The Badiyah Mosque

The tiny village of Badiyah, about 40km from Fujairah City at the East coast of the UAE, is home to the country's oldest mosque. Apparently, it dates back to 1446. As you can see, it features no minaret - something many think is an integral part of a mosque.

In fact, it only takes three things for a place to theoretically qualify for a mosque: purity (it has to be clean, quite literally), a mihrab (a prayer niche facing Mecca), and enough space for people to gather and pray. The minaret is a feature added later, when dwellings grew larger, so that the calls to prayer could be heard by everyone.

Peaking inside during my road trip last weekend, I saw a simple square room, laid with colourful little carpets, some holy books and niches. So a quite different impression compared to Jumeirah mosque.

But beautiful exactly in its simplicity.