I’m going to show you all these pictures, but just know everything was way bigger and more beautiful in person. You’ll have to go someday and see for yourself. Just be prepared to wear an abaya if you’re in the child-bearing half of our species.
In the “foyer.” The huge flowers in here are made from colored marble applied to the walls. They are morning glories, although Ali had another name for them as well . . . of course I can’t remember it now.
Each individual flower was about the size of my hand.
We learned all sorts of things about the design decisions for this mosque. All the surfaces in the mosque are beautifully decorated, except the walls that people face to pray. Those walls are either plain (in the women’s room — the women’s praying room, not the bathroom) or inscribed with the 99 names of God. That keeps people from wondering, “how many pieces of mother of pearl are in that enormous red flower?” when they’re supposed to be thinking reverent thoughts about God.
I loved this blue and gold flower chandelier.
These 6ft diameter flower patterns are carved in the ceiling of the women’s prayer room and they exactly mirror the colorful flowers woven into the carpet below (that I don’t seem to have a picture of).
They maximized the amount of windows in this mosque to minimize the need for interior lighting. There are only 7 lights in the mosque — one for each of the 7 Emirates.
The back wall of the women’s prayer room is made entirely of glass with glass mosaic flowers and looks out on the main courtyard. I’d be distracted too if I had this view during prayer time.
When your lamps are this big and this elaborate, you only need seven of them.
The red and green glass globes that hang down from the bottom are a little over the top for my taste, but the rest of it sparkled and shimmered and looked like something from Cinderella’s castle.
The “happy” non-Arab family. Carter was going to take a picture of us so I stood next to Josh and started to put my arm around him and a security guard came over and said, “No touching!” (yes, just like on Arrested Development) and this is the resulting, “I can’t believe I’m standing here in this robe and I’m not allowed to have any physical contact with my own husband in public” look.
The “approved” photo. No touching, several inches of space between us, and hands behind our backs. All these interior pillars have mother of pearl inlay. It was amazing and I guess pretty impossible to do on a curved surface like a pillar. The carpet in here is the largest handwoven carpet in the world. Ali told us all the stats, but I’m going to have to refer to wikipedia to refresh my memory: It took 1200 people over 2 years to make it and it originally weighed 46 tons, but now weighs 35 tons. Ali made us guess where all the weight went and we guessed on people’s feet as they walked around on it, but it was more than that. Part of the weight loss was due to the cutouts for the pillars, but a bigger part was because the carpet was shaved three times. They shaved large straight swaths of the carpet, leaving small raised lines behind. The lines mark where people are to stand to pray, kind of like the lines in a parking lot. You can’t see them until you get up close. It’s a really ingenious way of organizing a large group of people into orderly lines.
At the end of our tour. Time to find our shoes and return my invisibility cloak.
