The Grand Mosque

It is difficult to describe the Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi and do it real justice.  If it is only the 3rd largest mosque in the world, I'd like to see the others.  With space for 50,000 worshippers, this is huge.  And impressive.  And obviously very well planned out -- this aspect took 5+ years to complete, building commenced in 2006 according to our tour guide and even though it opened a couple of years ago, there are still bits unfinished.

The front entrance

The facts and figures about it are staggering.  But if you spend $3 billion on it, I guess you need to have something to show for it at the end of the day.

It is also very well organised.  Raised up by 10 or so feet, the mosque is designed to be seen from all directions and placed as it is near one of the many island bridges, it is well positioned to receive worshippers from all over.  It also means you can have massive underground car parking.

Sartorial do's and don'ts

As Viv and I were in tourist garb, we both were asked to don appropriate and more respectful wear.  In Viv's case, this meant the all black Abaya and in my case the all white head to toe Kedura or Dish Dash.  The day was warm for sure but not much more than mid-70's but Viv said it was quite warm in the Abaya.  I cannot imagine what it would be like in mid-summer when temperatures hit the 50's Celsius and you have to stay outside in the courtyard because the air conditioned inside is full.  But summer time is when some of the muslim feast days are so that must be an issue.

Imagine it jam packed and 50 celsius!  Oh yes, I forgot.  Its marble.

The ruler had set out to build the mosque not only as a place of muslim worship but also as a demonstration of friendship and learning to all religions as he wanted to encourage people from all over and with all beliefs to visit and learn more about Islam with a view to dispelling the misconceptions people have about the religion when all they see or hear on global media are terrorist outrages supposedly carried out with a religious purpose.

For my part, I have read a little but clearly not enough.  A bit like when Viv and I came out of the Buddhist Temple at the City of 10,000 Buddhas in California. I had my pre-conceived notions and both times they were built on insufficient knowledge.  I do plan to read more about this and hopefully learn more.

The inside of the mosque despite the massive chandeliers, immense Persian carpet and other wonders, is quite sparse when compared with the gilt everything in Roman Catholic churches and cathedrals.  No statues or fancy seating.  The Imam sits on a pretty basic chair and thanks to a state of the art sound system projects his voice all over the mosque, inside and out.

A place to wash your feet etc pre-service

A throw-away chandelier in the ante-room

Amazing designs and work on the walls

The biggest Persian carpet in the world ... and the biggest chandelier too.

A bit closer view...

The service itself sounds pretty similar in format to the Catholic church in that there is a church year that it follows so that the topics covered follow a specific sequence.  At any given point in the year therefore you know what to expect.  However as the muslim year is 11 days shorter than the Gregorian calendar, the big feast days change all the time year to year.

So much to read about, learn and hopefully digest.

Repentance and Compassion

It had to happen.  We had to turn south again and today was the day.  Most gloomy we were too as this has been a great trip.  Marvellous scenery and lovely people too.  So it was with regret we headed out of Eureka back along 101 – I think retracing steps is the gloomy part.  Things start becoming familiar instead of creating that squiggly feeling in your belly about the new things that you are about to experience.

We stopped briefly in Ferndale largely because we’d watched a Food TV programme called Diners, Drive Ins and Dives which had featured this small town.  Located 15 miles out of Eureka it is definitely off the beaten track but we found a healthy sprinkling of tourists like us with cameras at the ready. 

Annoyingly the reason we’d come was closed today!  This was a bakery making bacon and cheese scones that appealed to Viv so our stay was brief.  Cute town though with lots of Victorian style buildings.

Our trip to the next destination Ukiah (the county capital of Mendocino County incidentally with a county topping population of 36,000) took us through the Avenue of the Giants again, and this time we stopped and bimbled (see website here).

Fires cause this hollowing out effect in the tree trunks.  The tree remains in perfectly good health otherwise, this one being a monster.

The redwoods were just as large and lovely as elsewhere on the road trip and of course we had our daily hug again – this will be something we’ll miss when we leave California.  Simply walking through the trees and finding absolute silence is priceless.

Roosevelt Elk in the forest

We’d targeted Ukiah as I’d spotted in some brochure a comment about the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas being located there -- see website here.  It intrigued us for sure and having visited I still wonder why they located it there.  Perhaps when they started out in the 1970’s, the closure of the old county hospital gave them a start in infrastructure that they could readily use.

The man who started it all, Hsuan Hua, came originally from Manchuria via various parts of China.  There he met a 109 year old Buddhist patriarch who prophesied that the young man would be one of the most important leaders of the faith. In 1948 possibly co-terminous with the ending of the civil war in China, he left for Hong Kong which he left in the late 1960’s again possibly co-terminous with the Cultural Revolution on the mainland which threatened Hong Kong’s existence at the time.  Arriving in the US to spread the word he established the city as a place of teaching, reflection and worship.

The city is a regular school as well as everything else with children from all backgrounds studying there all with an overlay of the religious principles of Buddhism which appear to my superficial gaze to be the third way; namely neither materialistic/anarchist nor religious ascetic.  Just do the right thing and achieve an internal state of peace.  Very similar to the early precepts of Christianity really.

One thing I couldn’t answer was why or how the religion has been taken over by the Chinese for the original Buddha was an Indian prince born in 563 BC who gave up the material world at age 28 to teach inner peace and the third way as he traveled through that part of Asia.  He clearly did a great job as there are lots of Bhuddists globally today.  But when did the Chinese take over? 

Siddartha Guatama, the original 'awakened one' with his 5 companions that comprised the first 'Sangha' (from a painting in a Laotian temple) 

Not sure.  A question to answer to be sure.

We’d come to join in the ceremony of Repentance and Compassion, a daily ritual much like a mass in the Catholic church, held daily at 12.30 pm.  There weren’t many attendees, mainly monks and students by the look of them – the former wore sandals, the latter sneakers under their robes – who were on the right hand side of the hall.  We lay people were on the left hand side, women at the back, men at the front. 

Fortunately Viv and I were helped in our respective places by kind, patient and generous folk who pointed out in the book that accompanied the service where we are.  Viv thinks it was Mandarin, but the book was interesting in that it laid out the service first in English, next in characters and then finally in phonetic Chinese.  This was what they chanted in, very fast too so it was tough to read the English and follow the ritual despite my friend’s help.

The overall tone of the ritual was inner peace, seeking forgiveness for past transgressions and looking forward to a life of learning, compassion and repentance.  Again not much different from much of the Catholic and other Christian rituals.

This was a good experience.

The rest of the day was a madcap rush down the highway to San Francisco airport but as we’d chosen the no freeway option on our GPS much was over mountains again with more chicanes and windy bends than I could count and along the very high cliff top highway 1 – I had a death grip on the wheel of the car for much of it! 

But we got there in the end, staying at Pacifica just down the road from the airport and an early start tomorrow.

Thanks California and using the words of ex-Governor Arnold Schwarzeneggar, “We’ll be back!”