Two fighting elephants wrecked the marble for this royal mosque in Malaysia, according to local accounts.
This is the Ubudiah Mosque, on Bukit Chandan hill in Kuala Kangsar, the royal town of Perak, beside the royal mausoleum.
Sultan Idris reportedly vowed to build it while recovering from an illness. Its name comes from an Arabic word said to mean surrender to the will of Allah Subhanahu wa Ta'ala.
The government architect Arthur Benison Hubback, who also designed Kuala Lumpur's railway station, drew the plans. The foundation stone was laid in 1913.
The style is usually called Indo-Saracenic, a colonial blend of Islamic and Mughal forms. Italian marble bands the white walls, a golden dome crowns the centre, and smaller golden domes top its turrets.
Local accounts say that during a royal feast, the sultan's elephant fought one belonging to Raja Chulan and trampled the stored marble. New marble was ordered from Italy, but the First World War sent the shipment the long way around Africa.
Sultan Idris died in 1916. The mosque was finished in 1917 and opened by his successor, Sultan Abdul Jalil.
It was enlarged in 1933 to hold about twenty-three hundred worshippers, and a restoration in 2002 and 2003 reportedly gave the prayer hall a new ceiling, made by craftsmen from Uzbekistan.
The mosque is located beside the Royal Mausoleum on Jalan Istana at Bukit Chandan in Kuala Kangsar.
The mosque was designed by Arthur Benison Hubback, who was also responsible for the design of the Ipoh railway station and the Kuala Lumpur railway station.
The mosque was built during the reign of the 28th Sultan of Perak Idris Shah I, who commissioned its construction as thanksgiving for his recovery from an illness that plagued him in his later years. The groundbreaking ceremony took place on 26 September 1913.
The construction of the mosque was interrupted several times, once when two elephants belonging to the sultan and Raja Chulan fought, ran over and damaged the Italian marble tiles. The outbreak of the First World War in Europe also affected its construction.
The mosque was finally completed in late 1917 at a total cost of $24,000 or RM200,000 – a considerable sum at that time. It was officially declared open by Sultan Abdul Jalil, successor to Sultan Idris who had died during its construction. The mosque is now a symbol of pride for the people of the state of Perak.
The mosque was renovated in 2003.
Architecture and design
Its architecture is in the Indo-Saracenic Revival style. It has a central golden dome, and four minarets as well as turrets topped with smaller golden domes. Italian marble was used to add bands of darker colour to the white building. The Makam Al-Ghufran or Perak royal mausoleum is located near the mosque.
The History, Architecture and later sections are adapted from the Wikipedia article “Ubudiah Mosque”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read the full article. Text has been shortened.
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