March 2016
Aqeel Mosque, which was built in 1779, is the oldest mosque in Salalah.
Aqeel Mosque was striking to me simply because it look so different to all the other mosques I had encountered in the Gulf Region. What was even more surprising was that although it was the oldest mosque in Salalah, very little information existed about it. Salalah is in the region of Dhofar which is the largest subdivision of Oman (and the home of the great modernizer, Sultan Qaboos).
The largest city and capital is Salalah. Historically, the region was a source of frankincense. The local dialect of Arabic is Dhofari Arabic, which is distinct from that of the rest of Oman and from Yemen.
(Wikipedia)
Frankincense was highly valued for a very long time which would have made Salalah and its previous iterations a rich place. I had visited diggings there that were pre-Islamic [see: Al Baleed, Salalah], so 1779 didn't feel very old for a mosque. Its style in a place where everything mimicked either the Umayyads or the Ottomans was totally unique. That was what hit me about the structure. By contrast, Salalah's grandest mosque, the Sultan Qaboos Mosque, was a white marble Ottoman fantasy. The Ottomans having nominally ruled the area for centuries did leave their mark architecturally almost everywhere on the Arabian Peninsula. In the Middle East, a "proper mosque" should have Ottoman design with maybe a nod to the Syrian Umayyads here and there (NB: Beautiful Persian-styled mosques were rare exceptions - mostly due to politics). Aqeel Mosque looked like photos of mosques I had seen in Africa or Yemen.
How was it that the oldest mosque in town (which was not very old considering the history of Dhofar) was not promoted? Did Sultan Qaboos view it as some kind of lesser architecture and told people just "ignore it"? It was kept up well, I must say. Why that style of architecture when it was built solidly during the Ottoman period?
Just like the ancient excavation of Al Baleed, it seems much of Salalah (and Dhofar) remains the stuff of legend rather than history. Why the oldest mosque of Salalah is really not all that old compared to the history of the city and the reason for its architectural style remain a question for me.