Location : Male, the capital of Maldives
Year of construction : 1656
Significance : Oldest mosque of the country
The mosque was built in 1658, during the reign of Ibrahim Iskandar I (1648–1687). It was built over an earlier mosque constructed in 1153 by the first Muslim Sultan of Maldives, Mohamed Bin Abdullah, after his conversion to Islam. Although the older mosque was reportedly refurbished by Ahmed Shihabuddeen in 1338, there are no written records attesting this.In 1656, Iskandar began building a new mosque when the old one became too small to accommodate the increasing number of devotees. Its construction, which took one-and-a-half years, was completed in 1658. Built primarily of coral, the mosque originally had a thatched roof (common during the period). After his 1668 Hajj, Ibrahim I began building a munnaaru (minaret) and a gate at the southern end of the mosque. The minaret, patterned on those at the entrance to Mecca, is surrounded by a 17th-century cemetery with intricately-carved tombstones and mausoleums.
In 1904, Mohammed Shamsuddin III (1903–1934) replaced the thatched roof and southern gateway with corrugated-iron sheeting. Further renovations were made in 1963, converting the roof supports to teak wood and replacing the corrugated-iron sheeting with aluminium. In 1987 and 1988, an Indian team from the National Research Laboratory for Conservation of Cultural Property and the National Centre for Linguistic and Historical Research in Malé did conservation work on the mosque.
Maldives' oldest mosque, it has been in continuous use since it was built. The mosque was reportedly built over an ancient temple which predated Islam; the original temple faced the setting sun, rather than Mecca.
