Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque

Today a group of us when to the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. This place was totally awesome! The Mosque is not only Beautiful but very meaningful to the muslim faith here in the United Arab Emirates. I took many photos and I will try to adequately describe the wonderous things I have seen today.

Sign at beginning of path

Approaching the Mosque

One of the intricate columns found
 throughout the main courtyard

Another view of the courtyard

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Women must wear an Abaya while entering the

 Mosque. If you do not haveone they will give

 you a freshly laundered one to borrow.

Abayas waiting for new wearers

One of the many flowers in the\
 marble courtyard walkway

The inside of each dome has Islamic
 writing relating holy scripture

The top of each minaret is covered
in Gold Leaf
 and encapulated in glass for protection

Our tour guide

One of the beutiful chandeliers-they are made
 of Austrian Swarovsky Crystal

Close up of the column detail

There are many flowers in the Mosque. It is made
 to represent a garden, which is what heaven will be like

Inside the main prayer chamber, visitors will walk on a HUGE persian rug.
 In fact, this is the world's largest one piece rug found!

The columns within the main prayer hall are
inlayed with mother of pearl and abalone.

Close up view of the beautiful chandelier!

One of the many reflecting pools
 found around the Mosque

Many columns have palm tree references. The guide said
  that the UAE loves their palm trees. There are more than
400,000 found in the area!

Just to put it into perspective...
See how large the main courtyard is?

There are 100 flowers circling a main one. 99 of these flowers has one charicteristic of God written in Arabic. The remaining empty flower represents the unknown aspects of God, humans with thier finite brains could not understand. The center larger flower has "Allah" the Islamic name for God.

 I hope you enjoyed your look at my day's adventure, I know I did :-)