This mosque in Java has a tiered timber roof instead of a dome, and a thunder legend carved into its doors.
This is the Great Mosque of Demak, in Central Java, Indonesia. It is called one of the oldest mosques in the country.
Tradition says the Wali Songo, the Nine Saints who spread Islam in Java, built it with Raden Patah, the first ruler of the Demak Sultanate.
Sources give the late fifteenth century, and 1478 is often cited.
The mosque is built of timber, with no dome. Domes did not appear on Indonesian mosques until the nineteenth century.
Its roof rises in tiers, a form that resembles the wooden temples of Hindu-Buddhist Java and Bali.
The roof rests on four great teak pillars, called saka guru. Tradition says one of them was made by Sunan Kalijaga from scraps of wood.
The main doors are called Lawang Bledek, the Thunder Doors. Their carved plants, vases and crowns are linked to a legend of a man named Ki Ageng Selo, who caught thunder.
Its walls also hold ceramics from Vietnam, which are thought to have been ordered specially.
Demak was more than a place of prayer. It is said to have been the centre of the sultan’s government, and the place where the Nine Saints met.
Reportedly, the four old pillars were replaced with replicas in 1983, and the originals are kept in a museum nearby.
Sources differ on the exact date, and the legends cannot be checked.
