,000 m2, and the complex extends to cover an area of 40,000 m2. The newly built Grand Mosque was inaugurated by Sultan of Oman on May 4, 2001 to celebrate 30 years of his reign.

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TRAVEL TUESDAY 292 - JAMA MOSQUE, DELHI

“From the beginning men used God to justify the unjustifiable.” ― Salman Rushdie

Welcome to the Travel Tuesday meme! Join me every Tuesday and showcase your creativity in photography, painting and drawing, music, poetry, creative writing or a plain old natter about Travel.

There is only one simple rule: Link your own creative work about some aspect of travel and share it with the rest of us.

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The Masjid-i Jahān-Numā (the 'World-reflecting Mosque'), commonly known as the Jama Masjid of Delhi, is one of the largest mosques in India. It was built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan between 1644 and 1656 at a cost of one million rupees, and was inaugurated by an imam from Bukhara, present-day Uzbekistan.

The mosque was completed in 1656 AD with three great gates, four towers and two 40 m high minarets constructed of strips of red sandstone and white marble. The courtyard can accommodate more than 25,000 persons. There are three domes on the terrace which are surrounded by the two minarets. On the floor, a total of 899 black borders are marked for worshippers. The architectural plan of Badshahi Masjid, built by Shah Jahan's son Aurangzeb at Lahore, Pakistan, is similar to the Jama Masjid.

It is unfortunate that the mosque has been the site of two attacks, one in 2006 and another in 2010. During the first, two explosions occurred in the mosque, injuring thirteen people. In the second, two Taiwanese students were injured as two gunmen opened fire upon them.

Places of worship and culture should be places of peace and good will, irrespective of creed or religious denomination. It is an indictment of our “civilised” society that such hateful crimes are not only still common, but on the increase, as nationalistic frenzy and religious extremism proliferate.

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.

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TRAVEL TUESDAY #147 - JERUSALEM, ISRAEL

“Jerusalem is not just a beautiful city: The challenge is to show that Jerusalem can be shared in peace and respect.” - Federica Mogherini

Welcome to the Travel Tuesday meme! Join me every Tuesday and showcase your creativity in photography, painting and drawing, music, poetry, creative writing or a plain old natter about Travel.

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Jerusalem located on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean and the Dead Sea, is one of the oldest cities in the world. In the ancient cuneiform, Jerusalem was called Urusalima, meaning ‘City of Peace’, during the early Canaanite period (approximately 2400 BC). It is considered a Holy city to the three major Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Israelis and Palestinians both claim Jerusalem as their capital, as the State of Israel maintains its primary governmental institutions there while the State of Palestine ultimately foresees the city as its seat of power; however, neither claim is widely recognised internationally.

During its long history, Jerusalem has been destroyed at least twice, besieged 23 times, attacked 52 times, and captured and recaptured 44 times. The part of Jerusalem called the City of David was settled in the 4th millennium BCE. In 1538, walls were built around Jerusalem under Suleiman the Magnificent. Today those walls define the Old City, which has been traditionally divided into four quarters (known since the early 19th century as the Armenian, Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Quarters). The Old City became a World Heritage Site in 1981, and is on the List of World Heritage in Danger.

Modern Jerusalem has grown far beyond the Old City's boundaries. Despite having an area of only 0.9 square kilometres the Old City is home to many sites of seminal religious importance, among them the Temple Mount and its Western Wall, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, the Dome of the Rock (shown above), the Garden Tomb and al-Aqsa Mosque. Today, the status of Jerusalem remains one of the core issues in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Nevertheless, all branches of the Israeli government are located in Jerusalem, including the Knesset (Israel's parliament), the residences of the Prime Minister and President, and the Supreme Court. The international community does not recognise Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and the city hosts no foreign embassies.

Jerusalem is also home to some non-governmental Israeli institutions of national importance, such as the Hebrew University and the Israel Museum with its Shrine of the Book. In 2011, Jerusalem had a population of 801,000, of which Jews comprised 497,000 (62%), Muslims 281,000 (35%), Christians 14,000 (around 2%) and 9,000 (1%) were not classified by religion.

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Blue Monday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.

TRAVEL TUESDAY #143 - GRAND MOSQUE, MOROCCO

“When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator.” - Mahatma Gandhi 

Welcome to the Travel Tuesday meme! Join me every Tuesday and showcase your creativity in photography, painting and drawing, music, poetry, creative writing or a plain old natter about Travel.

There is only one simple rule: Link your own creative work about some aspect of travel and share it with the rest of us. Please use this meme for your creative endeavours only.

Do not use this meme to advertise your products or services as any links or comments by advertisers will be removed immediately. 

The Hassan II Mosque or Grande Mosquée Hassan II (Arabic: مسجد الحسن الثاني‎; colloquially the “Casablanca Hajj”) is a mosque in Casablanca, Morocco. It is the largest mosque in Morocco, the second largest in Africa, and the 5th largest in the world. Its minaret is the world’s tallest at 210 metres. Completed in 1993, it was designed by Michel Pinseau and built by Bouygues.

The minaret is 60 stories high topped by a laser, the light from which is directed towards Mecca. The mosque stands on a promontory looking out to the Atlantic Ocean; worshippers can pray over the sea but there is no glass floor looking into the sea. The walls are of hand-crafted marble and the roof is retractable. A maximum of 105,000 worshippers can gather together for prayer: 25,000 inside the mosque hall and another 80,000 on the mosque’s outside ground.

Apart from the mosque, other structures in the area are a madrasa (Islamic school), hammams (bathhouses), a museum on Moroccan history, conference halls, and a very large library said to be the “most comprehensive in the Islamic world”. The 41 fountains in the courtyard are all well decorated. The garden around the mosque is well-tended and is a popular location for family picnics. The traditionally designed madrasa occupies an area of 4,840 square metres including the basement. Two stories in height, it is constructed in a semi-circular shape, with abutting qibla wall and the mihrab section. 

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme, 
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.