The Most Beautiful Modern Mosques in the World
6 places in 6 countries · updated 13 October 2026
In short: By our ranking, the most beautiful modern mosques in the world are Faisal Mosque (Pakistan), Great Mosque of Djenné (Mali) and Sheikh Zayed Mosque (United Arab Emirates). The list covers 6 modern mosques in 6 countries. Brunei has the most, with 1. Last updated 13 October 2026.
The modern mosque is where an old form meets new materials and new national ambitions. Twentieth-century builders used reinforced concrete, marble from distant quarries and huge prayer halls to give young states a spiritual landmark, while others kept faith with earth construction and renewed it. The result is a group of buildings far more varied than any single tradition: tent-shaped concrete, hand-plastered mud, white marble domes and gilded cupolas.
Faisal Mosque in Islamabad, designed by the Turkish architect Vedat Dalokay, abandons the dome entirely; its folded roof recalls a Bedouin tent at the foot of the Margalla Hills. The Great Mosque of Djenné, rebuilt in 1907, is the largest mud-brick building in the world, and the townspeople replaster it every year in a communal festival. Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca stands partly over the Atlantic, its minaret among the tallest anywhere.
Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi gathers white marble, floral inlay and dozens of domes around a vast courtyard. Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque in Muscat is known for its prayer hall carpet, woven by hand in Iran. Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque in Bandar Seri Begawan rises from an artificial lagoon, its golden dome reflected in the water beside a ceremonial stone boat.
In this list
| # | Place | Type | Country | UNESCO |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Faisal Mosque | Mosque | Pakistan | |
| 2 | Great Mosque of Djenné | Mosque | Mali | ✓ |
| 3 | Sheikh Zayed Mosque | Mosque | United Arab Emirates | |
| 4 | Hassan II Mosque | Mosque | Morocco | |
| 5 | Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque | Mosque | Oman | |
| 6 | Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque | Mosque | Brunei |
01 Faisal Mosque
Pakistan · 6 km from Islamabad33.730° N 73.037° E
Image by IdeasLeader from Pixabay The Faisal Mosque does not look like a mosque, and that was deliberate. In 1969 Pakistan held an international competition for a national mosque in its new capital, Islamabad. It drew more than forty entries from seventeen countries. The Turkish architect Vedat Dalokay won with a design that left out the dome altogether. In its place, eight sloping shells of concrete meet above the prayer hall like the folds of a desert tent. Four minarets about 90 metres high stand at the corners, slender as pencils. Construction ran from 1976 to 1986. The work was funded largely by King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, and after his death in 1975 the mosque and the avenue leading to it were named after him.
Did you know? Vedat Dalokay first drew a tent-like, domeless mosque for Ankara's Kocatepe competition in 1957; it won but was dropped after criticism, and a reworked version became the Faisal Mosque.
02 Great Mosque of Djenné
Mali · 0.8 km from Djenné13.905° N 4.556° W
- UNESCO World Heritage
BluesyPete · CC BY-SA 3.0 This is the largest mud-brick building on Earth, raised on a platform above the Bani River floodplain to keep it above the annual floodwaters. Its present form dates to a 1907 reconstruction, built on foundations going back to the 13th century. The walls are built from banco — a mix of clay, water, shea butter, baobab powder and rice husks — and the wooden beams (toron) bristling from every surface aren't decorative flourishes; they double as the scaffolding masons stand on to reach the upper walls during repairs.
Did you know? The spires crowning the three towers of the prayer wall are each topped with an ostrich egg.
03 Sheikh Zayed Mosque
United Arab Emirates · 12.5 km from Abu Dhabi24.412° N 54.474° E
Image by Mariakray from Pixabay The people who planned this mosque weren't going for one look — they wanted the whole story of Islamic architecture in a single building. Walk from the base of a minaret to its tip and you pass through three different empires: a square foundation drawn from Moroccan tradition, an octagonal midsection borrowed from the Mamluks of Cairo, and a cylindrical crown modeled on Ottoman minarets. The dome layout follows the floor plan of Lahore's Badshahi Mosque, a Mughal-era landmark, while the ornamental detail leans toward Persian and Moorish patterns. It reads less like a single architect's vision and more like a deliberate anthology of a millennium of mosque-building.
Did you know? Its courtyard, about 17,000 square metres of inlaid marble flowers, is considered the largest marble mosaic in the world.
04 Hassan II Mosque
Morocco · 1.5 km from Casablanca33.607° N 7.633° W
Image by postcardtrip from Pixabay King Hassan II built this mosque on a foundation that should not really exist: reclaimed land driven into the Atlantic, with roughly half the structure extending out over open water. The idea traces to a specific line in the Quran describing God's throne as resting upon water, and Hassan II was explicit about his reasoning — worshippers on solid ground should be able to look out at sky and ocean at the same time. Committing to that idea forced real engineering problems. Salt air corrodes most metals, so the doors were made of titanium instead. The reclaimed marine foundation alone needed 300,000 cubic metres of concrete and 40,000 tonnes of steel just to hold stable ground under a building of this size.
Did you know? About twelve million Moroccans contributed to the building fund, each receiving a receipt and certificate, and the smallest recorded donation was just 5 dirhams.
05 Sultan Qaboos Grand Mosque
Oman · 1.1 km from Muscat23.584° N 58.389° E
Image by Makalu from Pixabay In 1992 Sultan Qaboos directed that Oman should have a grand mosque, and it was built at Bawshar in greater Muscat in just under seven years: work began in December 1994 and the mosque was inaugurated on 4 May 2001. The design, by Quad Design with the architect Mohamed Makiya, avoids the flash one might expect of a Gulf landmark. Pale sandstone shipped from India, white marble and long shaded arcades give it a calm, almost monastic exterior, and the five minarets — a main tower of about 90 metres and four of about 45 metres at the corners — are slim and restrained.
Did you know? The mosque was inaugurated on 4 May 2001 to mark thirty years of Sultan Qaboos's reign, after a design competition held in 1993.
06 Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque
Brunei · 0.9 km from Bandar Seri Begawan4.890° N 114.939° E
Image by AdamHillTravel from Pixabay Few capitals are defined by a single building as completely as Bandar Seri Begawan is by the Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque. Its golden dome rises above a low, green river town, and from almost anywhere in the centre it is the fixed point the eye returns to. Work began in February 1954 and the mosque was opened on 26 September 1958, named after Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien III, the 28th ruler of Brunei, who sketched the first ideas for it himself. The Italian architect Rudolfo Nolli worked on the design with the firm Booty Edwards & Partners, and the result is an eclectic blend of Mughal forms, Italianate detail and Malay setting.
Did you know? The main chandelier measures about 15 feet across and weighs more than three tons.
How this list is ranked
Places are chosen for how they look, not for how famous they are: each one has its own description and a photograph credited to its author. The order is a single world ranking that weighs the beauty of the place in curated photography together with how widely it is documented — the number of language editions of its encyclopedia article and how often that article is read in a year. The list is rebuilt as places are added, so the order and the counts on this page are always current.
Questions people ask
- What are the most beautiful modern mosques in the world?
- On our list, Faisal Mosque (Pakistan) ranks first, followed by Great Mosque of Djenné (Mali) and Sheikh Zayed Mosque (United Arab Emirates).
- Which country has the most modern mosques in the world?
- In our collection, the most come from Brunei (1), Mali (1) and Morocco (1).
- Why does Faisal Mosque have no dome?
- Architect Vedat Dalokay designed Faisal Mosque with eight concrete shells shaped like a desert tent instead of a conventional dome. The design was chosen in an international competition and initially proved controversial before becoming a symbol of Islamabad.
- How is the Great Mosque of Djenné maintained?
- Its walls are made of sun-dried mud brick and plaster, which rain gradually erodes. Each year the community of Djenné gathers for a festival to apply a fresh coat of mud, using the wooden beams that project from the walls as scaffolding.
- Where is the mosque built over the sea?
- Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca, Morocco, completed in 1993, is built on a platform reclaimed from the Atlantic Ocean, so part of the building stands over the water.
- How many modern mosques are on this list in the world?
- The list covers 6 modern mosques in 6 countries. Brunei has the most, with 1.