Senussi Mosque

At least I think this is the Senussi Mosque; Saudi Arabia's underdeveloped tourism structure includes online content. Usually I can just use Google to identify any buildings or natural features I've photographed, but there aren't that many sources for Saudi Arabia, and inconsistent transliteration (is it the Senussi Mosque or the Sounoussi Mosque?) makes it very hard to identify anything.

Anyway, this mosque is in the historical district in Yanbu near the Night Market. It's made from the same coral as the old buildings in Jeddah.

Minaret

I couldn't decide which of these photos of the minaret of the Al Shafi mosque in Jeddah I liked better—the one with more detail? Or the one with more context? So I'm posting both.

The mosque is the oldest in Jeddah, dating from the 13th century, though it has undergone extensive renovations.

Saturday reflections

The courtyard of the Al Shafi mosque in Jeddah.

More overlays of history

This building was the Augustinian monastery of Our Lady, built by the Venetians in the 1500's. When the Ottomans conquered the region in 1646, it was converted to a mosque and the roof was replaced with three domes—the minaret is a 19th century addition. Now it's a conservatory.

When I walked around the side of the building to take a picture of the domes, I found a market in the square, with a speaker blaring Jingle Bell Rock And I fled.

Here, have some architecture

It has been an insanely busy week, leaving me with no time or energy to say anything intelligent about any subject -- including, but not limited to, adverbial phrases, subordinating conjunctions, lesson plan sequencing, intensive reading, extensive reading, and Covid-19 vaccine availability and scheduling in New York City.

So here are two fairly random architecture photos from Abu Dhabi -- the sleek Etihad Towers, and the ornate columns at the Sheikh Zayed Mosque.

Et in Abu Dhabi ego

I, too, was in Abu Dhabi, several eons ago.

I had my own scarf and tunic, so didn't have to borrow the long itchy hooded robes the other women visitors were wearing at the Grand Mosque. (Having been to Iran, I know how to dress for a mosque.)

Saturday reflections

A solarized version of reflections at the Sheikh Zayed mosque in Abu Dhabi.

The mosque

This mosque sits on the west side of the Taj Mahal gardens, facing the side of the tomb. (Another building, similar in design, possibly used as a guesthouse, sits on the east side.) The Taj Mahal is closed to tourists on Fridays because of services at the mosque.

The Taj Mahal is so famous, and iconic, that it's not surprising that there are numerous myths about it (some of which my guide repeated as fact, like the story that Shah Jahan intended to build a second Taj Mahal in black stone on the other side of the river.) There are claims that this is actually a Hindu monument, built by the Hindu king Parmar Dev in the 12th century, rather than by Shah Jahan in the 17th, and there have been a couple of lawsuits in Indian courts making this argument.

But you just have to look at it -- this could be in Iran.

These are the mosques I really loved

These neighborhood mosques were on almost every street in Abu Dhabi. The call to prayer echoed down the alleys between the skyscrapers, and cars pulled up, worshippers greeting each other on the steps as they prepared to go in and pray.

One more note about size

One of the first things you learn if you're interested in photography is how much better your brain is than your camera.

If you take a lot of pictures, you get used to how different the photographic image is from what your eye sees, because your camera doesn't have that clever brain to reinterpret and reassemble the image for you. For example, you can look at a building in shadow and see the sky behind it as blue, but in your photos the sky will probably be white because the camera can't resolve different exposures the way your brain can.

In architectural photography, the camera distorts angles and perspective and buildings curve where they should be straight and lean at improbable angles and you have to correct the distortions with software. If you have multiple buildings, or if one is particularly tall, it's sometimes hard to make it look real.

The Grand Mosque was so huge that even the simplest composition -- looking across the courtyard, looking along the arcade -- came out looking like something in a funhouse mirror. The pavements curved. The minarets leaned.

Here's one example which I couldn't quite manage to fix.

Showing the proper respect

I'm not sure where he got the headdress, but this was actually a Japanese tourist mugging for a friend's camera.

And yes, I get that it's a little hypocritical of me to sneer at someone else who's acting like a tourist, when I'm there as -- a tourist.

But it was so hard to have any sense of this as a holy place with all the crowds. It was just all too much.

Where did I put my shoes?

Fortunately, I took a picture of the shelf or I would never have found my own again.

Visiting the mosque

There are separate entrances for men and women because you have to go through a dressing room. I was wearing a long-sleeved tunic over pants and I had a scarf, so once I'd covered my hair I was dressed appropriately, but there were racks of blue and mauve abayas with hoods for women whose arms or legs were bare, or who didn't have a headscarf.

Men don't have to cover their heads but shorts and tank tops aren't allowed so there are robes available for them to wear if needed as well.

There are racks outside the main prayer hall for shoes, and this is where there's a logjam. Once you're inside, the space swallows you up, and there's no sense of a crowd.

No more chandeliers

Assuming you weren't blinded by the previous post, here are a few more pictures from the interior: the information desk (you can really the see the mother of pearl on the column in the foreground) and a closeup of some of the detailing.

But then there's this

I think I couldn't really see the beautiful detailing of the interior walls and domes because I just couldn't see around this chandelier.

Which photos do not begin to do justice to: it's more than 30 feet in diameter and almost 50 feet tall.

And there are more of them.

I have no words.

And then you go inside

Nobody who sees any of the thousands of magnificent photos of the universe sent our way by the Hubble can have any delusions that God is a minimalist. But this was way too maximalist for me, and  I wished it looked more like the exteriors.

The scale, again, was astonishing. This is the main prayer hall, which can hold 7000 people, and it's covered by a single carpet, the largest in the world. The carpet is more than 60,000 square feet and weighs 35 tons. It was hand-knotted in Iran.

The flower motifs represent Sheikh Zayed's love of the natural world, and the carpet is green because that was his favorite color. I love the geometric patterns and calligraphy in mosques, and I like the more abstract window designs here more than the flower and vine motifs on the columns. (The flowers and leaves are all mother of pearl and it is quite beautiful close up.)

The craftsmanship is so meticulous, and the decoration is so detailed -- and there's so much of it -- that it's hard to believe this mosque only took twelve years to complete.

Some exteriors

Courtyard

This is the other side of the courtyard.

One of the things that's most startling is how pristine everything is. The mosque opened at the end of 2007, so it's recent, but it's impeccably maintained. The marble gleams. Every piece of mother of pearl and semiprecious stone shines.

The Grand Mosque

Sheikh Zayed was the first president of the UAE, and this mosque, the third largest in the world, was his last great project before his death in 2004.

I wasn't really aware of this mosque until I started paying attention to photography competitions and shows -- it's a frequent subject, and I've seen some gorgeous photos of it. (Mine, alas, aren't nearly as good as I'd hoped -- you really need more time and the chance to see it at different times of day.)

One thing photos really don't capture is the sheer size of it. This is a portion of the central courtyard -- there are more than a thousand of those columns forming the arcade around it. The mosque complex covers more than 30 acres.

The Grand Mosque

I don't have time to do it justice -- I'm off to a touristy barbecue in the desert, and I leave for Jaipur in the morning -- but here's a sort of selfie of me, reflected in the starry windows at the mosque yesterday.