Great mosques

Once a mayor Silk Road city, Herat would be flooded with visitors was is not for its Afghan location. The city has a lot to offer and can rival the most famous of Central Asia's Silk Road gems: The 800 year old Jama Masjid (Friday Mosque) stands out in particular, but the city also hosts a huge citadel and mosques, madrassas, mausoleums, and minarets - most of these dating back to the days of the Silk Road golden age. Add to the history a lively market, legendary glassblower Sultan Hamidi's shop and a number of idyllic villages in the surrounding countryside, Herat is a quite the destination for those few visitors it sees every year. Just be prepared to stop for a lot of offers for tea and a friendly conversation with some very curious locals.

Warning: Kidnapping for ransom of locals have been on the rise the last few years. Precaution is advised.
On a positive note, the Herat province is one of the most peaceful in Afghanistan and Herat is accessible from both the borders of Turkmenistan and Iran as well as with flights from Kabul.

The Mansourah was a settlement founded as a fortified military camp for a siege of Tlemcen in 1306 AD. It was complete with houses, palace and mosque. The massive mosque got rebuilt around 1335 and had a 38 meters tall minaret added. Today only sections of the 12 meters high walls stand along with the still impressive minaret, which is missing one of the sides entirely.

Bahrain largest mosque is Al-Fatih Mosque. It was built in 1984 and can hold about 7000 worshipers at a time. It's possible to visit the mosque as a none-muslim. A guide will be provided free of charge and they will proudly point out that every bit of the mosque come from somewhere else in the world. The carpet from Ireland, the marble from Italy, the massive chandelier from Austria, the glass lamps from France, the wood for the pulpit (minbar) from India, and so on. It's a great way to get a introduction to Islam, if you don't much about it.

Khamis Mosque is the oldest mosque in Bahrain, and one of the oldest in the region. The original mosque was built in the beginning of 8th century, but has since been reconstructed several times. The twin minarets were added in the 15th century and are a bit unusual. The location in modern day Manama is also a bit odd, on a corner to a big road among workshops.

The Bagerhat area flourished under a local hero named Khan Jahan Ali in the 15th century. Islam was taught and mosques were built. To this day, some of these old buildings still stand and attract a small crowd of local pilgrims and the odd traveller. They are all very simple and humbled looking. Shait Gumbad mosque is the biggest. It is also called the 60 domes mosque, which is a bit strange considering it actually has 77 of them. Other mosques in the area worth exploring are Singar mosque, Bibi Begni mosque and Dargah mosque. The old mosques of Bagerhat is one of the few World Heritage Sites in Bangladesh.

A tasteful and modest piece of architecture that shows what oil money can buy. It was built in 1958 with the finest materials from all over the world; marble from Italy, stained-glass and chandeliers from England, granite from China, carpets from Saudi Arabia and a golden dome. In the artificial lake stands a replica of a royal boat. It's clearly the city's proud landmark and is considered among the most beautiful mosques in the world.

Iconi was once the capital and home of the ruling sultan. Not much has been preserved besides a handful of ruins and a couple of city gates, but since the Comoros don't have many historical sights, the few ones stand out. Some of the gates can be difficult to locate, but the old men who sit at the square don't mind acting as guides for a small tip. Recently, Iconi also got a new massive mosque with an equally huge swimming pool that gets filled with seawater at high tide and drained at low tide. The seafront and the coastline south of town are also worth having a look at, turning Iconi into a rather appealing side trip from Moroni.

One of the best places in Côte d’Ivoire to see the West-Sudanese style mud-and-stick mosques, that generally Mali and Burkina Faso are famous for, is in the small town of Kong. Heading this far north simply for the mosque might be to oversell it, but it's a good stop en-route to either Korhogo or Comoé National Park. West-Sudanese mosques are notable for being constructed solely of mud mixed with straw. Rather than holding the structure together, the wooden sticks are used for decorative and practical purposes, functioning as the scaffold when, after the rains, a new outer layer of mud has to be added to the building. The mosque in Kong is from the early 1900s but designed after an original mosque built on the spot in 1740.

While Kyrenia has the pretty setting and cute harbour, Famagusta has the grand historical buildings. The city flourished in the early 14th century, when it suddenly became one of the most important city in the eastern Mediterranean. Since then it got sacked numerous times throughout history. Luckily, there are still some fine sights left, which include the ancient Venetian city wall and the cathedral-turned-mosque of Lala Mustafa Pasha. The cathedral was original built during Famagusta's heyday, but got damaged during the Ottoman invasion in 1571 and then right afterwards converted to a mosque by having a minaret added - all of which can be seen today.

It's believed that the ancient mosque in Larabanga was founded in the early 15th-century, some 50 years before the first Portuguese castle at Elmina, which will make it the oldest building in Ghana. The mosque is built in so-called West Sudanese-style out of mud and sticks, but isn't unique as there other mud-and-stick mosques in northern Ghana. There are a lot myths and legends related to the mosque, which is considered to be a "Ghanian Mecca" for local Muslims. Since every tourist to Mole National Park, also pays a short visit to the mosque, you have to deal with the usual crowd of would-be guides and donation scammers.