If you’re visiting the UAE, whether it’s to go to Dubai or Abu Dhabi, the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque is absolutely worth your time.
Especially because it’s free to visit.
I went there as part of a semi-spontaneous trip to Dubai after leaving Romania. Because of this, I didn’t have a lot of room to prepare ahead of time.
But now that I know what to expect, I can help you to be properly prepared!
What to Wear/ Bring
The Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque is not a difficult place to visit by any means, but there are a few considerations to make beforehand.
Clothing
While it’s a popular tourist site, this is still a mosque. It’s important that you dress properly for your visit.
For men, this means wearing long sleeves and pants.
For women, you need to cover the above as well as wearing a headscarf of some kind to cover everything except your face.
They will not let you into the mosque if you aren’t properly dressed.
Because the trip was spontaneous for me, I only had shorts in my bag, and a shirt with half-length sleeves. (They went just past my elbow). Thankfully, my friend Billy let me borrow a pair of pants from him.
In addition, my shirt had a picture on it. It pertained to the National Parks, but they don’t want you wearing anything with imagery of any kind on it. I jut turned my shirt inside out and that worked fine!
Scheduling
Also, they do require you to reserve your visit ahead of time. It’s not difficult to change if needed, and I think they mostly have that to make sure they don’t have too many people going in at any given time.
On their website, it says to book it no less than a month before you visit. However, we made our reservations the day before without any issue. Still, I’d recommend taking their advice on it so you don’t run into problems!
We made our reservation with a complete guess as to the time we’d be there. We arrived a couple hours after that time, and the person checking reservations told us that we’d have to adjust our reservation time.
Again, it’s free, so it cost us nothing to change it. I’m sure they just want to have a record of people going in and out, so it wasn’t a big deal.
If you’re coming here from Dubai, there are some very cost effective options to get to Abu Dhabi. I’ve written about this elsewhere, so go check out my post about visiting Dubai on a budget if you’re curious!
Getting to the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque
I mentioned just above that there are some easy and cheap options to get to Abu Dhabi. The main one is via the Cultural Express, but this unfortunately doesn’t go to the Mosque, so you’ll need to get additional transport through Abu Dhabi to get there.
Strangely enough, upon arriving, we found ourselves in a parking lot across the highway from the Mosque. (This is normal, we just didn’t know that until we got there.)
There was a little egg-shaped glass dome on one end of the parking lot, and we went over there, past the security guards by the entrance, and down an escalator.
I did not expect to see what awaited me at the bottom of that escalator.
A giant underground shopping mall, complete with a food court and a lot of different stores!
We spent a bit of time exploring the area before finding the entrance to visit the mosque itself.
One end of the mall turns into a walkway that leads to the Mosque itself. Like I mentioned above, there are people checking your reservation. It was very empty when we arrived, so we didn’t encounter any line. Your experience might be different depending on when you come!
Along the walkway (which is all a long, shallow ramp, in case you’re worried about stairs) there are a lot of moving sidewalks.
The walls display many messages about unity and acceptance between different cultures, with images of UAE leaders meeting with various other world leaders, like the British Royal Family.
The Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque Itself
There are actually two separate entrances to this mosque.
One is for tourists to visit and see the mosque, and only gives you access to the front part of the building’s grounds.
The second is for people who are visiting the mosque for actual religious reasons. This is the only entrance that lets you go inside. It is not for tourists.
I don’t know what the inside looks like, and I’d imagine it’s the same for other visitors, too.
Still, it is a beautiful architectural wonder, standing as the 5th largest mosque in the world! There are reflecting pools in front of the entrance, and the whole building is immaculately clean, from the pure white marble pillars and walls to the massive, shiny tile floor that sprawls across the giant courtyard.
You can’t go super far out into the courtyard (probably to make it easier to clean), but there are some great spots to take photos and get a full view of the building.
It’s definitely worth the visit!
Conclusion
The Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque will not take you a full day to visit, even if you’re exploring a lot of shops in the mall before you enter.
Before going to the mosque, we visited the Louvre in Abu Dhabi and stopped for food, and I think it was around 6 PM by the time we made it back to Dubai, leaving us plenty of time to go for a meal!
I think the mosque was one of my favorite parts of my visit to the UAE, and I think about it often.
I hope this was a helpful read that will equip you with everything you need to know before you visit. Don’t forget to dress appropriately!
If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or anything else, feel free to comment below or contact me directly!
