Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque

Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque in Oman offers a perfect image of the importance of religion in the Middle East. Opened in 2001, the mosque is one of the largest in the Gulf area and it can accommodate an estimated 20,000 worshippers in the two prayer halls and surrounding courtyard.

The two praying halls are divided in two, for men and women, as they are not allowed to pray together, in the same hall. Before the prayer, men have the ritual of washing parts of their body in a special room designed for these purposes.

The major features of the mosque are its carpet, which covers the entire floor of the prayer hall, and its enormous chandelier, built with Swarovski crystals. The carpet contains 1,700,000,000 knots, weighs 21 tonnes and took four years to produce.