Updated: March 26, 2024

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The Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque is located in Abu Dhabi, the capital city of the United Arab Emirates and is the largest mosque in the country and the 20yh in the world. The mosque is large enough to accommodate over 40,100 worshippers, while the main prayer hall can hold over 7,000. There are two smaller prayer halls, with a capacity of 1,500 each, one of which is the women’s prayer hall.

The Grand Mosque was constructed between 1994 and 2007 and was inaugurated in December 2007. The building complex covering an area of more than 12 hectares, excluding exterior landscaping and vehicle parking. The main axis of the building is rotated about 12° south of true west, aligning it in the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.

The mosque was built under the guidance and supervision of Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the former president of the UAE, who was buried here after his death, in 2004.

The mosque’s architect Yusef Abdelki took inspiration from a number of sources: the Abu al-Abbas al-Mursi Mosque in Alexandria, designed by Mario Rossi in the 1920s; the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore, Pakistan; and other references of Persian, Mughal, and Indo-Islamic architecture. The dome layout and floorplan of the mosque was inspired by the Badshahi Mosque. Its archways are quintessentially Moorish, and its minarets classically Arab.

There are four minarets on the four corners of the courtyard which rise about 107 m in height. The courtyard, with its floral design, measures about 17,000 m2 and is considered to be the largest example of marble mosaic in the world.

The carpet in the hall is considered to be the world’s largest carpet made by Iran’s Carpet Company and designed by Iranian artist Ali Khaliqi. This carpet measures 5,627 m2 and was made by around 1,200-1,300 carpet knotters. The weight of this carpet is 35 ton and is predominantly made from wool (originating from New Zealand and Iran). There are 2,268,000,000 knots within the carpet and it took approximately two years to complete.

The Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque has seven imported chandeliers from the company Faustig in Munich, Germany that incorporate millions of Swarovski crystals. The largest chandelier is the second largest known chandelier inside a mosque, the third largest in the world and has a 10 m diameter and a 15 m height.