A Mosque is a place of worship for followers of Islam. The word entered English from a French word which probably derived from Italian moschea, a variant of Italian moscheta, from either Armenian mzkiṭ or Greek μασγίδιον, from Arabicmasjid, meaning "place of worship" or "prostration in prayer", from Arabicsajada, meaning "to bow down in prayer" or "worship", probably ultimately of Aramaic origin.
The mosque serves as a place where Muslims can come together for salah(prayer) (Arabic: صلاة, ṣalāt) as well as a center for information, education, and dispute settlement. The imam leads the prayer.
List of the Largest Mosques in the World
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| Al-Masjid al-Ḥarām |
1.) Al-Masjid al-Ḥarām (Arabic: المسجد الحرام, pronounced [ʔælˈmæsdʒɪd ælħɑˈrɑːm], "The Sacred Mosque") is the largest mosque in the world. Located in the city of Mecca (Makkah), it surrounds the Kaaba, the place which Muslims worldwide turn towards while performing daily prayers and is Islam's holiest place. The mosque is also known as the Grand Mosque.
The current structure covers an area of 356,800 square metres (88.2 acres) including the outdoor and indoor praying spaces and can accommodate up to four million Muslim worshipers during the Hajj period, one of the largest annual gatherings of people in the world.
2.) Al-Masjid al-Nabawī (Arabic: المسجد النبوي [ʔælˈmæsdʒɪd ænnæbæwiː], "Mosque of the Prophet"), often called the Prophet's Mosque, is a mosque built by the Islamic prophet Muhammad situated in the city of Medina. It is the second holiest site in Islam (the first being the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca). It was the second mosque built in history and one of the largest mosques in the world. After an expansion during the reign of al-Walid I, it also now incoporates the site of the final resting place of Muhammad and early Muslim leaders Abu Bakr and Umar.
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| Al-Masjid al-Nabawī |
The site was originally adjacent to Muhammad's house; he settled there after his Hijra (emigration) to Medina. He himself shared in the heavy work of construction. The original mosque was an open-air building. The basic plan of the building has been adopted in the building of other mosques throughout the world.
The mosque also served as a community center, a court, and a religious school. There was a raised platform for the people who taught the Quran. In 1909, it became the first place in the Arabian Peninsula to be provided with electrical lights. The mosque is under the control of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques.
One of the most notable features of the site is the Green Dome over the center of the mosque, originally Aisha's house, where the tomb of Muhammad is located. It is not exactly known when the green dome was constructed but manuscripts dating to the early 12th century describe the dome. It is known as the Dome of the Prophet or the Green Dome. Subsequent Islamic rulers greatly expanded and decorated it.
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| Imām Reza shrine |
3.) Imām Reza shrine (Persian: حرم امام رضا) in Mashhad, Iran is a complex which contains the mausoleum of Imam Reza, the eighth Imām of Twelver Shi'ites. It is the largest mosque in the world by dimension and the second largest in capacity. Also contained within the complex include: the Goharshad Mosque, a museum, a library, four seminaries, a cemetery, the Razavi University of Islamic Sciences, a dining hall for pilgrims, vast prayer halls, and other buildings.
This complex is the center of tourism in Iran. The shrine itself covers an area of 267,079m2
while the seven courtyards which surround it cover an area of 331,578m2 - totaling 598,657 m2 (6,443,890 sq ft).
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| Istiqlal Mosque, or Masjid Istiqlal |
4.) Istiqlal Mosque, or Masjid Istiqlal, (Independence Mosque) in Jakarta, Indonesia is the largest mosque in Southeast Asia in terms of capacity to accommodate people and building structure. This national mosque of Indonesia was built to commemorate Indonesian independence, as nation's gratitude for God's blessings; the independence of Indonesia. Therefore the national mosque of Indonesia was named "Istiqlal", an Arabic word for "Independence".
5.) The Badshahi Mosque (Punjabi, Urdu: بادشاہی مسجد) or the 'Royal Mosque' in Lahore, commissioned by the sixth Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb in 1671 and completed in 1673, is the second largest mosque in Pakistan and South Asia and the fifth largest mosque in the world. Epitomising the beauty, passion and grandeur of the Mughal era, it is Lahore's most famous landmark and a major tourist attraction.
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| Badshahi Mosque |
Capable of accommodating 5,000 worshippers in its main prayer hall and a further 95,000 in its courtyard and porticoes, it remained the largest mosque in the world from 1673 to 1986 (a period of 313 years), when overtaken in size by the completion of the Faisal Mosque in Islamabad. Today, it remains the second largest mosque in Pakistan and South Asia and the fifth largest mosque in the world after the Masjid al-Haram (Grand Mosque) of Mecca, the Al-Masjid al-Nabawi (Prophet's Mosque) in Medina, the Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca and the Faisal Mosque in Islamabad.
To appreciate its large size, the four minarets of the Badshahi Mosque are 13.9 ft (4.2 m) taller than those of the Taj Mahal and the main platform of the Taj Mahal can fit inside the 278,784 sq ft (25,899.9 m2) courtyard of the Badshahi Mosque, which is the largest mosque courtyard in the world.
In 1993, the Government of Pakistan recommended the inclusion of the Badshahi Mosque as a World Heritage Site in UNESCO's World Heritage List, where it has been included in Pakistan's Tentative List for possible nomination to the World Heritage List by UNESCO.
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| Hassan II Mosque |
It stands on a promontory looking out to the Atlantic. A total of 105,000 worshippers can gather for prayer at the mosque simultaneously, 25,000 inside the mosque and another 80,000 on the mosque's ground outside.
The building was designed by the French architect Michel Pinseau and built by Bouygues.
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| Masjid-i Jahān-Numā |
7.) The Masjid-i Jahān-Numā (Persian: مسجد جھان نما, Devanagari: मस्जिद जहान नुमा, the 'World-reflecting Mosque'), commonly known as the Jama Masjid (Hindi: जामा मस्जिद, Urdu: جامع مسجد) of Delhi, is the principal mosque of Old Delhi in India. Commissioned by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, builder of the Taj Mahal,in the year 1644 CE and completed in the year 1658 AD, it is the largest and best-known mosque in India. It lies at the origin of a very busy central street of Old Delhi, the Chawri Bazar Road.
The later name, Jama Masjid, is a reference to the weekly Friday noon congregation prayers of Muslims, Jummah, which are usually done at a mosque, the "congregational mosque" or "jāmi' masjid". The courtyard of the mosque can hold up to twenty-five thousand worshippers. The mosque also houses several relics in a closet in the north gate, including an antique copy of the Qur'an written on deer skin.
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| Faisal Mosque |
8.) The Faisal Mosque is the largest mosque in Pakistan located in the national capital city of Islamabad. It is shaped like a desert Bedouin's tent designed by Turkish architect, Vedat Dalokay and completed in 1986.
It is situated at the north end of Faisal Avenue, putting it at the northernmost end of the city and at the foot of Margalla Hills, the westernmost foothills of the Himalayas. It is located on an elevated area of land against a picturesque backdrop of the Margalla Hills. This enviable location represents the mosque's great importance and allows it to be seen from miles around day and night.
The Faisal Mosque is conceived as the National Mosque of Pakistan and named after the late King Faisal bin Abdul-Aziz of Saudi Arabia, who supported and financed the project.
It is the largest mosque in South Asia and one of the largest mosques in the world. The Faisal Mosque was the largest mosque in the world from 1986 until 1993, when it was overtaken in size by the completion of the Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca, Morocco. Subsequent expansions of the Masjid al-Haram (Grand Mosque) of Mecca and the Al-Masjid al-Nabawi (Prophet's Mosque) in Medina, Saudi Arabia during the 1990s relegated Faisal Mosque to fourth place in terms of size.
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| Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque |
9.) Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque (Arabic :جامع الشيخ زايد الكبير) is located in Abu Dhabi, the capital city of the United Arab Emirates.
Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque was initiated by the late President of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), HH Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. His final resting place is located on the grounds beside the same mosque.
As the country’s grand mosque, it is the key place of worship for Friday gathering and Eid prayers. It is the largest mosque in the UAE and numbers during Eid can be more than forty thousand people.
Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque Center (SZGMC) offices are located in the east minarets. SZGMC manages the day to day operations, as a place of worship and Friday gathering and also a center of learning and discovery through its educational cultural activities and visitor programs.
The library, located in the north/east minaret, serves the community with classic books and publications addressing a range of Islamic subjects: sciences, civilization, calligraphy, the arts, coins and includes some rare publications dating back more than 200 years. In reflection of the diversity of the Islamic world and the United Arab Emirates, the collection comprises material in a broad range of languages including Arabic, English, French, Italian, Spanish, German and Korean.
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| Baitul Mukarram |
10.) Baitul Mukarram (Arabic: بيت المكرّم; Bengali:বায়তুল মোকাররম; The Holy House) is the national mosque of Bangladesh. Located at the center of Dhaka, capital of Bangladesh, the mosque was completed in 1968. The mosque has a capacity of 30,000, giving it the respectable position of being the 10th biggest mosque in the world. However the mosque is constantly getting overcrowded. This especially occurs during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which has resulted in the Bangladeshi government having to add extensions to the mosque, thus increasing the capacity to at least 40,000.
11.) The Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque is the main Mosque in the Sultanate of Oman. Work began on the construction of the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque complex on a site by a main road between Muscat and Seeb early in 1995. It was completed six years later and inaugurated by His Majesty the Sultan in May 2001.
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 worshipers. 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.
11.) The Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque is the main Mosque in the Sultanate of Oman. Work began on the construction of the Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque complex on a site by a main road between Muscat and Seeb early in 1995. It was completed six years later and inaugurated by His Majesty the Sultan in May 2001.
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| Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque |
12.) The Id Kah mosque (Uyghur: Héytgah Meschit, Chinese: 艾提尕尔; pinyin: àitígǎěr) (from Persian: عیدگاه Eidgāh, meaning Place of Festivities) is a mosque located in Kashgar, Xinjiang, in the western People's Republic of China.
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| Id Kah Mosque |
It is the largest mosque in China. Every Friday, it houses nearly 10,000 worshippers and may accommodate up to 20,000. The mosque was built by Saqsiz Mirza in ca. 1442 (although it incorporated older structures dating back to 996) and covers 16,800 square meters. In 1933, on August 9, the Chinese Muslim General Ma Zhancang killed and beheaded the Uighur leader Timur Beg, displaying his head on a spike at Id Kah mosque. In March 1934, it was reported that the uighur emir Abdullah Bughra was also beheaded, the head being displayed at Id Kah mosque. In April 1934, the Chinese Muslim general Ma Zhongying gave a speech at Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar, telling the Uighurs to be loyal to the Republic of China Kuomintang government at Nanjing.
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| Yusuf Bei Cami Grand Mosque |
13.) The Grand Mosque in Makhachkala (Yusuf Bei Cami) is the main mosque of the Republic of Dagestan. It is supposed to have been patterned after the Sultan Ahmed Mosque in Istanbul. The building can accommodate up to 17,000 worshippers. Its construction was financed by Turkey. The mosque was completed and consecrated in 1998. It is the focal point of the city's main thoroughfare, Imam Shamil Avenue.
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| National Mosque of Malaysia |
14.) The National Mosque of Malaysia is located in Kuala Lumpur. It has a capacity of 15,000 people and is situated among 13 acres (53,000 m2) of beautiful gardens. The original structure was designed by a three-person team from the Public Works Department - UK architect Howard Ashley, and Malaysians Hisham Albakri and Baharuddin Kassim. The mosque was built in 1965 on the site of a church, the Venning Road Brethren Gospel Hall which had stood there since 1922 but appropriated by the Malaysian government. The mosque is a bold and modern approach in reinforced concrete, symbolic of the aspirations of a then newly-independent Malaysia.
Its key features are a 73-metre-high minaret and an 16-pointed star concrete main roof. The umbrella, synonymous with the tropics, is featured conspicuously - the main roof is reminiscent of an open umbrella, the minaret's cap a folded one. The folded plates of the concrete main roof is a creative solution to achieving the larger spans required in the main gathering hall. Reflecting pools and fountains spread throughout the compound.
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| Grand Mosque |
15.) The Grand Mosque is the largest and the official mosque in the country of Kuwait. Its area spans 45,000 square metres (480,000 sq ft), out of which the building itself covers 20,000 square metres (220,000 sq ft). The main prayer hall is 72 metres (236 ft) wide on all sides, has 21 teakwood doors, and has lighting provided by 144 windows. The dome of the mosque is 26 metres (85 ft) in diameter and 43 metres (141 ft) high, and is decorated with the Asma al-hosna, the 99 names of God. The mosque can accommodate up to 10,000 men in the main prayer hall, and up to 950 women in the separate hall for women. The mosque also contains a 350 square metres (3,800 sq ft) library of Islamic reference books and documents. To accommodate the large number of vehicles belonging to worshippers, the mosque also contains a 5-level car park underneath the eastern courtyard which can hold up to 550 cars. Construction on the mosque started in 1979, and the mosque was completed in 1986. first of Shawwal in 1407, or Eid ul-Fitr. The mosque's minaret, located at the northwest corner, resembles Andalusian architecture.
16.) The Masjid-e-Aqsa (Punjabi/Urdu: اقصیٰ, translation: Aqsa Mosque) in Rabwah (Pakistan) is the greatest Mosque of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. The foundation stone was laid in 1966 and the building's inauguration took place on March 31, 1972. The Worship Place is the mosque of the Ahmadiyya in Rabwah for 12,000 worshipers.
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| Masjid-e-Aqsa |
The column-free main hall is 1,650 square meters in size. 650 m² of floor are reserved for women and the remaining 1000 m² are reserved for men. The Mosque was said to be inspired by the Mughal Badshahi Mosque. Together with the 3,700 m² large field, the mosque can accommodate up to 18,500 worshipers. The minaret, in accordance with the wishes of the Caliph, was intended to be a meter higher than that of the Badshahi Mosque, 55 m in height, and to resemble the design of the Baadshai Mosque minarets. However, the Pakistan Air Force in Sargodha did not allow this minaret. The Mosque now has a total of 6 minarets, four of which are about 20 m and two 12 m high.
The construction cost of approximately 1.3 million Rupees completely took over Bani Muhammad Sadiq, whose name was not published until after his death.
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| Makkah Masjid |
Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah, the fifth ruler of the Qutb Shahi dynasty, commissioned bricks to be made from the soil brought from Mecca, the holiest site of Islam, and used them in the construction of the central arch of the mosque, thus giving the mosque its name. It formed the centerpiece around which the city was planned by Muhammad Quli Qutub Shah.
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| Baitul Futuh in London |
18.) The Baitul Futuh Mosque (English: House of Victories) has been deemed the largest mosque complex in Western Europe though according to some sources the Mosque of Rome is regarded the largest in Western Europe. Completed in 2003 at a cost of approximately £5.5 million, entirely from donations of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community, the mosque covers an area of 5.2 acres (21,000 m2) and the full complex can accommodate up to 10,000 worshippers. It is located in the south-west London suburb of Morden, London Borough of Merton, next to Morden South railway station, approximately 700 yards from Morden Underground station.
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| Sultan Ahmed Mosque |
19.) The Sultan Ahmed Mosque (Turkish:Sultanahmet Camii) is an historical mosque in Istanbul, the largest city in Turkey and the capital of the Ottoman Empire (from 1453 to 1923). The mosque is popularly known as the Blue Mosque for the blue tiles adorning the walls of its interior.
It was built from 1609 to 1616, during the rule of Ahmed I. Like many other mosques, it also comprises a tomb of the founder, a madrasah and a hospice. While still used as a mosque, the Sultan Ahmed Mosque has also become a popular tourist attraction.
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| Al-Fateh Grand Mosque |
20.) The Al-Fateh Mosque (also known as Al-Fateh Islamic Center & Al Fateh Grand Mosque) (Arabic:مسجد الفاتح; transliterated: Masjid al-Fatih) is one of the largest mosques in the world, with the capacity to accommodate over 7,000 worshippers at a time.
The mosque is the largest place of worship in Bahrain. It is located next to the King Faisal Highway in Juffair, which is a town located in the capital city of Manama. The huge dome built on top of the Al-Fatih Mosque is made of pure fiberglass. Weighting over 60 t (60,000 kg), the dome is currently the worlds largest fibreglass dome. The marble used in the floors is Italian, while the chandelier is from Austria. Throughout the Mosque, there are calligraphy writings, in a very old type of style called Kufic. Al-Fateh now includes the new National Library which opened to the public in 2006. The mosque was built by the late Sheikh Isa ibn Salman Al Khalifa in 1987. It is named after Ahmed Al Fateh, the conqueror of Bahrain.