Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque

The Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque is the newest major landmark in Solo, opened in 2022 as a gift from the United Arab Emirates at a cost of roughly US$20 million. The design is a deliberate reproduction of the Abu Dhabi original, complete with white marble, ornate tilework in shades of blue, and the four-minaret configuration of the Gulf model.

The mosque is large enough to hold thousands of worshippers and has quickly become a popular attraction for both religious visitors and tourists interested in the architecture. Non-Muslim visitors are welcome at designated times — the interior is as impressive as the exterior, with imported marble and elaborate chandelier work. The mosque is a short ride north of the main palace area.

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A story
The Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Solo is a scaled-down replica of the Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhabi, a gift from the UAE to Indonesia completed in 2022. The original in Abu Dhabi is one of the largest mosques in the world; the Solo version is rather smaller, but uses the same white marble and the same pattern of blue tilework. The choice of Solo — a city known as a centre of traditional Javanese Islam — for such an emphatically Gulf-style mosque was not without controversy.

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