Looking behind the once closed door! Experiencing Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca.

I have been going to Morocco for many years because of my Moroccan family, which had slowly brought me on to the path of Islam, it was a slow path but I finally completed it in the summer of 2016 after visiting an Islamic office in one of the small back streets of Casablanca.

But after visiting Casablanca so many times, one particular building stood out from the rest, sitting next to the rough, white crashing waves of the Atlantic ocean was the toweriing Hassan II Mosque, ever since I first gazed eyes on it when I was a little boy, passing in a car on our way back to Mohammadia to only few years back I had always wanted to walk through the doors of this majestic building, but there is a problem, mosques don't usually allow people in who are not part of the Islamic faith, unless they decide to have an open day but then again that normally only happens to the smaller community mosques rather than the grand mosques.

A bit of history about Hassan II Mosque, after the death of King Mohammed V in the year of 1961 his son, the then King Hassan II had requested for the countries best artisans to subit plans for mausoleum for the recently departed king. In the 1980, King Hassan II said in his birthday message that he had ampitions to create a single landmark monument in Casablanca, his words were:

"I wish Casablanca to be endowed with a large, fine building of which it can be proud until the end of time ... I want to build this mosque on the water, because God's throne is on the water. Therefore, the faithful who go there to pray, to praise the creator on firm soil, can contemplate God's sky and ocean."

It was designed by a French architect Michel Pinseau who had lived in Morocco for many years. Work had started on the 12th July 1986 and was conducted over a seven year period, during the most hardest part of the construction, 1400 men worked during the day and 1100 men worked during the night, aroud 10,000 artists and craftsmen participated to make the structure of the building look eye catchingly beautiful, the construction of the building was delayed, they had originally planned for it to be finished on the king's 60th birthday which would of been 1989 but in fact they had finished and opened it in 1993, the inauguration was chosen to be on the 11th Rabi' al-awal of the year 1414 of the Hegira, which corresponds to the 30th August 1993, this marked the even of anniversary of Prophet Muhammad's birth. It was dedicated to the Sovereign of Morocco.

So now let me bring you forward 24 years to the summer of 2017 which is the point where I was standing outside this magnificent mosque, I walked the grounds looking up at the tower, the spiral circles and the blue background of the upper part of the tower stood out beautifully with a wonderful Moroccan design, seagulls would circle around the tower, they were so high up they looked like small white dots, their quaking sound would echoe down the tower to me, the smell of the salt would empower you sense of smell as well as hearing the sounds of the waves beating against the shore, it surely did make you feel in a relaxed state of mind.

I walked through one of the giant, wooden doors with my family, but we didn't realise it was the women side of the mosque, Souad, my Moroccan mother dressed up in covering her hair, wearing a red hijab, she was

talking to one woman who was fully dressed up in the full islamic outfit who was sitting by the steps; one foreign lady walked into the mosque, trying to make her way past us, she was a Japanese national who covered her hair and a bit of her face, trying to make her way into the mosque, she pretended to be a muslim woman, Souad asked the lady to recite a passage from the quran but the Japanese lady declined, which caused her to be refused by the other lady from entering the mosque, I believe the lady could of got away with it if she didn't try to enter at the busy time of a call to prayer, she would of disrupted all the people if she had entered at that time.

I went off to find the male entrance, Souad came with me to explain to them that I had converted to Islam and I was muslim, it would of been hard to expain considering I am a white British male.

So here was my moment, after years of wondering what was once behind the doors that were closed to me, the man at the door greeted me with a big grin, waving his hand over to the shoe rack; I placed my foot on the decroative islamic carpet that spread right across this grand room to the other side, the softness of the carpet gave off a slight bounce as my feet walked across, I had already done the wada which is the islamic wash before you pray, I looked up at the high ceiling and the shining gold, it truly felt amazing after years of wondering what it was like inside this building to finally be able to walk through the mosque's grand hall, I had a smile across my face and a sense of joy.

The grand hall started filling up, so I realised I had to do the prayer, I made my way closer to the large windows that showed an amazing view of the blue sky and the waves of the Atlantic making their way closer to the mosque, you could still hear the waves even though I was now inside. I stood next to some men who had already lined up to do the prayer, but stayed away from the front as I didn't want to draw too much attention, with my past experiences in mosque, the strange foreigner in the room (me) always get's called to the front where I had to stand there and say Arabic words into a microphone, this time I just wanted to keep my head down.

The prayer had started, the words of the quran bounced off the walls of the mosque, I put my hands up above my head and recited the Arabic words I do know from the quran and then slowly went down to my knees, I rested my forehead against the carpet of the mosque as I carried on reciting words from the quran, I had this overwhelming feeling about finally being able to pray in one of the world's most amazingly, beautiful and holy builings, to be in a building that not everybody can go into does feel strange, I mean if my friends and family members from the UK had visited Morocco with me, they would not be able to come into the mosque with me,

Eventually the prayers were over, I made my way to the doors to pick up my shoes and to leave, I can say that after years of wanting to walk through the doors of the Hassan II Mosque, it was well worth it, a truly magical moment in my life that I would like to repeat again.

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