Masjid Nasional Al-Akbar Surabaya

Yesterday one of my colleagues from Ubaya took me on a tour of some of Surabaya's attractions. We visited a mosque, a buddhist temple, looked across the strait to Madura, ate dim sum, and stopped at a huge craft store. The temple was peaceful, the dim sum delicious, and the handicrafts varied and many. But the mosque, the mosque!

After a 45-minute drive through traffic to get to the mosque we began by taking a very hot, excruciatingly slow elevator up the minaret tower to an observation room. The 360-degree view from the tower gave us a superb look at Surabaya. I thought I could make out the Ubaya campus and the downtown area stood out clearly with its skyscrapers. If the sky hadn't been so hazy, I'm told, I would have been able to see mountains out to the west. I had left the hotel without my camera, not realizing that we were going sightseeing and that I would dearly wish I had it with me. Pak Reza had brought his camera, though, so I will be able to post some pictures once I get them from him.

I've hesitated to write about the mosque itself because I know that my descriptions will be grossly inadequate. The Al-Akbar National Mosque of Surabaya (MAS) lived up to its name; "al-akbar" means "quite large", according to my companion Pak Reza, and MAS is the second largest mosque in Indonesia. Only the Masjid Istiqlal (the national mosque) in Jakarta, which I visited as a child, is larger. MAS, however, may well be the most stunningly beautiful mosque I have ever seen.

From the minaret I could see the elegant curves of the mosque's main, egg-shaped dome, covered in tiles in soothing shades of blue and green. Several smaller domes near the corners of the main structure mimicked the main dome's shape and coloring. After descending from the minaret and approaching the mosque, I saw large, hand-carved teak doors at every entrance. Most were open, welcoming worshippers who were shortly to arrive for mid-day prayers.

Out of respect, visitors who are not Muslim are asked to view the mosque interior from a second-floor balcony rather than entering the main worship area. I was profoundly glad to be up in the balcony for my visit because, less than 5 minutes after I arrived, the call to prayer began. A recorded call to prayer issued from the mosque and almost instantly the first few worshippers ambled into the mosque. After the recorded call to prayer finished I noticed that one man detached from those who had gathered and strode confidently to the front of the worship area. Just then, louder than I could imagine, his amplified voice filled the mosque with resonant, deep singing in Arabic -- leading the preliminary prayers as many more people filtered in. As I gazed around this holy space with its high windows of stained glass, golden Arabic inscriptions, and vast expanse of marble floor, I felt the sound of the cantor's voice wash over me and my eyes filled with tears from the beauty and holiness of that moment.

A few minutes later the Imam took the microphone to conduct the main portion of the common prayer. As he did so, the men gathered behind him shoulder-to-shoulder and followed him in the ritual of bowing, standing, and prostration. A small area on the main floor was reserved for women; it was separated from the men's area by low wooden barriers. Within twenty minutes or so the prayers came to a close and the 150 or so who had gathered began drifting toward the doors, most going back to their workplaces nearby in the neighborhood. Though this had been a routine few minutes of everyday life for them, I left feeling moved by this unexpected and somehow intimate glimpse of another culture.