The mosque is named after Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, who commissioned the mosque and sadly passed away before its completion. You can actually see the mausoleum of Sheikh Zayed, as it’s located beside the mosque on the side that you can only access while on one of the free tours.
I visited about an hour before sunset on a Wednesday, and then again at around 11am the following morning. Both times I wore maxi dresses and a scarf, but they still insisted I wear an Abaya as you could still see my wrists and ankles. There are brown and blue ones, personally I thought the blue was the most flattering, haha. Brown is not my colour!
You also have to pass through a security check point, and you’re not allowed to take any food or drinks or cigarettes inside, and you must leave your shoes once you’re past security, just outside the mosque entrance (you’ll see all the shoes – you can’t miss them).
The mosque is free to enter and open to anyone and everyone, Muslim or not, from 9am-10pm Saturday-Thursday. Fridays are the Islamic holy day, so are closed to visitors in the morning (it’s still open to worshippers), and it reopens for non-worshipping visitors at 4:30pm.
One of my favourite learnings from the tour is that there are seven crystal chandeliers inside the mosque, all made by Faustig in Germany. Each one represents one of the seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates, and each one weighs a different weight, as the weight of each one represents the size of each Emirate. The largest chandelier in the mosque is the third largest in the world, and each one is made up of millions of Swarovski crystals!
The carpet inside the mosque is the largest single piece of carpet in the world, and had to be shipped in from Iran on a military aircraft carrier. It measures over 60,000ft, weighs over 35 tons, and took two years to complete!
After the tour we walked back outside to hear the call to prayer. The call to prayer always makes me feel so peaceful and relaxed. I wandered around the mosque while it continued, lost in my thoughts and blissfully happy that I was finally visiting this spectacular place of worship. I’m such a sucker for beautiful religious sites (the outrageously decorative European Catholic churches are my faveee), so the mosque made me a very happy girl.
I absolutely loved visiting the Sheikh Zayed Mosque and highly recommend it if you’re in Abu Dhabi or Dubai! If you’re in Dubai and would like to visit the mosque, it’s only a one hour taxi journey and costs about £50.
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