The Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Fujairah (Arabic: مَسْجِد ٱلشَّيْخ زَايِد فِي ٱلْفُجَيْرَة, romanized: Masjid Ash-Shaykh Zāyid fil-Fujayrah), also known as the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, is the main mosque in the Emirate of Fujairah, and the second largest in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) after the mosque with the same name in Abu Dhabi.
The mosque opened in 2015, and Fujairah’s ruler, Sheikh Hamad bin Mohammed Al Sharqi, led the first Eid prayers.
Drawing on Istanbul’s Blue Mosque in its design, it is a beautiful and unique place of worship. Festooned with six 100m-high minarets, the white granite and marble edifice can accommodate up to 28,000 worshippers. Each of the four main minarets, designed in classic Ottoman needle style, while the remaining two, on the corners of the courtyard, are 84m high. The mosque has 65 domes, including a main dome.
The interior of the Sheikh Zayed Mosque is also very different to the Turkish original, whose name is derived from thousands of blue Iznik tiles. In Fujairah, the walls of the main entrance are exquisitely decorated with verses from the Quran, intended to rejuvenate the souls of worshipers.
The carpet in the main prayer hall resembles a garden filled with many flowers. Unlike the carpet at the Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi, which was hand woven in a single piece, considered the largest in the world, the carpet in Fujairah was assembled in several sections. All the chandeliers were imported from Egypt. In the main prayer hall, a splendid chandelier hung in the centre retains the symmetry of its shape no matter from which angle it is viewed. For the upper levels of the interior, red and gold colours were used.
The design also incorporated Moorish arches and the environment resembles that of the Great Mosque-Cathedral of Cordoba in Spain. Many windows features stained glass.
The basement houses more than 200 stations for ablution. It also leads to the spacious female prayer hall, which can accommodate 2,500 women.
