The Mosque is built from 300,000 tonnes of Indian sandstone. The main musalla (prayer hall) is square (external dimensions 74.4 x 74.4 metres) with a central dome rising to a height of fifty metres above the floor. The dome and the main minaret (90 metres) and four flanking minarets (45.5 metres) are the mosque’s chief visual features. The main musalla can hold over 6,500 worshippers, while the women’s musalla can accommodate 750 worshippers. The outer paved ground can hold 8,000 worshipers and there is additional space available in the interior courtyard and the passageways, making a total capacity of up to 20,000 worshipers.
The world's second largest hand-woven carpet and chandelier
A major feature of the design of the interior is the prayer carpet which covers the floor of the prayer hall. It contains, 1,700,000,000 knots, weighs 21 tonnes and took four years to produce, and brings together the classical Tabriz, Kashan and Isfahan design traditions. 28 colors in varying shades were used, the majority obtained from traditional vegetable dyes. It is the second largest single piece carpet in the world. This hand-woven carpet was produced by Iran Carpet Company (ICC) at the order of the Diwan of the Royal Court of Sultanate of Oman to cover the entire floor of the main praying hall of the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque (SQGM) in Muscat. The carpet measures over 70 × 60 meters, and covers the 4,343 square meter area of the praying hall, all in a single piece. The chandelier above the praying hall is 14 meters tall. The Mosque is built on a site occupying 416,000 square metres and the complex extends to cover an area of 40,000 square metres. The newly built Grand Mosque was inaugurated by Sultan of Oman on May 4, 2001.The corridors seem like a secure wall surrounding the mosque’s building and meet through the five minarets that delineate the borders of the mosque’s location and symbolise the five pillars of Islam. The length of the north and south corridors is 240 metres each. These have been divided into halls, each containing a decoration from a specific Islamic culture. The northern and southern corridors constitute the boundary between the places of worship and the mosque’s other facilities. A canopy of domes resembling the domes of Bilad Bani Bu Ali mosque in A'Sharqiyah Region(Eastern Region) crowns the top of the corridors.
The walls of the south corridor constitute a visible screen that houses the mosque’s various facilities, including a library that contains 20,000 reference volumes in science, Islamic culture and humanity, in addition to the Institute of Islamic Sciences where young people learn the disciplines of religious knowledge, and a hall dedicated to meetings and seminars which accommodates three hundred people.
The interior walls of the mosque’s main hall are completely covered with white and dark grey marble. These are decorated with murals of leafy patterns and geometrical designs. The room has an open plan with four main pillars carrying the internal dome. A corridor extends along both the north and south walls and opens into the mosque hall with its adorned arches. The dome is made up of spherical triangles within a structure of sides and marble columns, crossed with pointed arches and decorated with porcelain panels. Timber panels stretch in a fashion that reflects the architectural development of Omani ceilings.
Inscribed on the doors are Islamic embellishments topped by Quranic verses in the Thuluth script, while other doors have stained glass panels to emphasise the harmony and unity of the space dedicated to prayer. The selection of artwork in the halls reflects the evolution and multiple forms of architectural decoration and the culture that has spread its rich patterns from Andalusia to China. Holy verses are inscribed 2 centimetres deep on stones in the outer areas, so they stay as long as the mosque remains standing, God willing.
