After lunch at Emirates Palace, we headed over to the Grand Mosque. This mosque is one of the few that is open to non-Muslims. All women entering the mosque must wear the traditional dress and have their hair covered at all times. Men have to wear the traditional dress, but only if they are wearing shorts.
The mosque is amazingly beautiful and enormous. It is 22,412 square meters, about the size of five football fields and can accommodate 40,960 worshipers. There are 82 domes all decorated in marble and semi precious stones. The entire mosque is made of marble, stone, gold, semi-precious stones and crystals. We took a tour through the mosque with a guide. He had lots of information to share with us regarding the religion, traditions and the mosque itself. There are about 1,000 columns int he outer area and just under 100 inside the main prayer hall. In keeping with Dubai trend of having the biggest and best of everything the mosque is home to the world's largest chandelier as well as the world's largest hand knotted carpet. The carpet is beautiful and was hand knotted by 1200 artisans in small villages near Mashhadin, Iran.
The mosque was beautiful, both inside and out and was fascinating to learn so much about the culture we are living in.
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