During our week in Muscat, Oman we hired a one-day guide, Jaffar, to show us the interesting parts of this capital city of over 1.5 million residents.

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The first stop on our tour was the incredibly beautiful Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque, which is the 3rd largest mosque in the world, the only one in the country that allows non-Muslims to visit, and the main mosque of the sultan of Oman. The impressive, 40,000 square-meter complex resulted from a 1993 design competition and took almost 7 years to build. 

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We easily spotted the mosque’s five minarets, with the tallest one standing 90 meters high and the four others each measuring almost 46 meters tall.

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Masons constructed the Grand Mosque out of three hundred thousand tons of white Indian sandstone. In addition to prayer halls, courtyards, and passageways with intricately carved stonework, the complex also includes a library and meeting rooms.

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Jaffar explained that the mosque is large enough to accommodate 20,000 worshippers at each of the morning, evening, or Friday services: 6,500 in the men’s prayer hall, 750 in the women’s prayer hall, and the additional people in the passageways and courtyards.

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We really liked the passageway niches that included beautiful tile mosaics made with colorful floral and geometric designs.

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Before entering the men’s prayer hall, Jaffar told us that we would be impressed with the size and detail. And he was right! The magnificent single-piece carpet is the world’s second largest handwoven carpet. It took 600 female artisans four years to weave the incredible floor covering with 28 colors and weighing 21 tons. It’s difficult to even imagine how the carpet was installed.

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Another jaw-dropping feature of the men’s prayer hall is the dome with a huge chandelier. The massive central dome is gold on the outside of the building. And exquisite mosaics decorate the interior of the dome, which reaches a height of 50 meters at the peak. At first glance, the central chandelier does not look 14 meters tall because it is proportioned to the size of the dome. Jaffar amazed us with the light’s statistics: weighs 8.5 tons, includes 600,000 Swarovski crystals and 1,122 halogen bulbs, has 24-karat gold plating, and took four years to create. The room also features 34 smaller and very beautiful chandeliers. 

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Even though the women’s prayer hall is smaller and less elaborate, it features amazing polished woodwork, colorful windows with fine pieces of stained glass, and a vast amount of stonework with intricate designs. 

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