Eid holiday is coming, many residents in Jakarta will do the tradition to go back to their hometown of origin or called as mudik. Well, if you are not going anywhere, you can do a religious tour to the biggest mosque in Southeast Asia which located in Jakarta, that is Istiqlal Mosque. This mosque was built based on President Soekarno’s idea and he also laid the first stone to mark the beginning of construction of the mosque in 1961. The construction didn’t run smoothly because of an unconducive political situation, at last the construction of Istiqlal Mosque was completed 17 years after laying the first stone laying. But, did you know that the architect of this mosque is a Protestant? He is Frederich Silaban, who is also the architect of other buildings in Jakarta such as Gedung BNI 46, Bank Indonesia Head Office, and also Monas.
This 5-story mosque is decorated with marble flooring and walls with stainless steel geometric ornament. This mosque has a dome with 45 meters of diameter which supported by 12 giant pillars and can hold up to 200.000 pilgrims. This mosque is used as Moslem’s place of worship with routine events that held every day. Istiqlal Mosque also becomes the place of President of the Republic of Indonesia to do religious activities on Islamic big days such as Ramadhan, Eid al-Fitr, Eid al-Adha, Islamic New Year, Mawlid, and Isra Mi’raj. Because it’s the biggest mosque in Southeast Asia, Istiqlal Mosque keeps attracting local and international tourists. More over after President Barack Obama and his wife visited this mosque in 2010, there is a lot more of international tourists visit this mosque every day.
Moslem visitors can directly visit this place and pray inside the mosque. Non-Moslem visitors can also visit this mosque but first they have to be guided and given information about Islam and Istiqlal Mosque. If you are planning to visit this mosque, you are expected to wear decent clothing. If you come in shorts, usually the mosque will lend you a sarong, and the women are recommended to wear veil to cover the hair when visiting the mosque. Besides providing a place of worship, Istiqlal Mosque also provides other facilities such as sporting arena that consists of futsal field, badminton court, volleyball court, and basketball court which are located on the east side of the mosque. There are also multimedia facilities to support the acts of worship, AC, elevator for disabled, Islam library, polyclinic, madrasa as a place to get formal education, giant bedug (drums used in mosques for religious purposes), spacious parking lot, flower garden, to cooperative.