Sultan Qaboos Mosque or Muscat Cathedral Mosque is the main functioning mosque of Muscat , Oman .
| Mosque | |
| Sultan Qaboos Mosque | |
|---|---|
| جامع السلطان قابوس الأكبر | |
 The appearance of the mosque | |
| A country |  Oman |
| Location | Muscat |
| Denomination | Islam |
| Type of building | Mosque |
| Architectural style | |
| Established | |
| Building | 1995 - 2001 |
History
From the very first days of his reign, Sultan Qaboos began to take care of satisfying not only the material, but also the spiritual needs of his subjects: hundreds of mosques throughout the country were built at his own expense. And in May 2001, under the blue sky of Muscat , one of the masterpieces of modern architecture appeared: the main mosque of Sultan Qaboos.
In 1992, Sultan Qaboos ordered his country of Oman to have its own Great Mosque. In 1993, a competition was held, construction began in 1995. Construction work took six years and four months.
Architecture
The mosque was built from 300,000 tons of Indian sandstone. The main prayer hall is square in shape (74.4 x 74.4 meters) with a central dome that rises to a height of 50 meters. The dome and the main minaret (90 meters high) and four side minarets (45.5 meters) are the main visual features of the mosque. The main prayer hall can simultaneously accommodate more than 6.5 thousand believers, while the women's prayer hall is only 750 people (31 x 18 meters). The external prayer area is able to accommodate 8 thousand believers, the total number is up to 20 thousand believers.
The Sultan Qaboos Mosque covers an area of 416 thousand square meters. The interior is covered with white and gray marble . Ceramic floral patterns adorn the interior of the arch and blind niches.
The dome soaring at a height is double: the inner shell is covered with a gilded mosaic , the outer one is an openwork coating. The main hall is illuminated by 35 chandeliers; The diameter of the largest made in Austria is 14 m, it has 1122 lamps and weighs 8 tons. On each chandelier of crystal and crystals, many minarets of the mosque are displayed in miniature Swarovski .
A Persian carpet in the main hall weighing 21 tons, created 1.7 million knots, the patterns of which contain 28 colors, and only vegetable dyes were used. A carpet measuring 70 x 60 m. Of 58 pieces, which were then joined into one carpet, 600 women in two shifts were woven for 4 years. Laying out the carpet took several months. This is the largest carpet in the world.