Faisal Mosque - The National Mosque of Pakistan
The Shah Faisal Mosque in Islamabad is the largest mosque in Pakistan and South Asia and one of the largest mosques in the world. The Faisal Mosque is named after the late King Faisal bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia, who supported and financed the project. Faisal Mosque is conceived as the National Mosque of Pakistan. It is a popular Masjid in the Islamic world, and is renowned for both its immense size and its architecture.
It has a covered area of 5,000 m2 (54,000 sq ft) and has a capacity to accommodate approximately 300,000 worshippers (100,000 in its main prayer hall, courtyard and porticoes and another 200,000 in its adjoining grounds). Each of the Mosque's four minarets are 80 m (260 ft) high (the tallest minarets in South Asia) and measure 10 x 10 m in circumference.
The Faisal Mosque is the work of famous Turkish architect, Vedat Dalokay who won the Aga Khan Architectural Award with this project. The mosque's relatively unusual design fuses contemporary lines with the more traditional look of an Arab Bedouin's tent, with its large triangular prayer hall and four minarets. However, unlike traditional masjid design, it lacks a dome.
The minarets borrow their design from Turkish tradition and are thin and pencil like. The interior of this prayer hall holds a very large chandelier and its walls are decorated with mosaics and calligraphy by the famous Pakistani artist Sadequain. The mosaic pattern adorns the west wall, and has the kalimah writtern in early Kufic script, repeated in mirror image pattern.
