Final Day in Oman

Our final day in Oman we ate a quick breakfast and headed for the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque.

In 1992 Sultan Qaboos declared that Oman should have a Grand Mosque and a competition was held for the design of the Mosque. In December of 1994 construction began and it was finished in May 2001.

The Mosque was built from 300,000 tons of Indian sandstone and its HUGE! Not only is the actual prayer hall large, but the grounds and surrounding structures take up a large chunk of land-- 416,000 square meters to be exact.

We entered the main entrance and walked over to the gift shop area to get a scarf to cover my hair since I'd forgotten mine. Men are required to wear long pants and women are required to cover their hair, arms, and legs and all visible tattoos must be covered. So I was in a t-shirt with a cardigan over it and long flowy palazzo pants. I bought a scarf and one of the ladies working there wrapped it around my head, hijab style.

And then, I was standing with Christopher while he was paying for my scarf and the woman at the register gasped and exclaimed, "You have to cover the orange!" and rushed over to me and redid my scarf to completely cover my red hair while she glared at the original lady who had done it. So yeah, that was interesting...haha!

After I was adequately covered (and my shocking red hair was hidden), we headed further onto the grounds and towards the prayer hall.

We came across the Women's prayer hall first and removed our shoes and walked in. The giant wooden doors flanking the entrance are gorgeous and so detailed! Its not a huge space, but 750 women can fit inside. The ceilings were carved wood and there were beautiful chandeliers hanging from it that sparkled like crazy! The main wall had three large arched windows with stained glass nestled in them and the rest of the walls were adorned with different shapes and carvings.

We walked through and headed for the mens prayer hall, which is absolutely gigantic. It can hold 6,500 worshipers (and the paved ground outside called musalla can hold 8,000 people which means that the Grand Mosque can hold a capacity of 20,000 worshipers!) and is impressively large.

When we first came to it there was a sign that children under 10 weren't allowed in, which was so upsetting, because we knew it wasn't something we wanted Stella to miss. So we planned to take turns, but when I walked in first, there were loads of small kids inside, so I went back out and got Christopher and Stella and we brought her in and I am SO so glad we let her in.

The mens prayer hall is nothing short of breathtaking. Pictures and pretty words could never do it justice, but I'll try my best!

It is so incredibly opulent, it was hard to focus on what to look at. The carpet that takes up the entire floor is stunning! Its the second largest single piece carpet in the world and it took 600 women four years to make. It contains 1,700,000,000 knots and weighs 21 tons and covers the 4,343 square meter area of the prayer hall.  Needless to say, its incredible.

The signature on the carpet

The main chandelier that hangs from the interior of the dome is THE largest chandelier in the world and it is... I hate to keep using the same word but, opulent! Its 14 meters tall and was created in Italy and the amount of sparkle coming off the thing was just marvelous!

We took our time and tried to take in the whole space but every where we looked there was something else incredible vying for our attention. There was one nook area of the mosque that had just incredible tile and mosaic work. I feel like I'm running out of adjectives to describe this place, but seriously, all those big, descriptive $5 words are necessary to even try to describe the Mosque.

We finished walking through the prayer hall and made our way back outside to walk around the grounds a bit. There were covered areas to sit all along the outside that sort of framed the Musalla area and even those had decorated ceilings and seating areas. The mosaic and tile work we found was just awesome.

We finished up walking around and headed back to our taxi (by this time, I was roasting hot in my sweater and covered head... I really don't know how the women do it all the time when the sun is so hot!) and back towards the hotel. We had quite a bit of time to kill so we ended up taking Stella to the mall to play in the little arcade they had there before we had some lunch and then headed to the airport.

We had a wonderful trip to Oman! I really cant gush about it enough... it was such a beautiful country filled with adventure and wonder and welcoming people! I highly, HIGHLY recommend it!