Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque

The Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque (جَامِع ٱلسُّلْطَان قَابُوْس ٱلْأَكْبَر‎) is the largest mosque in Oman, located in the capital city of Muscat. In 1992, the then Sultan of Oman, Qaboos bin Said Al Said, directed that his country should have a Grand Mosque. In 1993, a competition for the design of the proposed mosque took place. The building contract was awarded to Carillion Alawi LLC. Construction commenced in December 1994, after a site was chosen at Bausher, and it took six years and seven months to build the mosque. The main prayer hall (musalla) can accommodate over 6,500 worshippers, while the women’s section holds up to 750. The paved exterior grounds can host an additional 8,000 worshippers, with further capacity available in the inner courtyard and surrounding passageways—bringing the mosque’s total capacity to approximately 20,000 worshippers. The mosque is situated on a site spanning 416,000 square meters (4.48 million square feet), with the complex itself covering 40,000 square meters (430,000 square feet). The Grand Mosque was officially inaugurated by the Sultan of Oman on May 4, 2001, marking the 30th anniversary of his reign.

In 1992 Sultan Qaboos directed that his country should have a Grand Mosque. A competition for its design took place in 1993 and after a site was chosen at Bausher construction commenced in December 1994. Building work, which was undertaken by Carillion Alawi LLC, took six years and seven months.

The mosque is built from 300,000 tonnes of Indian sandstone. The main musalla (prayer hall) is square (external dimensions 74.4 by 74.4 metres (244 by 244 feet)) with a central dome rising to a height of fifty metres above the floor. The dome and the main minaret (90 m (300 ft)) and four flanking minarets (45.5 m (149 ft)) are the mosque’s chief visual features.