Abu Dhabi Mosques

Recently, I had the opportunity to travel to Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates with the theater company Elevator Repair Service. I'd never been to that part of the world. It sure is hot! 100+ degrees Fahrenheit every day; even at night it was in the 90s. This made it difficult to do my usual walkabout exploring, and it's not a very pedestrian-oriented city anyway. But I still was able to get out and produce several drawings. Here's the first batch: mosques.

We went on a city tour, and the main stop is the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. This 30-acre mosque was built between 1996 and 2007 by Sheikh Zayed, founder and president of the UAE for 33 years. It is enormous, capable of accommodating up to 41,000 worshipers at once.

We were told that photography was allowed, so I figured I would have no troubles sketching the exterior. But then a security guard came up and asked me what I was doing, and said, "Actually, I don't know if that's allowed or not, but, please, come with me." I thought, 'Oh, shit, I'm being detained in an Islamic country!' He brought me to an information desk, and the guy there said, "Uh, let me check." He came back and said it was fine. The whole thing was over in five minutes. I resumed drawing, but the security guard kept passing by, checking out what I was doing. Sometimes people see you sitting with a sketchbook and just don't like the look of it.


This one is in the central, 'downtown' area, near the shopping district where the traditional souks used to be located. Those marketplaces were raised to build a mall, and now there is a 'souk section' of the mall.

Sultan Bin Yousef Mosque in an area called Al Bateen. You could do nothing but draw mosques if you wanted. There are more than 4,800 mosques in the UAE, and Abu Dhabi regulations require a mosque to be located within 350 meters of every home, that being the distance that can be covered in the five minutes between the sounding of the call to prayer and the start of prayers.

On my last night there, I walked from Al Bateen towards the Corniche, and encountered this mosque, its tower turned golden by the setting sun.