The following text is a report written by Aneisa Bosch.  Ms. Bosch has deep roots with the Sultanate of Oman and we are happy that she is allowing us to present her report regarding the architecture of the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque.  Ms. Bosch, we thank you!  The report reads as follows:

Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque in Muscat, Oman was built not only as a central place of worship for the Sultanate but also as a center for the propagation of the Islamic civilization, literature, and culture. Besides the beautiful central mosque itself, the new complex also includes an Islamic Studies Center complete with a 20,000-volume library and a 300-seat meeting and conference hall. The Diwan of the Royal Court held an international competition to find the best plans for the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque in 1993. Building commenced early in 1995, headed by the winning architects Mohamed Saleh Makiya and Quad Design of London and Muscat. The massive complex was finished in 2001. The site covers an area of 416,000 square meters and the complex is built over an area of around 40,000 square meters. The main musalla (prayer hall) (external dimensions 74.4x74.4 meters) has been designed to hold over 6,500 worshippers, while the women's musalla can accommodate 750 worshippers. The outer paved ground can hold 8,000 worshippers and there is additional space available in the interior courtyard and the passageways, making a total capacity of up to 20,000 worshippers.

Five minarets (four are 45 meters high and the center one is 91.5 meters high) frame the mosque complex, giving it the verticality that the Mamluk (Tomb and Madrasa of Sultan Hasan built in 1356) and Timurid (Gur-i-Amir built in 1404) buildings were famous for. The five minarets symbolize the five pillars of Islam. Three entrances direct visitors into the grounds of the complex, each ending in its own separate open area, off of which leads into a series of arcades. The main entrance courtyard sits on the cross axis with the main minaret. To the east and west of the main entrance are the two secondary entrances. All of them lead into the sahn (courtyard), which surrounds the prayer halls. The entire floor of the complex is paved with prayer mat-sized marble slabs arranged in geometric patterns. The garden to the east of the complex is laid out in the traditional Islamic style. There is a pavilion with a patio, as well as passageways and iwans (traditional sheltered areas originally created by the Sasanians in Iran). The iwans are plain and pointed barrel vaulted spaces with geometric borders around their tops. Each one has three interior carved niches, two with a rib decoration similar to the ornamentation at the Fatimid mosque of al-Aqmar, and a central one with a traditional geometric arabesque design. The iwans have an austere appearance in comparison with the colorful tile work covering the four iwans in the courtyard of the Jami Masjid (Friday Mosque) in Isfahan, Iran (10th-11thc. A.D.). A fawwara (fountain) with a falaj (channel) flows from the pavilion to the center of the garden, invoking the plant and water filled concept of paradise portrayed in the Koran.

The main prayer hall is a domed square building, a basic form frequently used by the Ottomans after being influenced by the Byzantine church of Hagia Sophia in Istanbul (537 A.D.). Ceramic floral patterns adorn arch framed mural panels set in marble, forming blind niches in a variety of predominately Persian Safavid designs also seen in the decorative muqamas of the portal arch of the Masjid-1 Shah in Isfahan, Iran (1611-1616 A.D.). The blind niches in the Persian Safavid style contain central medallion forms with swirling floral arabesque patterns. The Persian Safavid influence continues on the floor of the main prayer hall with a 263-square-meter prayer carpet. Following the Safavid style promoted by the famous Ardabil carpets, the Sultan Qaboos Great Mosque carpet has a central medallion composition with dependent cartouches of floral arabesques (Blair and Bloom 172). It is composed of the most popular colors used during the Safavid period including red, yellow, and blue (Hillenbrand 246). The interior of the Shaykh Lutfallah Dome in Isfahan inspired the design in the central medallion. The carpet is divided into prayer rug-sized units, combining the beauty of the Safavid design with the functional use of designating individual worship spaces. The carpet contains 1,700 million knots, weighs 21 tons, and took four years to produce. Quranic verses and a twisted cable ceramic gold molding surrounds the mihrab (niche facing Mecca). The entire structure is laced in cut ceramic tile ceramic inlays, creating the outer, side, and inner frames, the soffits of the arches, stalactites, and walls. The mihrab resembles its Ottoman counterpart in the famous Green Mosque with its decorative muqamas vaulting and bright ceramic tile material (Hoag 315). Yet the mihrab also represents traditional Omani architecture because it projects through the outer Qibla wall. Typical of international Islamic architecture (such as at the Dome of the Rock and the Great Mosque of Damascus) as well as local Omani traditions, there is a flat wooden ceiling around the central prayer hall dome. Rising 50 feet off the floor, the dome is assembled in segments between the marble ribs and columns from large pendent elements all inlaid in fine cut tiles. 

The mosque interior is similar to the Ottoman Suliymaniye mosque complex in Istanbul. They both have the same open-plan hall with four main pillars, which support the inner structures of their domes. Both serve multiple functions besides being places of worship. The two buildings were built to elevate the people's perception of Islam with several madarasas (theological colleges) and a Koran school for boys in Suliymaniye and an Islamic Studies Center in the newer mosque in Muscat. They both have the colored voussoirs that are reminiscent of the Mamluk architectural decorative tradition and the arches of the renowned Great Mosque at Cordoba (785- late 1 Othc. A.D.). However, the impact of the multi-colored voussoir is more dramatic in the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque due to the contrasting off-white and dark gray marble walls that serve as a background for the Mamluk style arches. Both mosques also have muqamas on the cornices that surround the interiors of the domes. The two buildings also have windows that surround the drum of the dome. The two mosques share the Ottoman's fascination with space and light inspired by the Byzantine Hagia Sophia church. Light from the windows at the drum as well as aptly placed stained glass windows sculpt the areas of the two mosques. The mosque in Muscat has additional light from its 35 chandeliers made of Swarovski crystal and gilded metals.

The Sultan Qaboos Mosque echoes the Ottoman period's emphasis on minarets and domes. Although the mosque in Muscat has more decoration than a traditional Ottoman mosque such as Suliymaniye, they both focus on architectural form rather than surface ornamentation. The architects made the exterior of the Sultan Qaboos Mosque fairly plain with little color to emphasize the central dome along with its smaller ones interspersed throughout the complex and the five minarets. The central dome with its outer-latticed work embossed in gold and gold mosaic inner dome shines brightly against the blue of the Muscat sky. The five towering minarets with their two levels and needle end points appear to be geometricized, bulkier versions of the Ottoman style minarets that can be seen at the Suliymaniye Mosque and the Blue Mosque. Instead of the tapering ends of the Ottoman style, the five minarets end in ribbed domes, adding to the motif of domes around the Sultan Qaboos Mosque.

The Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque represents a spectacular array of different Islamic art and architecture styles from its vast period of history. It boasts 442 meters of Ottoman, Mamluk, Islamic Indian Mughal, Iranian Safavid, traditional Omani, and more styles of art and architecture in its riwaqs (northern and southern passageways). The Ottoman ceramic niche epitomizes the traditional Saz style, in which composite flowers are displayed on a gracefully curving armature of lanceolate leaves with feathered edges (Blair and Bloom 237). The Ottoman Saz style can be seen at the Mosque of Rustam Pusha in Istanbul (1561-1562 A.D.). The ostentatious colors in polychrome marble of the Mamluk niche evoke the period's strong sense of color and pervasive sculptural quality seen in the mausoleum complex of Sultan Barquq in Cairo (1386 A.D.)  Hillenbrand 146-147). The Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque also exhibits niches in the style of the famous Moghul monument, the Taj Mahal. Semi-precious stones have been inlaid in white marble in a floral motif in the pietra durra technique. This type of decoration can also be seen in the Red Fort in Delhi (Esposito 258-259). The Byzantine niche mosaics imitate the mosaics of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem (690 A.D.). The niche artisans abstracted the famous paradisiacal vegetation images into a striking geometric leaf motif (Esposito 224).

Alongside international Islamic art and architectural traditions, the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque also exhibits local Omani styles. The celebrated riwaqs also contain a niche depicting traditional Omani silver jewelry on a blue ceramic background. The enormous carpet in the main prayer hall combines a Persian Safavid design with traditional blue and white Omani borders. The facades of the musallla are articulated with vertical buttresses that operate as structural supports as well as ventilation ducts like the barajil (wind-towers), which are a common feature of the local architectural tradition. The walls of the main prayer hall are topped with parapets of the type originally found in Omani forts like Jabrin.

Calligraphy, a form of art present in both international Islamic and traditional Omani art and architecture, plays a major role in decoration in the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque.  This epigraphic style of ornamentation is a tradition that goes back to the Dome of the Rock.  In the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque, the upper walls of the prayer hall and the inner courtyard are decorated with a band of Quranic verses in the Thuluth script (a sprawling, decorative calligraphic style), and the arches over the passageways have a band comprising chapters from the Holy Quran.  All the arches of the main entrances contain calligraphy.  Calligraphy is even applied to the prayer hall’s wooden doors, each of which is topped with Quranic verses in the Thuluth script.  Like the Alhambra Palace in Spain, the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque contains calligraphy that has a special connotation in relation to where it is located.  Just as the astrological imagery evoked in the calligraphy links the dome of the Hall of Abencerrajes in the Alhambra to the starry sky, in the Sultan Qaboos Mosque, the southern façade of the base of the main minaret is appropriate inscribed with the words of the Azan (call to prayer.)  Besides calligraphy, the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque continues the tradition of arabesque and geometric decoration used from the beginning of Islamic art.  The walls of the prayer hall are set with stained glass windows with geometric designs and pictures of plants.  The ladies prayer hall entrance porch shows a similar arabesque and geometric decoration under the soffits as at the mosque of t Ibn Tulun in Cairo (878-879 A.D.) 

The Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque combines various features of traditional Islamic art and architecture from the Persian Savafids, the Mamluks, the Indian mughals, and the Ottomans, as well as Oman’s specific history of forts, jewelry, carpets and wind-towers with a modern twist.  Combining function with beauty, it is a true monument to the originality of Islamic art and architecture. In a world of an ever changing landscape, the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque dominates the skyline in a tribute to a distinguished and noble Islamic heritage.