Abu Dhabi is the capital of the United Arab Emirates, a country in the Middle East that is more famously known for its other city, Dubai. But Abu Dhabi, being on the smaller and less glamorous side, has a lot to offer as well. The city lies on a T-shaped island that runs into the Persian Gulf:
The Persian Gulf in Abu Dhabi
See all my photos from Abu Dhabi (Flickr).
We were of course struck by just how hot is is in the Middle East. Of course, it’s the desert, but it’s October, so we thought it’d be cool a little, right? Nope. Hot! Mid- to upper 90s most of the time we were there. So trying to walk anywhere because virtually impossible unless you’ve got some sort of secret I don’t.
Our first visit was to the Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi, also known as the Sheikh Zayed Mosque, after the founder and first president of the UAE. He is buried in a small, masoleum-type building there (but you can’t take pictures of that building), where verses of the Quran are read aloud 24 hours a day.
Abu Dhabi's Grand Mosque
The mosque most certainly is grand! It’s the eighth-largest in the world (though I’m pretty sure our guide told us the second) and construction on it began in 1986 and is still not quite completed (mostly just some minor landscaping). Luckily, the sheikh allowed foreigners and non-Muslims to visit the mosque (free of charge) as a way to promote cultural awareness and educate others about Islam, and photos are allowed to be taken inside. The only catch is that women must wear an abaya (the black cover-all cloak) and a head scarf, but the mosque has plenty on hand it lends out to those who don’t have their own.
Me in an abaya and head covering at the Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi
The mosque is truly something to see inside. It can hold 40,000 worshipers and includes four minarets (the tall things from where the imams make their prayer calls) and 57 domes. It has the world’s largest handmade carpet inside (Persian, of course), measuring at more than 60,000 square feet. It was handmade in Iran by more than 1,000 workers and took (I think they said) two years to complete. The mosque also has the world’s largest chandelier, measuring at about 33 feet in height. Basically it’s just really marvelous and if you ever have the chance to see it, you should!
All over Abu Dhabi, they blast the prayer calls from the minaret speakers five times a day featuring imams reading verses from the Quran that can usually be heard all over the city. Now if you weren’t Muslim and lived there, maybe you’d get sick of it or just used to it like church bells in an American city, but I thought they were really beautiful. The Arabic language certainly beats the Chinese on that end!
We went swimming at the beach in the Persian Gulf (previous photo), which was also amazing. The water is the clearest I’ve ever seen and the warmest. Though I was initially worried about wearing a bikini in a Muslim country, it wasn’t really such a big deal, mostly because the beaches were pretty empty since it was so hot and the few people who were there seemed to all be foreign as well.
As I previously posted photos of, we went for high tea one afternoon at the aptly named Emirates Palace hotel, which thankfully allows visitors who aren’t staying there to come in and simply wander around marveling at the sites within.
The Emirates Palace Hotel
Finally, on our way out, we stopped by Yas Island, a new development in Abu Dhabi that is undergoing a $36 billion development project that once completed will include sites like the new Formula 1 race track and theme park, a Louvre musuem, a Guggenheim museum, a cultural performing arts center, golf courses, hotels, a marina and more.
Again, you can see all my photos from Abu Dhabi here on my Flickr page.
Coming next: The old world charm of Muscat, Oman
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