An Afternoon Spent at The Sheikh Zayed Mosque

Abu Dhabi was an unsatisfactory layover. Maybe the Gulf just does not appeal to me the way it does to many other people, with its shiny infrastructure rising out of the ground in a manner slightly unpleasant. This comment does not intend to disregard the remarkable structural conquests they should be, and already are, proud to attach to their name. The disturbing aesthetic is the same; the vertical elements don’t make a lot of sense in the desert, especially when the sun glints off those structures and blinds those attempting to explore the city. Had it been anyone else but me responsible for the situation I was in, I would have blamed the urban disenchantment onto the fact that I had decided to walk around Abu Dhabi after an incredibly exhausting flight from the United States. Since I had chosen this path myself, I knew better than to view my decision negatively – it was indeed Abu Dhabi that was the disappointment. Not my physical condition. And the fact that it is impossible to walk around the Gulf.

I once read about how flying long hours causes one to age. I am now afraid my trips will be the reason my face wrinkles earlier than others in my circle. Does the grouchy temperament indicate an immediate reactionary aging? I do not have the resources to confirm this, and shall move onto the matter at hand – Abu Dhabi’s architecture.

The taxi driver I found to take me to the Sheikh Zayed Mosque turned out to be from Mardan. While the initial half of the ride was spent in English, the driver exclaimed in his accented Urdu as soon as I mentioned I was from Pakistan.

“Pehle kyun nhi bataya?”

“Mujhe nhi pta tha ap Pakistani hain!”

National camaraderie took precedence after that declaration; my Pathan brother instructed me on the cheaper ways of going around Abu Dhabi, and told me to see the historical palace after the mosque. He also told me I had picked the wrong time to go sightseeing in Abu Dhabi. I thanked him as he dropped me off at my destination.

In case a longer critique is a bit much for my readers, the Sheikh Zayed Mosque did not live up to its hype for me. Dressed in a modest shalwar kameez for my Arabian-Pakistan journey, I had ensured the presence of a scarf and full sleeves. As soon as I made my way through the long hallway that stretches under the ground from the entrance to the mosque itself, a policeman told me I was not dressed appropriately enough. He proceeded to force me to buy sleeves, since if I “held up my arms to take pictures, my arms would inevitably become bare”. Luckily for myself, he got me a pair for free, and very soon I was on my way to the mosque itself.

I might not have been annoyed at this event had I been dressed inappropriately. But when I saw women entering the mosque in shorts and skirts, wearing a very light kaftan on top and still revealing skin deemed unacceptable by the Arab moral police, I realized there was no winning against the Arab mind. It is their world, we only follow. The fact that I had tried to prove my Muslim identity to another Muslim was another wild blow, hot and dusty from their arrogant sand dunes.

The tunnel that winds to the mosque helped restore some of the energy I had lost to the overhead sun. I did not anticipate being blinded by the white marble sparkling in the light, and as soon as I walked out of the tunnel, I was momentarily dazed. The grandiose exterior of the mosque is exquisite – the geometrical balance, the aligning symmetries, the carvings in the different shades of white framing the entrances. The floor speaks for itself, and tries to create a narrative that stretches into the interior of the mosque. Not the biggest fan of gilded design, even I appreciated the gold elements the designers had put into the columns, the arches, and the spokes pointing out of the domes. A very cohesive exterior. There are photograph points in various locations to help tourists get the best view for their Instagram feed.

At one point, as I tried to take a selfie, a policeman approached me. I very naively thought he was looking to be empathetic and would offer to take a picture for a single woman travelling by herself.

“Ma’am”, he spoke in his thick Arab accent, “Your head is not properly covered.”

I would have to stick with taking selfies – I’m not sure if Islam allows mosques to be built solely for décor and tourists, but if it’s any consolation to the Arabs and their monetary pride, my selfies turned out relatively decent.

The interior of the mosque, however, was a completely different story. Not shy of their gaudy preferences, the Arabs like to go all out when they design. The delicate floral arrangements, while beautiful in their own right, have been intermingled with too many of their own kind to be able to make a distinctive appearance. On top of these intricacies, we see some very ugly chandeliers. I can imagine a Sheikh telling the architect he wanted the interior of the mosque to represent the flowers of heaven. If designers trusted their own Earth-bound instincts on how to make a place collectively appealing as opposed to collecting multiple appealing elements, the world would be a better place. The stained glass patterned with flower petals might have been at the receiving end of a standing ovation independently. An excellent piece of design had it been accompanied by a less attention-seeking fairy child, it is the numerous floral layers that beckon the visitor to spend more time tracing their many curves and appreciating their colors.

If others do not have the courage to say it, I will. Different forms of gold and brown do not always go together – you need to stick to a few shades and help them blend through a space to aid one’s optical path through the interior. Those multiple shades should not be multiple pieces of design. Where the world seeks to develop better design through their postmodern-minimalist-ethnic ideological journey, this mosque seems to embrace a maximalist style that, instead of being spiritually overwhelming, feels like an aesthetic overcrowding. More is not always merrier, and I have photographic evidence to support my claim.

By the time I had ended my tour through the mosque, it was time to venture back into the fatal solar rays bleeding through the light blue sky. I still had many more hours to go, and I was determined to see most of everything that Abu Dhabi had to offer. Surely this mosque would not be the only attraction. I will continue with my layover story in a future article – I did not realize I had so much to say about the famous Sheikh Zayed Mosque, and have run over the intended word count.