Chinese Herald PEN column
Ponding Tan Wang Xianen
It is better to see than to hear, the Sheikh Zayed Mosque in Abu Dhabi is really magnificent, it is estimated to be the most beautiful and modern mosque in the world today.
The $5.5 billion mosque, completed in 2007, covers an area of 22,000 square meters, with 82 circular domes, the main dome 85 meters high, and 1,100 pillars decorated with gold. The paintings on the floor are not painted, but inlaid with natural materials such as lazuli, red agate, amethyst, abalone and shellfish, which is an expensive return to the basics.
It may be that the local building materials are very limited, so the world's building materials are used. Marble and other construction raw materials come from Greece, Italy, Germany, Morocco, Turkey, Iran, India, China and other places. Many of those exquisite carvings are said to be the work of Chinese craftsmen. The carpet in the main hall is the largest hand-woven Persian carpet in the world, covering an area of 5,627 square meters, hand-woven by 1,200 Iranian workers. Hanging in the hall are seven of the world's largest gold-plated brass crystal chandeliers, custom-made in Germany. In short, the construction of this mosque took an international route.
In the past, when you visited a Buddhist temple or a Christian church, you would basically see sculptures or paintings that depict the stories of related idols, but Islam opposes idolatry, and the effort is focused on the architecture, and there are no icons or incense in the temple, and the pictures are just flowers and plants, which looks exceptionally clean. This may have been in the style of Muhammad (570-632), and the materials of the early mosques are said to have been extremely austere, with bricks and earth and date palms. Later generations of believers expanded and conquered, obtained wealth, mosques were built more and more luxurious, and successively integrated the architectural art of Greece, Moor, Egypt, Mongolia and other places, introducing arches, domes, and minaret elements, but there were always no idols, no idols, and had to admire Muhammad's wisdom and vision.
Muhammad was a bitter child, his parents died when he was 6 years old, he was raised by his grandfather Abdul al-Muttalib, when he was 8 years old, his grandfather died of illness and was adopted by his uncle Abu Talib, and at the age of 12 he went into business with his uncle, and traveled to Syria, Palestine and other places, where he saw the world and came into contact with Judaism and Christianity. When he became an adult, he was employed by Heticher, a wealthy widow of the Mecanofal tribe, and at the age of 25, he married 40-year-old Heticher and began to think about life and society in his spare time. In 610, he announced that he had received a revelation from Allah Allah in a cave and began preaching, which was quickly responded.
The Islam created by Muhammad was echoed by the people, mainly in accordance with the needs of society and the will of the people. Muhammad advocated the abolition of polytheism, the restriction of usury, the encouragement of fair buying and selling, the almsgiving of civilians, the kindness of orphans, the emancipation of slaves, the prohibition of blood revenge, and the achievement of peace and tranquility. These ideas won the hearts of the people, but they would have harmed the interests of the aristocracy of the time, so they had to resort to the name of God. The Qur'an, compiled by later generations, naturally added Muhammad's teachings by adopting the foundations of Judaism and Christianity, and adding that Muhammad was a key element of the final prophet.
It is said that Muhammad was illiterate and could not be trusted. With Muhammad's intelligence, self-study was not a problem, and I think he had some culture during his business years, and later he lived a better life and often went to the cave to meditate. Presumably he is in the cave, he should be study-oriented, supplemented by meditation, and he has been self-taught for more than ten years, so how can he master words. To call him illiterate is nothing more than to convince people that the Qur'an is the only Allah of Allah's instructions and not made up by Muhammad.
Muhammad was so bold that after his death, he was said to have married dozens of ladies, some politically, some as wives of martyrs, some as wives of martyrs, some as political expressions, such as slaves, and the very young Aisha as allies. Muhammad left behind polygamy, which has been criticized by Christians and has recently been countered by some as a way to alleviate the growing problem of population decline.
With the Islam founded by Muhammad, under the inspiration of Allah, great cohesion was generated, and the unification of the Arabian Peninsula was indeed achieved. Later, before the Arab power expanded and conquered, and the Arab Empire was destroyed by the Mongol army, in its heyday, the territory stretched from the Indus River in the east to the Atlantic coast in the west, and became a great empire across Asia, Europe and Africa, which was probably not expected or hoped for by Muhammad.
Leaving the mosque, the sound of worship was heard in the air. Five prayers a day are tedious to outsiders, but some say they are good for relieving work tensions. Ramadan, at first, was intended to allow the rich and commoners to experience hunger together, and in the era of food, many people reported that not eating during the day for a month was good for the body.
A real view of the Sheikh Zayed Mosque