The Al-Saleh Mosque was completed in 2008 at the behest of then-President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who named it after himself in a gesture not universally appreciated. It is by some distance the largest mosque in Yemen — a vast modern complex with six minarets and a capacity of 44,000 worshippers — and stands south of the old city on a rise visible from the airport approach.
The architecture is grandiose pastiche, drawing motifs from across the Islamic world, with marble cladding, gold-leaf interiors, and the kind of scale that signals political ambition more than spiritual restraint. Non-Muslims have at times been admitted by appointment with a guide. The building is now associated with the divisive late president and has had a complex political fate since his fall.