Bab Alsalaam Mosque

Mohammed Aljaser

A documentary about a new Mosque with contemporary design, designed by Omani Architect Marwan Albulushi, whose design research was based on and inspired by a collection of small rural mosques that he found on farms In Samayel, Oman. The environment of these mosques and the landscape of the farms is similar to a forest or a woodland, there are ponds, palm trees, and nature. These mosques are open-air; they consist of no walls and are just exposed to nature, which is not typical of most contemporary mosques. Albulushi was inspired by those aspects, and while the mosque he was commissioned to design is in a city, he managed to incorporate some of those nature-inspired elements into his design to promote spirituality and therapy, like adding a pond around the mosque to create coolness around the mosque and planting fruit trees for the community who live nearby the mosque. On the other hand, Albulushi's Mosque design is fascinating because it re-interpret certain mosque elements, like the Mihrab, in a way that has never been done before, which is a horizontal slim opening from the roof to the ground that attracts sunlight inside the mosque and also direct prayers to Al Qibla, or the direction of praying. The mosque's minaret is fascinating because it also reinterprets the crescent moon of typical mosques, and inside the huge minaretl it contains the female prayer hall, which is separated from the main "Male" Place of prayer. It is my goal for this documentary shed light on this beautiful mosque and Arab architects like Marwan.