Grand Mosque of Dushanbe

The largest mosque in Central Asia, the Grand Mosque of Dushanbe dominates the southern part of the city. The complex covers a vast area and the main prayer hall can accommodate tens of thousands of worshippers. The architecture blends Persian and Central Asian Islamic styles with a grandeur that makes the building visible from much of the city.

Non-Muslim visitors can usually enter the outer courtyard and view the building. The mosque is most active on Fridays for the main prayer. The surrounding area has been developed as a religious and cultural quarter. The scale of the building — financed largely by Saudi Arabia — has attracted both admiration and controversy in a country where the government has historically been cautious about religious expression.

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The Grand Mosque, officially the Masjid Imam Abu Hanifa, was completed in 2016 with funding from Saudi Arabia and can hold up to 150,000 worshippers. The choice of name — Abu Hanifa was the founder of the Hanafi school of Sunni Islam, which is dominant in Central Asia — signals the official version of Islam the Tajik state endorses: moderate, Hanafi Sunni, as opposed to the more conservative Wahhabi traditions associated with Gulf funding.