Muhammad al-Amin Mosque

Muhammad al-Amin Mosque in Martyrs' Square in central Beirut is the largest Sunni congregational mosque of the Lebanese capital and one of the most architecturally prominent buildings of the rebuilt post-civil-war Beirut Central District. The mosque was designed in the classical Ottoman tradition modelled on the imperial mosques of Istanbul, with a large central dome rising approximately forty-eight metres above the prayer hall, four cascading half-domes around it and four corner minarets each rising approximately sixty-five metres — making them among the most visible landmarks of the Beirut skyline. The exterior is finished in pale Saudi limestone and the interior is decorated with Iznik-tradition tilework, hand-knotted carpets and an elaborately carved wooden minbar. The mosque was built between 2002 and 2008, with construction substantially financed by the late Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri, who was assassinated in central Beirut in February 2005 before the mosque was completed and is buried in a small enclosed memorial directly adjacent to the mosque on its northern side. The Hariri tomb has become an important site of political pilgrimage for his political followers in Lebanon. The mosque sits on Martyrs' Square — historically the central plaza of Beirut — directly opposite the Maronite Catholic Saint George Cathedral, with the two religious buildings together forming a deliberate symbol of the inter-religious coexistence that the post-war Lebanese state has aspired to. The mosque accommodates approximately seven thousand worshippers.