Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque

Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque

in Muscat - and taken through the window of the bus ...

In 1992 Sultan Qaboos directed that his country of Oman should have a Grand Mosque. Building of the mosque started in 1996 and took six years and four months.
The Mosque is built from 300,000 tonnes of Indian sandstone. The main musalla (prayer hall) is square with a central dome rising to a height of fifty metres above the floor. The dome and the main minaret (90 metres) and four flanking minarets (45.5 metres) 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. With additional outside space the total capacity is for up to 20,000 worshippers.
The Mosque is built on a site occupying 416,000 square metres and the complex extends to cover an area of 40,000 square metres. (excerpts from Wikipedia)

thank you very much, Joelle Millet, for recommending my image for the gallery: