Brunei - Our First Anniversary, Part 2: One of the mosques

The domes on this mosque's towers are real gold. There are only seven (if I remember the number correctly) in the world with gold domes, and all seven of them are in Brunei, gifts from the Sultan to his people.

This mosque is one of 29 mosques in Brunei, one mosque for each of the prior 28 sultans of Brunei and the current one, which is the 29th. The Sultan randomly visits all the different mosques for his prayers, to give an opportunity to the people to see him, and not to show favoritism to just one mosque.


And, also, the design on the towers is made by small tiles laid in this design, work I am sure was quite tedious, but beautiful in its resulting effect. Awesome to think of how many tiles it took to build this, plus all the marble.


The entrance, where I had to remove my shoes and give the camera to the guards.

Pics were not allowed in the mosque itself. I also had to cover my hair, in Muslim tradition.

And of course, I couldn't take pictures of all the brass inlay in the wood of the inside of the mosque......

There is a fountain below these windows, which would be on the women's side. The women's side would hold about 600, the men's side is large enough to hold over 2000, I think they said. Below it was the library and a large classroom, where couples take classes in preparation for marriage. There were five men there that day, when we peeked inside.

These are the fountains in front of the Sultan's entrance (shown below), they are similar to the others outside the main entrance, but the main fountains had fish living in them..



This particular entrance is used by the Sultan, and the gates behind the fountains are only opened when he visits this particular mosque for his prayers. The entire mosque is surrounded by black wrought iron fence, trimmed with gold.



The Sultan's entrance to the mosque. The fountains pictured above are behind me while I am taking this pic. There are 29 steps to the mosque, one step for each sultan of Brunei. The escalator between the twin staircases that the Sultan uses is covered today. These steps are white marble, but the main entrance has black marble, circling around a series of five fountains, each with a center light a different color, to signify the five daily  prayer times of the Muslim religion.

From the parking lot, before getting in the car to leave. The inside is even more beautiful than the outside. It was a shame we were not permitted to photograph.

So, if you ever wondered what it was like to be a rich sultan with your own country, this gives you an idea.