Sunday, 14 June
There is one mosque in Morocco that non-Muslims may freely enter, in Casablanca, where our flight landed this morning. (No, I haven’t seen the movie; no, I wouldn’t like it if all your comments to me referenced it.) It is the third largest mosque in the world, I think, and the largest in Africa, constructed between 1986 and 1993. There are tours available in the hours between regular prayer times (i.e., sunrise, noon, sunset, etc.). We went on one of these.
View out the bus window on the way to the mosque:
Outside:
Inside:
The upper level is for women to pray; the lower for men:
The mihrab, or direction of prayer—towards Mecca, which in the case of Morocco is more or lest east, I suppose.
The hammam (this one is for women; there is also an identical one for men). A public bath, with community-centered but not explicitly religious goals. This is actually not yet open to the public, but according to the guide, it will be soon.
There was also an ablution room (well, two: one for men, one for women), but I didn't get a picture. Wash your hands up to the wrists three times, mouth, nose, face, hands up to the elbows three times, hair, ears, right foot three times, left foot three times, and yay! Ritual purity. Maybe. I am probably remembering inaccurately. Ho-hum orthopraxy. I’d make a terrible Muslim.
3 comments:
So does this satisfy your goal of going into a mosque if anyone can go into one? Or do you have to go to one you are forbidden from going to?
Also, I appreciate that fact the Islams iconoclasm led them to aesthetic beauty in geometric designs instead, alhtough my bias still favors frescoed walls.
sorry for posting all over the place....
no, i'm not going to sneak into a mosque. i'd feel disrespectful I think.
lovelovelove how it prompted calligraphy.
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