Skip to player
Skip to main content
Skip to footer
Search
Connect
Watch fullscreen
Like
Comments
Bookmark
Share
Add to Playlist
Report
The Shaikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi
Gulf News
Follow
2/11/2025
Gulf News takes a cultural tour of one of the UAE capital's most iconic landmarks, the Shaikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi.
Read more Shaikh Zayed Grand Mosque stories on gulfnews.com - Shaikh Zayed Grand Mosque among world’s most iconic http://bit.ly/2CNMg5G
See more videos at https://gulfnews.com/videos
Category
🗞
News
Transcript
Display full video transcript
00:00
My name is Muhammad Abdullah Al-Hashmi and I'm proud to be one of the team members of
00:29
the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque Centre. I'm a culture guide but at the same time I'm an
00:34
electrical engineer. The wonderful thing about my job is that every time and every day I
00:40
meet another person. It means another personality. Every day for me is a different experience.
00:47
The mosque here is open for Muslims and non-Muslims, offering the people a complimentary tour to
00:54
share the experience of being inside the mosque. This is the main entrance and you can see
01:01
that all the main entrance here is full with flower illustrations. In the middle of this
01:07
main entrance there is a big flower which is the biggest among the flowers on the ground
01:12
and the centre of this flower is perpendicular to the centre of the chandelier above. And
01:18
the idea is that this flower takes the energy or the photons from the source of light which
01:24
is above which is the chandelier and when it comes to it, it grows all over to the walls.
01:33
The mosque has ten clocks around it and in different places of the mosque it's made for
01:41
helping the worshippers to show them the times of the daily prayers. We are now standing
01:47
in the main hall of the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque and this hall could take around 7,000
01:53
worshippers at once. When you come to the mosque you would see that all of the walls
01:59
and the ceiling are full with details. Such a kind of design is related to the Moorish
02:05
style of the mosque. When you come to the inside part of the main hall you will find
02:12
all the repetition of the angles, repetition of the circles and repetition of the flowers
02:18
design. The mosque here has 82 domes and in the middle of this room on the top it's the
02:25
biggest among the 82 and it is the biggest in the world inside a mosque as well. Under
02:33
the dome there is the beautiful chandelier. It's one of the seven chandeliers in the mosque
02:38
and it is the largest chandelier in the world inside a mosque, weighing 9.5 tons. All the
02:46
chandeliers are made in Germany. The glasswork is all Murano. The crystals used are all Swarovski
02:55
crystals that are brought from Austria and the aluminium work is all in golden colour.
03:01
When you come to the main hall you will find the relation between the colours on the chandelier
03:06
and the colours on the carpet. The carpet that we are standing on here in this main
03:12
hall is the largest handmade carpet in the world. This carpet is made in Iran by around
03:20
1,200 ladies from a city called Mashhad in Iran. It took them around two years to knot
03:27
the carpet down. This place is considered to be one of the less places in the world
03:32
that you would find marble inlaid with mother of pearl and that's what we can see in the
03:38
pillars of the main hall. Under the pillar the outer shape is looking like a leaf of
03:45
a tree. The leaf that has been used is the grapes leaf. It's mentioned in our holy book
03:50
of Quran that grapes is one of the fruits in heaven and in the middle the beautiful
03:54
floral design which is made by mosaic glass to show the grapes itself. On the top of all
04:01
of the four pillars there is the palm tree leaves. In Islam the palm tree is mentioned
04:07
more than 20 times in more than 20 different subjects in the holy book of Quran. When we
04:13
pray in Islam we must face a certain direction which is the direction of Mecca and the direction
04:21
from this part of the world is this way. So that's why we call this wall the direction
04:28
wall. In the middle of the wall at the top there is a big circle and it's written inside
04:33
it the name Allah and it means the God. Distributed all over the wall there are the 99 qualities
04:41
of the God. All the calligraphy used on the wall are Kufi style and Kufi is one of the
04:48
calligraphy used to write the holy book of Quran. In the middle of the wall there is
04:53
a semi-circle shape. That semi-circle shape is where the Imam or the leader of worshippers
04:59
will be in while praying on behalf of the worshippers behind. The wooden pulpit in here
05:07
is made by sandalwood and it's inlaid with mother of pearl. The daily male's praying
05:15
hall has a different type of carpet. The ceiling used is a different kind of a design and the
05:23
there are no dawns. The carpet has the sandy colour which we can say is the desert colour.
05:30
The flower illustrations on the carpet itself could be the tents that we lived in. It could
05:37
also mean the oasis and to go from one tent to another we can say that these lines which
05:45
are the white ones are the path. And the last December had around 30,000 visitors in a day.
05:57
For the whole month of December we got around 300,000 visitors. Working in here in the Sheikh
06:04
Zayed Grand Mosque Centre as a culture guide, it's given me a door to share my life to other
06:11
people and also an access to share their lives as well.
Recommended
1:21
|
Up next
Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi reopens to visitors
Gulf News
2/15/2025
2:50
UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed opens replica of Sheikh Zayed mosque in Indonesia
Gulf News
2/15/2025
2:38
Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque during Ramadan
Khaleej Times
3/27/2025
5:21
Funeral prayers offered for Sheikh Khalifa
Gulf News
2/15/2025
1:59
UAE President performs funeral prayer for late Sheikh Tahnoun bin Mohammed
Gulf News
2/17/2025
1:13
UAE President performs funeral prayer for late Sheikh Saeed
Gulf News
2/17/2025
2:31
UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan performs Eid Al Adha prayers
Gulf News
2/15/2025
2:08
Sheikh Zayed Festival opens in Abu Dhabi
Gulf News
2/17/2025
1:31
Visit Qasr Al Watan: A taste of Arabian heritage and grandeur in Abu Dhabi
Gulf News
2/13/2025
27:19
President Trump Takes Tour Of The Sheik Zayed Grand Mosque With Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince
Forbes Breaking News
5/15/2025
0:53
UAE President visits Ahmed bin Sultan Al Mansouri
Gulf News
2/15/2025
0:17
Watch: Unseen photos, videos of Sheikh Mohammed, Hamdan celebrating twins' birthday
Khaleej Times
5/21/2023
1:09
UAE President welcomes Qatar’s Emir in UAE
Gulf News
2/17/2025
7:32
Remembering Sheikh Zayed
Gulf News
2/12/2025
3:17
UAE President attends Al Nahyan wedding at Majlis Al Mushrif in Abu Dhabi
Gulf News
2/15/2025
5:05
Dr Suwaidi to run from Zayed Mosque to Mecca
Gulf News
2/12/2025
2:04
Sheikh Mohammed, Sheikh Hamdan watch camel race for expats in UAE
Gulf News
2/15/2025
4:26
Trump visits Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi
Diario As
5/15/2025
1:17
PM visits Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi
ODN
12/9/2024
1:28
Eid Al Fitr 2023: Take a tour of Dubai’s Jumeirah Grand Mosque and Museum
Khaleej Times
4/22/2023
1:37
Sheikh Mohammed posts touching tribute to tribute to his late mother, Sheikha Latifa bint Hamdan bin Zayed Al Nahyan
Khaleej Times
3/21/2022
2:18
Al Bidya: Oldest mosque in the UAE still hosts daily prayers 600 years later
Gulf News
2/3/2023
0:43
UAE President and Kuwaiti Crown Prince meet at Jeddah Security and Development Summit
Gulf News
2/15/2025
1:51
UAE President performs funeral prayers as Sheikh Tahnoun laid to rest
Khaleej Times
5/2/2024
0:36
Musical road in Fujairah
Khaleej Times
yesterday