Morocco Trip Part 2: Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca

In Morocco, there are only two mosques in the country that non-Muslims are allowed to visit due to their interpretation of their holy book.  Luckily the Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca is one of them, so we decided to go and check it out.

It is a stunning building.

It has the world's tallest minaret, at 210m tall, and is built partially on reclaimed land and partially on a platform over the ocean.  Apparently this has something to do with a passage from their holy book that states that "the throne of Allah was built on water" - part of the floor is glass and looks straight down into the ocean.

The detail everywhere was beautiful - every surface was patterned with different mosaics and arches.

The pattern on the minaret in more detail.

The side of the mosque including the fountain.  The sky is incredibly blue.

We went on a guided tour of the mosque, which lasted around an hour.  We were surprised to see that they ran tours in French, English, Spanish, Italian and German, and English was one of the smaller groups.  Our clothing was fine here, but other tourists who apparently hadn't noticed that they were visiting a Muslim country were made to purchase shawls to cover their bare shoulders, arms, and, uh, cleavage.  I bet that was fun for the ticket seller to explain.

The Royal Door.  The guide suggested that this is only opened when the King wants to come and pray - everyone else enters through the side door.

The mosque has a retractable roof - like a sports stadium, but carved with many ornate patterns.  Apparently the King (Hassan II) who commissioned the mosque wanted the worshippers to be able to "contemplate God's sky and ocean", and the roof is opened on special occasions.  Pretty cool idea.

This is facing towards the front of the mosque - I am not sure what you would call this area on a mosque, but it would be equivalent to the pulpit of a Christian church.  We took our shoes off when we entered the mosque before stepping on the carpeted prayer area.  25,000 people can fit inside the mosque, some on the floor here, and some on the "women's galleries" that hang over this area (I couldn't get any good photos of them).  The women are completely segregated from the men - there are separate entrances and carved screens so that the women's entrance is not visible to the men.  The white carved portions at the tops of the pillars are actually masking speakers, so that everyone in the hall can hear the prayers.

It was quite dark inside the mosque, so here are some obligatory artsy photos, taking advantage of the light shining through the windows.

 Reflections on the tiles around the outside of the carpeted prayer area.

Patterns everywhere!

The dome roof of the entrance foyer.

Underneath the mosque are washing facilities - apparently one of the requirements before praying is for "ritual purification" to various degrees.

There is a hammam (Turkish bath) under the mosque too, but apparently it is never used as people visit the many hammams nearby instead.  Apparently at a hammam, one is supposed to hang around with various buckets full of water soaking - it sounds kind of like a public spa that one undertakes in one's underwear.  It wasn't really our kind of thing, so we didn't partake, but the patterns on the walls were beautiful.

A day was really enough to see Casablanca - the next day, we set off on the 3.5 hour train trip to Marrakech, which is the subject of the next blog post.