Abu Dhabi: The Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque main prayer hall has the largest carpet in the world, a one-of-a-kind masterpiece of exquisite beauty and design.
The carpet was hand-woven by some of the world’s most skilled artists and weavers, and despite its sheer size, the carpet was designed as a single piece, earning it a Guinness World Record in 2017 as the world’s largest carpet. Its knotting took approximately 12 months.
The carpet covers an area of 5,627 square meters, and it was designed with fine and beautiful arts at a cost of 30 million dirhams. The huge carpet is maintained by re-stirring, washing and knitting, a process carried out by about 15 workers.
The wool and cotton carpet was hand-crafted by around 1,200 artisans. It is 5,400 square metres, with 40 knots per 6.5 centimetres and 2.5 billion knots for the entire carpet, weighing 35 tons after completion.
Urban creativity
The Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan Mosque is a prominent Islamic edifice in the UAE and a model of architectural and engineering creativity. This made it one of the most important cultural destinations of a religious nature in the world.
It is known locally as the Sheikh Zayed Mosque, the Grand Mosque or also the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. It is the fourth largest mosque in the world in terms of total area after the Grand Mosque, the Prophet’s Mosque, and Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca.
Domes and decoration
The number of domes in it reaches 82, and the columns are about a thousand. Chandeliers adorn the mosque with golden touches. One of the largest chandeliers in the world hangs in the main prayer hall. It has a diameter of 10 meters, a height of 15 meters, and weighs more than nine tons. Water basins surround the mosque.
The first prayer held in the mosque was the funeral of Sheikh Zayed, who was buried on the northern side of the mosque on November 3, 2004, before the construction work of the mosque was completed, knowing that the mosque was named after him.
Building the mosque
In the construction of the mosque, the building materials used were imported from different countries, including Italy, Germany, Morocco, India, Turkey, Iran, China, Greece.
More than 3,000 workers and 38 international contracting companies contributed to the construction of the mosque, which covers an area of 22,412 square meters, equivalent to the size of five football fields.
Natural materials were chosen for construction and design due to their high quality; where he used marble, stone, gold, semi-precious stones, crystal and ceramics.
The prayer halls contain white Italian marble inlaid with floral designs, while the square includes white Greek marble. The mosque is surrounded by four minarets in its four corners; each is about 107 meters long.
The number of visitors to the Sheikh Zayed Mosque annually reaches 6 million visitors, from all over the world.
