Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque
— — a quiet white that holds the desert light.
Not only on a wall.
“The main mosque of Oman, finished in 2001 after six years of building, set on a wide platform of Indian sandstone the colour of bone. The main prayer hall holds about six and a half thousand people; the whole complex closer to twenty thousand. Non-Muslim visitors are welcome in the mornings, modestly dressed, and the staff are used to slow walkers and people who want to look up for a long time at the chandelier. Most of what stays with people is the carpet, and the quiet. from the studio
Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Commissioned by Sultan Qaboos bin Said in 1992 and opened in 2001, the mosque sits on a platform of about 416,000 square metres in the Bawshar district of Muscat, the capital of Oman. The architects drew on Omani, Persian, and Mughal traditions; the cladding is Indian sandstone, the floors and screens carved marble. Five minarets mark the corners and the gate, the tallest rising about 91.5 metres. The main prayer hall accommodates roughly 6,500 worshippers, and the full complex about 20,000, making it the largest mosque in the country.
Inside the men's prayer hall lies a single hand-woven carpet that took about 600 women in Khorasan, Iran four years to complete, measuring roughly 4,343 square metres and weighing about 21 tonnes. Above it hangs a chandelier of Swarovski crystal and 24-carat gold plating, around 14 metres tall and 8 metres wide, briefly the largest in any mosque when installed. The walls carry Iznik-style tiling and Quranic calligraphy by Omani craftsmen. The sandstone outside warms through the day; the marble inside stays cool underfoot.
Non-Muslim visitors are welcomed Saturday through Thursday, generally between 8 and 11 in the morning; the mosque closes to outside visitors on Friday and for the major Islamic holidays. Entry is free. Women cover their hair, arms, and legs; men wear long trousers and sleeved shirts. Shoes come off at the prayer-hall door. The grounds are large enough that a slow walk through the courtyards, library, and outer riwaqs takes more than an hour, and the light shifts noticeably between arrival and the call to midday prayer.