Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Mosque

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Mosque
Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Mosque

The Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah Mosque (Malay: Masjid Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz) is the state mosque of Selangor, Malaysia. It is located in Shah Alam. It is the country's biggest mosque and also the second biggest mosque in Southeast Asia after Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta, Indonesia.

[edit] History

The mosque was commissioned by the late Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz, when he declared Shah Alam as the new capital of Selangor on February 14, 1974. Construction began in 1982 and finished on March 11, 1988.

[edit] Architecture & Features

Its architecture is a combination of Malay and Modernist style. It is nicknamed as 'Blue Mosque' for its blue aluminium dome covered in a rosette of verses from the Koran.

At the hallway (first floor) of the mosque.
At the hallway (first floor) of the mosque.

The main dome of the mosque is the biggest dome in Malaysia, measuring 170 feet in diameter and 350 feet in height from the ground level. The four minarets are the second tallest in the world at 460 feet. In its early years, the mosque was also listed in the Guinness World Records as having the tallest minaret in the world [1], a title it had lost to the King Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca.

The mosque is large enough that on clear day it can be seen from certain vantage points in Kuala Lumpur. The mosque can accommodate up to 16,000 worshippers.